Semi OT: Are Ads More Complex Than Five Years Ago?

[mutefan]

I know what a bus is, but I don't know why it's important to know the
speed of a front side bus. For that matter, I don't know what a front
side bus is.

In the Dell commercial where the six year-old is telling his father
what kind of computer he wants, he lists all kinds of specs that the
normal consumer would not even know existed ten years ago.

For example, the importance of the speed of a CPU was fairly common
knowledge. What I don't understand is how the speed of a front side
bus (whatever a "front"-side bus is) relates to the speed of a CPU.

Another hardware item that wasn't in common parlance ten, even five,
years ago was "chipset." Yes, I know what a chipset is. What I don't
know is how the chipset relates to the CPU and the front side bus.

THere are just too many variables for the average consumer to be able
to process, pardon the pun.

I've appreciated the new people on this group who don't use the group
to make fun of posters who know less than they do. If anyone could
explain why "chipsets" and "front side buses" are more important than
they used to be, or if chipset is a more modern way of saying
"motherboard"--or just if you agree that ads are getting a lot more
complex FOR THE AVERAGE CONSUMER, well, I always appreciate learning
something.

Happy New Years.

 

[Bryan Hoover]

I know what a bus is, but I don't know why it's important to know the
speed of a front side bus. For that matter, I don't know what a front
side bus is.

In the Dell commercial where the six year-old is telling his father
what kind of computer he wants, he lists all kinds of specs that the
normal consumer would not even know existed ten years ago.

For example, the importance of the speed of a CPU was fairly common
knowledge. What I don't understand is how the speed of a front side
bus (whatever a "front"-side bus is) relates to the speed of a CPU.

Another hardware item that wasn't in common parlance ten, even five,
years ago was "chipset." Yes, I know what a chipset is. What I don't
know is how the chipset relates to the CPU and the front side bus.

THere are just too many variables for the average consumer to be able
to process, pardon the pun.

I've appreciated the new people on this group who don't use the group
to make fun of posters who know less than they do. If anyone could
explain why "chipsets" and "front side buses" are more important than
they used to be, or if chipset is a more modern way of saying
"motherboard"--or just if you agree that ads are getting a lot more
complex FOR THE AVERAGE CONSUMER, well, I always appreciate learning
something.

Happy New Years.

I noticed this recently too. Not just that commercial, but such appeared
in some other media somewhere recently -- as you can see, I'm not sure
where. But it struck me the same way -- I thought, have we turned that
corner now? Maybe so.

But the chipset is not the MB -- though an integral part. Actually
though, depending on what you mean by whether it's the motherboard or not,
you might equate the two, because the board is built around the chipset --
the board generally does not have features that are not supported by the
chipset, so if you know the chipset, you have a pretty good idea of the
board, though not all boards will implement all a given chipset's
features.

The FSB is the data pipeline through which the cpu communicates with the
chipset -- namely, the "northbridge" part of the chipset. The northbridge
is the junction through which other parts of the computer transmit data --
other parts like memory, and PCI slots. The other main chipset component
is the "southbridge", and it connects to the northbridge still other
elements of the computer system like floppy, serial ports.

Bryan

 

[Arno Wagner]

(e-mail address removed) wrote:

10 years ago, other specs were important. PC hardware was allways a
mixed bunch since it got cloned. There allways were better and worse
incarnations, described by the specs.

In "traditional" chipsets the CPU communicates with the chipset
_and_ the RAM via the FSB, so it is an important bottleneck.
I write "traditional" because this is not true anymore for the
Opteron/Athlon 64 families. There the RAM is directly connected to
the CPU(s) and all CPU-links are serial HyperTransport links.

From this you can already see that a bunch of specs may sound
impressive, but the story is far more complicated. A 6 year old
(or any non-expert) may quote any number of impressive sounding
names and numbers without the slightest idea whet they do and
how important they are. Of course the intended psychological
effect is that people should feel insecure (after all even a
six year old knows this stuff...) and follow the lead of the
sales-"experts". And they in turn will allways make you feel
competent if you select one of the most expensive models.
If not you get a "But it has only FSB800. FSB1066 is far
superiour (and gives us 100 Euro/USD more profit) and will
give you smoother performance and more colors. Ordinary you
would argue that FSB1066 is only 33% faster and that that gives
you maybe 15% more performance if you are lucky and it is not
a game (i.e. the performance gain is irrelevant). But since
the six year old knows that FSB1066 is the way to go and only
incompetents go FSB800, some (many?) customers will keep silent
and spend far more money than needed.

Oh, but it was! I remember the speed improvement the SIS chipset
get from its RAM interleaving! There was a whole bunch of different
chipsets by different manufacturers.

I completely agree. And a lot of the numbers quoted in ads are
meaningless without some additional information or do not have
any significant impact on overall performance.

I agree that the ads have gotten more complex. The hardware specs
have not gotten that much more complex, but they are different today.

As to the average consumers need for these specs, it is nonexistent.

As non-expert you need expert advice. That is the only way to
find out what fits your needs and what sounds good but has a
bad cost/power ratio. Even experts need reviews to compare
mainboards, since chipset, FSB, etc. all only tell part of the
story.

For performace my advice usually is to aim in the middle of the
spectrum. You get good value there. For relibility it is to make
regular backups. And for all these numbers it is to ignore them.

I noticed this recently too. Not just that commercial, but such appeared
in some other media somewhere recently -- as you can see, I'm not sure
where. But it struck me the same way -- I thought, have we turned that
corner now? Maybe so.

Just has entered mainstream, since for the average consumer needs
these machines are now all so close together that the marketeers
(i.e. professional liars) need some more buzzwords to praise the
producst as "better".

I have a story from two friends to illustrate what is going on
here. They were out shopping for a new video-recorder and got
one of the "HIFI" types (obviously some time ago). Now they
needed a cable to connect the new device to their home sound
equipment. The salesperson convincet them to buy a 80cm
special cable for around 60 Euro/USD, incredubly expensive. It did
look good. Massive gold-platet chinch-connectors. Clear-plasic
covered thick coaxial cables. The salesperson promised that they
would hear the difference and if not they could give the cable back
(mistake on his part ;-). When the two told me this, I fell over
laughing. We went to an electronics store and bought 6m of cheap
stereo cable and 4 plastic chinch-connectors, which I soldered
together. They could not hear any difference between the two
cables!

It is a bit like that with present day computer sales. Unless you
are a hard-core gamer, you have no need at all for a high-end system.
If you are a hardcore gamer, then you either need to also be a
hardware expert or willing to pay a lot of money for a moderately
faster system.

But the chipset is not the MB -- though an integral part. Actually
though, depending on what you mean by whether it's the motherboard or not,
you might equate the two, because the board is built around the chipset --
the board generally does not have features that are not supported by the
chipset, so if you know the chipset, you have a pretty good idea of the
board, though not all boards will implement all a given chipset's
features.

Still, the actual design and choices in the BIOS can make a
significant difference. It is not an easy question. Again, my advice
is to get expert advice from somebody you trust or from independent
reviews. And I freely admit, that if you give me some set of specs,
I would have to do research first to find out how fast that hardware
acually was.

Arno

 

[J. Clarke]

I know what a bus is, but I don't know why it's important to know the
speed of a front side bus. For that matter, I don't know what a front
side bus is.

In the Dell commercial where the six year-old is telling his father
what kind of computer he wants, he lists all kinds of specs that the
normal consumer would not even know existed ten years ago.

For example, the importance of the speed of a CPU was fairly common
knowledge. What I don't understand is how the speed of a front side
bus (whatever a "front"-side bus is) relates to the speed of a CPU.

Another hardware item that wasn't in common parlance ten, even five,
years ago was "chipset." Yes, I know what a chipset is. What I don't
know is how the chipset relates to the CPU and the front side bus.

THere are just too many variables for the average consumer to be able
to process, pardon the pun.

I've appreciated the new people on this group who don't use the group
to make fun of posters who know less than they do. If anyone could
explain why "chipsets" and "front side buses" are more important than
they used to be, or if chipset is a more modern way of saying
"motherboard"--or just if you agree that ads are getting a lot more
complex FOR THE AVERAGE CONSUMER, well, I always appreciate learning
something.

The point of the ad was that one didn't need to understand the technobabble
to be able to give someone a gift certificate. Some of the stuff the kid
was spouting appeared to be bafflegab in any case. The joke was that kids
know this stuff, parents don't--the same deal as getting the third grader
to set the clock on the VCR, and the "v-chip" being a standing joke because
the kid is going to be the only one in the family who can figure out how to
work it.

Now, on to your specific questions.

It used to be that the PC had one bus. Then somebody got the bright idea of
running the memory at a different speed from the I/O boards. Then someone
else got the idea of sticking the video board on the memory bus--that's
when the term "local bus" first became part of the marketing lexicon, with
the VESA local bus. Then Intel standardized this into PCI. Then CPUs got
a _lot_ faster and the memory got its own bus again, which was called the
"front side bus"--that also connected to the bridge that ran the PCI bus
and whatnot.

As for the "chipset", that goes back to the AT era, when Chips and
Technologies integrated all the "glue chips" on the PC/AT motherboard into
a set of IIRC 3 VLSI chips. It took a while for the use of that sort of
chipset to become universal but it has, and the performance and
capabilities of the machine are to a significant extent determined by the
features of that chipset now. The chipset it different from the
motherboard in that a motherboard will have a chipset on it and quite often
some additional chips that provide special features, and different
motherboards may enable different options on the chipset.

 

[mutefan]

Snip great, mordant information and commentary from Messrs. Hoover,
Wagner, and Clarke, for whom thanks for illustrating that the increase
of technobabble is a marketing ploy "tout court," as the Frenchies
would say.

I'm going to take the thread in a completely off-topic direction
neither expecting or really desiring follow-ups. What I find sad,
truly sad, about the increase in technobabble is that in addition to
widening the gulf between Baby Boomers too busy with
parenting/parent-sitting responsibilities to master the latest
technology and the Gaming generation, it isolates the already-isolated
elderly even more.

For example, two years ago, when a brand-new high-end Dell crashed its
audio capabilities less than a month after purchase, I used a
second-hand ad sheet to look for something more appropriate for my 75
year-old mom. (After viewing a Bee Gees video on the DVD player, she
announced it was "very nice" and never went near that peripheral
again.) I found a Pentium 2 with tons of '97-era Gateway equipment.
It was being sold by a well-to-do WWII vet exactly Mom's age, because
he had just bought the exact Dell system I just shipped back. He even
gave me an unopened box of Harmon Kardon speakers that came with the
system.

When I asked him why he was getting a new system, he explained with
great conviction that the '97 Dell (which retailed for around 2K USD in
its day) "wasn't sufficient for his needs anymore." He even threw in a
perfect HP Inkjet printer whose cartridge is still giving me nearly
laser-perfect copies two years later! I crammed my truck with the
equipment and software feeling so sad that computers have totally
marginalized his generation. He had his official WWII portrait as the
desktop wallpaper and a virtual pilot program on one of the drives...

I suspect it's only American senior citizens who are made to suffer in
this way. This past spring, I was in Bavaria. I couldn't believe the
amount of octo- and nano (?)-genarians who spent their days walking
around the Alps rather than in front of a t.v. or computer. I never
wanted to leave the place; these old people had so much health,
dignity, and self-respect.

I volunteer at nursing homes and have a parent even more lonely than
those bed-bound folks. You should see seniors' faces when references
to computers or computer ads come on television! I wish Dell/HP/MS/Mr.
Bono and his younger-than-springtime silhouette would finish with the
disclaimer: "People over the age of 40-- No, 35-- 'Er, maybe 28--
Should seriously consider hurrying up and dying, so they can leave
their money to grandsons who know how to appreciate life's finer
chipsets and front-side buses."
Rant off. And thanks again for the education. And Happy 2005.

 

[J. Clarke]

Snip great, mordant information and commentary from Messrs. Hoover,
Wagner, and Clarke, for whom thanks for illustrating that the increase
of technobabble is a marketing ploy "tout court," as the Frenchies
would say.

I'm going to take the thread in a completely off-topic direction
neither expecting or really desiring follow-ups. What I find sad,
truly sad, about the increase in technobabble is that in addition to
widening the gulf between Baby Boomers too busy with
parenting/parent-sitting responsibilities to master the latest
technology and the Gaming generation, it isolates the already-isolated
elderly even more.

There's nothing new here. My generation was into cars--we knew things about
the vehicles our parents drove that our parents didn't imagine. My father,
who was a Seabee during WWII and thus may be assumed to have little fear of
things mechanical, regularly expressed amazement with the casualness with
which my friends and I would tear down an engine. Currently it's
computers. It will be something else for the next generation--it's one of
the bonding things like blue-jeans and tee-shirts were for us and like
tattoos and piercings are for the current generation.

For example, two years ago, when a brand-new high-end Dell crashed its
audio capabilities less than a month after purchase, I used a
second-hand ad sheet to look for something more appropriate for my 75
year-old mom. (After viewing a Bee Gees video on the DVD player, she
announced it was "very nice" and never went near that peripheral
again.) I found a Pentium 2 with tons of '97-era Gateway equipment.
It was being sold by a well-to-do WWII vet exactly Mom's age, because
he had just bought the exact Dell system I just shipped back. He even
gave me an unopened box of Harmon Kardon speakers that came with the
system.

When I asked him why he was getting a new system, he explained with
great conviction that the '97 Dell (which retailed for around 2K USD in
its day) "wasn't sufficient for his needs anymore." He even threw in a
perfect HP Inkjet printer whose cartridge is still giving me nearly
laser-perfect copies two years later!

Which doesn't mean that it did everything that he wanted it to do.

I crammed my truck with the
equipment and software feeling so sad that computers have totally
marginalized his generation. He had his official WWII portrait as the
desktop wallpaper and a virtual pilot program on one of the drives...

He doesn't sound very "marginalized" to me.

I suspect it's only American senior citizens who are made to suffer in
this way. This past spring, I was in Bavaria. I couldn't believe the
amount of octo- and nano (?)-genarians who spent their days walking
around the Alps rather than in front of a t.v. or computer. I never
wanted to leave the place; these old people had so much health,
dignity, and self-respect.

I'm sorry, but you seem to have an odd notion of what constitutes
"marginalization". A friend of mine who is in his eighties would love to
have the leisure to walk around the Alps, but when he retired he started
writing and he is now afraid that he's going to run out of heartbeats
before he runs out of words. He's spent a good $100K on computers since
I've known him--some guy who didn't take the time to find out what he was
up to sold him a POS--one day he walked into the store and complained and I
talked to him about what he was really trying to do and he left with a $30K
high-end desktop publishing system. That has since migrated down to
smaller and smaller boxes with increased capability. He's on his fourth
laser printer--his first was first-generation and pretty limited, his
second was before duplexers were affordable, and his third died the death.
He just traded his 21" CRT for an LCD--he compared them side-by-side and
found that the LCD was a worthwhile improvement--with his visual
impairments he needs all the help he can get in that regard.

I volunteer at nursing homes and have a parent even more lonely than
those bed-bound folks.

I suspect that you'll find that there are just as many "bed bound folks" in
Bavaria. Some people are in fairly vigorous health up until they get
whatever kills them--my dad was cutting down trees with an axe six months
before he died--but others bodies quit working before their minds do. This
has nothing to do with computers or television or lifestyles or anything
else, it's just the way things are. Bed bound folks are lonely because
they're bed bound and can't get out to do whatever they used to do, not
because there are computers.

You should see seniors' faces when references
to computers or computer ads come on television!

You should see mine--most of those ads just plain _suck_. Hell, most ads
just plain _suck_.

I wish Dell/HP/MS/Mr.
Bono and his younger-than-springtime silhouette would finish with the
disclaimer: "People over the age of 40-- No, 35-- 'Er, maybe 28--
Should seriously consider hurrying up and dying, so they can leave
their money to grandsons who know how to appreciate life's finer
chipsets and front-side buses."

Uh, I'm 51 and you're asking _me_ for advice about chipsets and front side
buses. It's not a matter of age, it's a matter of interest and
inclination. You might want to check out alt.folklore.computers and
comp.sys.ibm.ps2.hardware to find some folks older than I am who have
forgotten more than I'm ever going to know about this stuff. But some of
them aren't up on the latest chipsets etc either.

 

[mutefan]

A friend of mine who is in his eighties would love to
have the leisure to walk around the Alps, but when he retired he started
writing and he is now afraid that he's going to run out of heartbeats
before he runs out of words. He's spent a good $100K on computers since
I've known him--
He just traded his 21" CRT for an LCD--he compared them side-by-side and
found that the LCD was a worthwhile improvement--with his visual
impairments he needs all the help he can get in that regard.

Whoa, good for him! This is the kind of story I like to hear. He must
have that immortality-gene, or whatever it's called that they
discovered in centenarians this past year.

Uh, I'm 51 and you're asking _me_ for advice about chipsets and front side
buses. It's not a matter of age, it's a matter of interest and
inclination. You might want to check out alt.folklore.computers and
comp.sys.ibm.ps2.hardware to find some folks older than I am who have
forgotten more than I'm ever going to know about this stuff. But some of
them aren't up on the latest chipsets etc either.

Heh. I didn't know there was something called alt.folklore.computers.
I'll have to check it out.

Speaking today with someone in the same age cohort (48), who also tried
to become conversant in computer technology but also failed, I
suggested there must be a mathematical component to understanding
computers in the way electronics and mathematics are inextricably
related. I am "bad" at mathematical reasoning, ergo I still-- To this
day-- After reading countless textbooks and websites-- I say I still
do not understand the difference between volumes, partitions, "logical"
this-and-that on drives, etc.

I can read pcguide.com until I'm blue in the face, turn my laptop
upso-doun, as Chaucer would say, and come away asking Why would any
computer technologist want to put one volume on two different drives?
Why partition something if you're putting the exact same stuff on it?

If you're a hobbyist, you're fortunate to have the cognitive
wherewithal to "get" this. Of course if you're a professional in the
field, then you obviously chose a suitable profession.

 

[Rod Speed]

Whoa, good for him! This is the kind of story I like to hear. He must
have that immortality-gene, or whatever it's called that they
discovered in centenarians this past year.


Heh. I didn't know there was something called alt.folklore.computers.
I'll have to check it out.

Speaking today with someone in the same age cohort (48), who also tried
to become conversant in computer technology but also failed, I
suggested there must be a mathematical component to understanding
computers in the way electronics and mathematics are inextricably
related. I am "bad" at mathematical reasoning, ergo I still-- To this
day-- After reading countless textbooks and websites-- I say I still
do not understand the difference between volumes, partitions, "logical"
this-and-that on drives, etc.

Its really got nothing to do with any mathematical component, more
that some find the detail sticks in their minds and others dont.

Most of the detail with PCs is more complicated than with
other stuff most spend much of their time involved with.

I can read pcguide.com until I'm blue in the face, turn my laptop
upso-doun, as Chaucer would say, and come away asking Why would any
computer technologist want to put one volume on two different drives?
Why partition something if you're putting the exact same stuff on it?

Because you basically gloss over the detail.

The reasons arent that hard to get right.

If you're a hobbyist, you're fortunate to
have the cognitive wherewithal to "get" this.

Just as true of being comfortable with mechanical devices
so you are comfortable with rebuilding a car engine etc.

Of course if you're a professional in the field,
then you obviously chose a suitable profession.

Sure, I did, basically because I find the complexity interesting.

It leaves plenty cold, they just arent interested.

I'm not interested in the fine detail of sewing etc, bores me.

 

[J. Clarke]

Whoa, good for him! This is the kind of story I like to hear. He must
have that immortality-gene, or whatever it's called that they
discovered in centenarians this past year.


Heh. I didn't know there was something called alt.folklore.computers.
I'll have to check it out.

Speaking today with someone in the same age cohort (48), who also tried
to become conversant in computer technology but also failed, I
suggested there must be a mathematical component to understanding
computers in the way electronics and mathematics are inextricably
related. I am "bad" at mathematical reasoning, ergo I still-- To this
day-- After reading countless textbooks and websites-- I say I still
do not understand the difference between volumes, partitions, "logical"
this-and-that on drives, etc.

You might find C.P. Snow's "The Two Cultures" of interest.

I can read pcguide.com until I'm blue in the face, turn my laptop
upso-doun, as Chaucer would say, and come away asking Why would any
computer technologist want to put one volume on two different drives?
Why partition something if you're putting the exact same stuff on it?

You'd want one volume on two drives for one of three reasons. Either there
isn't enough space on one drive for all the data you need to store or you
need higher performance than a single drive can give you or you need more
reliability than a single drive can give you. You'd arrange things
differently for each case, but all of those can be handled.

If you're a hobbyist, you're fortunate to have the cognitive
wherewithal to "get" this. Of course if you're a professional in the
field, then you obviously chose a suitable profession.

Actually, I'm a little of both. First computer I ever worked with was a
System/360 back in the early '70s.