Video cards have NEVER had a rating like that on them, but most people know which cards are the fastest.

I disagree, for example if you asked my Mom if a Voodoo3 was faster than a Radeon 9700 she'd have no clue. If on the other hand you asked her which card is faster a Radeon 9700 or a Radeon 9000, she'd probably choose the 9700 (as 9700 > 9000).

The reason Intel wants to drop the Megahertz (or in this case gigahertz) numbers is that it is technical spec. Specs are easy to compare with competitors specs, whereas model names are difficult to compare with competitors' model names.

This is the same reason we had the Pentium, instead of the 586. 586 referred to the 5th generation of the x86 architecture (a technical spec), whereas Pentium is a name brand which can be patented. This was an issue during the time of the 486 for Intel as AMD & Cyrix put out their own 486 CPU's. So when Joe Blow walked into a store and said "I want a 486", the salesman would recommend the cheaper non-intel CPU's. But with the Pentium, if the same Joe Blow walked into a store and said "I want a Pentium", the salesperson could only give him an Intel product, or a sales pitch as to how the AMD or Cyrix or whoever's CPU was a "Pentium-class" CPU. Big difference. I truly believe that's why AMD started their naming scheme -- to differentiate themselves from Intel.

As for the Gates story, anybody else consider that maybe the richest man in America's idea of "free" is a whole lot different than yours or mine?

PZ
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Reading: Bertrand Russell's "Marriage and Morals"
Listening To: Nothing in particular
This comment was edited on Mar 30, 18:15.