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Anyone else irritated/bemused by the ridiculous claims made sometimes about the PC specifications you allegedly need to do simple tasks that even a pentium 2 could handle? I'm sure that some of the PC magazines who perpetuate this kind of nonsense have actually themselves admitted on multiple occasions that the gain you get from newer, faster processors, is not really that significant for most users, and that any modern PC is very capable for most programs that aren't games.
Yet they also seem to suggest that somehow, the minimum spec needed for simple tasks is increasing at a phenomenal rate. Probably soon they'll be saying you will need a quad core QX6700 processor to use email.
I'd never make the mistake of saying that you'd never need spec higher than a certain level, because the demands of software are changing all the time, but there is a certain amount of marketing lunacy involved in the continual push to get people buying newer, better processors.
The most stunning example of ridiculously misleading, marketing stupidity about specifications is this advert that was showing on TV not long ago. I think it was for Dell. In it, the suggestion is made that you should get a dual core processor in your new Dell PC. Why? Have you ever noticed that sometimes, you want to do more than one thing at once on your computer? With a Dual core processor, you finally can! A dual core processor allows you to multitask, so that you can, for example, go on the internet at the same time as listening to music!
Oh, wow, thanks Dell! I didn't know I needed a dual core processor in order to use the internet and WinAmp at the same time! Here was me thinking.. well, I could do it on a Pentium 2 400mhz PC, so why shouldn't I be able to do it on a modern machine! But now I have seen the light- obviously my single core AMD 3200+ is inadequate for this most strenuous task!
That's actually such a deeply dishonest attempt to play on people's ignorance that it seems strange that it was legal to say it. Surely even people swayed by Dell PC adverts on TV are going to think back and realise that they can already have more than one program open at the same time, even on their crappy old PCs, maybe even ones at their workplace.
Similar lunacy comes from the ever changing 'minimum spec' recommended for PCs in 'Computer Shopper', now above that of my 1.5 year old PC. The implication is always that a cheaper PC, or any PC towards the minimum spec end of the spectrum, will do you for 'email, word processing and the internet', but nothing much else. They suggest also that last years mid range PC is this years useless-crap that-can-only-do-email PC. I don't think they've changed the basic description of what a 'minimum spec' PC can do in several years. Even the lowest spec PC these days is capable of more than just email, word processing and the internet. And if that's all you want a PC for, you could get by with something much older and cheaper, like an Athlon XP processor or a Pentium 3 (not that I really recommend it).
I understand, that, as the average speed of PCs goes up and they become more and more capable, for a given price, software companies often just raise the bar by producing software that relies on better hardware and puts a heavier load on the processor and RAM, takes up more space on the hard drive, and requires a better graphics card. This is of course especially true of games.
Also, there is a certain logic to computer shopper's 'minimum specifications' for a new PC, as a faster machine will be more likely to be of use in the future. It's just the claims that somehow, that these capable processors not actually good enough for anything but the most basic things which strike me as wrong.
I think I'm right in saying that the speed gains of the last few years have not really been all that momentous. I can't help but feel there's been a sort of leveling off of processor speed. AMD and intel have (probably sensibly) mostly abandoned the ghz race, and introduced new technologies, such as 64 bit processors, and dual core, to try and provide speed gains and more importantly to make people think that they are getting a better, faster product. A lot of it most likely hype, because the hardware is moving too fast for the software manufacturers - things aren't optimised in general for 64 bit or dual core as I understand it, though I could be wrong about the dual core part there.
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Originally Posted by dk04_2
