IT media pundits race to their keyboards to tell us that personal computing has entered another paradigm every time Intel or Advance Micro Devices adds another 100-200MHz to the record of human achievement with microprocessors. But what does CPU speed actually mean to the average consumer?
Bob: My PC's faster than yours! Mine's a 1.5GHz Pentium 4 with 128MB of memory and some graphics card called TNT Pro!
Sue: No way! Mine's a 1.3Ghz Pentium 4 but with GeForce3 graphics, 15,000rpm Tornado SCSI hard drive and 192MB of memory!
So who's right?
Ask most ordinary consumers in the streets, and they'll say Bloke A, 'cos his machine has a higher processor speed. Even computer salespeople in may give you that impression. It's Megahertz mania and it's a rampant phenomenon--not just here, but around the world.
The truth is, processor speed is but one determinant of system performance and overall speed. And Bloke B is likely to have an overall more zippy and responsive system except in processor benchmark tests
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