HERE'S AN
AMUSING little diversion
should you need to while away a few idle minutes:
Phone UK system
builder Time Computers on +44 (0) 870 8303 109 and ask them to expand on
the claim in their advertising that a 1.4GHz Athlon is 30 per cent faster
than a 1.7GHz Pentium 4 in an otherwise identical system.
Time's ad in
today's Times says: "The speed demon: 1400MHz AMD Athlon 266MHz bus
DDR Processor (30% faster than our 1,7GHz Pentium 4 PC)"
Brr brr. Brr
brr.
Time: " Hello,
Time Computers, (name deleted) speaking, how can I help you?"
Inq: "I'm looking
at your ad in today's Times and I'm a bit confused about how the AMD PC
is 30 per cent faster than the Intel one - surely 1.7 is faster than 1.4?"
Time: "It's the
electronics on the motherboard. AMD electronics are faster than Intel and
AMD motherboards are faster than Intel ones."
Inq: "But 1.7
is more than 1.4, isn't it?"
Time: "DDR memory
is twice as fast as standard memory as used in all other systems including
the p4 (our italics). The bus speed on the Athlon is twice that of
the P4 (our italics). [266 is twice 400, then? - Ed]
Inq: "So is the
Intel system cheaper then?"
Time: "Intel
isn't very cheap, but our 1.7 P4 is still £100 less than the AMD." [Thank
heaven for Rambus subsidies - Ed]
Inq: "I'm still
not sure I quite understand - why is the AMD one faster?"
Time: "It's the
electronics. Remember Time is the only company that sells both AMD and Intel
systems." [really? - Ed]
Inq: "Sorry,
I must be being thick - where can I go for more advice?"
Time:" Try computer
mags."
Inq: "Which is
the best one?"
Time: "They're
all the same."
Inq: "Really?"
Time: "Yes, they
all say Athlon is faster than P4."
Inq: "Er, thanks."
Click.
Naturally we
asked AMD, Intel and Time to comment. Said an AMD representative:
"Obviously some
of what the guy said is true, some less so. I think the bit about Time being
the only company that sells both Intel and AMD is a dig at Tiny. Both of
them quite often use similar comparisons but prefix the assertions with
'High Street PC manufacturer' rather than just 'company'.
"The bits s/he
got wrong are obvious (P4 uses standard SDRAM, bus speed is twice that of
P4, etc) but the claims about performance levels of mobos is probably defendable
given that DDR outperforms Rambus in nearly all memory benchmarks.
"The last point
is absolutely true. Computer mags DO say that Athlons are faster than P4s
- no argument there! From memory, Athlon has won around 120 awards worldwide
for technology and manufacturing excellence, last time I looked, P4 had
won none - says it all really."
Intel's official
response was less forthright:
"While I cannot
comment on what a 3rd party has to say, what I can tell you is the Pentium
4 processor is designed to deliver performance across applications and user
environments where end users can truly appreciate and experience its performance,
including such areas as Internet audio and streaming video, image processing,
video content creation, speech, 3D, games, multi-media and multi-tasking
user environments.
"It also delivers
a world-class user experience across basic standalone office applications."
Time's response
remains a mystery as a search using AltaVista for "Time Computers" returned
this
rather bizarre URL pointing to a site apparently run by two gay
guys containing not only photographs of their friends, some of them dressed
in cowboy outfits, but a wealth of info and links to Time Computers. The
email link to Time's PR department doesn't work.
Perhaps someone
from Time would care to send us details of the benchmark figures behind
its advertising claims as none are visible on what we assume is the official
Time site here.
One Ayesha Domun
is listed as a media contact, but no email address is supplied and all our
attempts to contact her by telephone failed miserably. A snailmail address
is provided, but unfortunately we simply didn't have time to write
her a letter and post it.
Quite why Time's
URL isn't found by AltaVista, while Rob and Ricky's comes out tops, is beyond
our meagre understanding of search engine dynamics.
