Opinions on article I am writing please

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acidosmosis

acidosmosis

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Still working on my website which will hopefully be up within a month or two. Have been working on the content which is going to take a little bit. Before I put up the site I want all the basic content on the site which is actually a lot. Anyway heres the deal... this is a peice of an "article" that I am writing on my website and need you guys to take a look and make sure I have everything right because I am not 100% sure about a few things.

Here is a peice of it that I'm not sure about:

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AMD Athlon XP 2100+ 1.73ghz

So, your thinking "why buy an Athlon at 1.73 ghz when you can buy a Pentium 4 at the same speed for a lower price? Well, the truth is your wrong. Although the equivelant P4 processor seems to be the same speed as the Athlon XP, you just couldn't be more incorrect. Processors can be very confusing and misleading business, especially to the general public who don't know any better. Manufacturers and sellers use this to their advantage to basically "take candy from a baby". The fact is if your part of the general public that knows nothing about a computer than your going to buy a P4@2GHz rather than an AthlonXP@1.73GHz. When comparing Pentiums to Athlon processors you want to remember the basic most important rule of this business. Athlon processor's have ratings. Notice the '2100+' that you see above? That is the Athlon rating. This basically means that the 1.73ghz AthlonXP runs at about the speed of a P4 2.1ghz. You also have to keep in mind that AthlonXP processor are higher end processors than P4 processors. So, lets compare the differences in prices!

prices are from www.newegg.com

AMD Athlon XP 2100+/266 FSB Thorougbred Processor CPU 2100+/ 1.73GHz $87.00
Intel Pentium 4 2.0GHz 512K Socket 478 Processor 400MHz Processor Bus $161.00
Intel Pentium 4 1.7GHz 256K 400MHz Socket 478 Processor $120.00

So, you could go ahead and buy that P4 2.0GHz processor that you adore, but is it really worth another $74.00 when your going to lose 100mhz (not that 100mhz is a lot) and only gain 144mhz in front side bus (FSB) speeds? I sure don't think so. I don't know about you, but I am not spending $74 extra on a P4!

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AMD states the maximum threshold for core temps of the Athlon XP is around 90-95*C.
 
This basically means that the 1.73ghz AthlonXP runs at about the speed of a P4 2.1ghz.
Click to expand...
You might want to change this part to something like "This basically means that the 1.73ghz AthlonXP performs like a P4 2.1ghz." USing the term speed makes it totally incorrect, while the slower AMD performs as good or better than a faster P4, it doesn't run at the same speed. The clock frequency is 1.73GHz, while the P4's clock frequency is 2.1GHz. Clock frequency is the speed. The performance measure comes from the difference in how the two handle instructions.
 
Yes, I think this article in particular is stressing the difference between speed and performance. Good suggestion Storm.
 
You also may want to use proper grammer. "Then" instead of "Than", and "you're" instead of "your", et cetera. It looks bad in the eyes of readers if a reviewer makes silly mistakes like those. Better comma usage makes for easier to read sentences as well. Such as this:

"The fact is if your part of the general public that knows nothing about a computer than your going to buy a P4@2GHz rather than an AthlonXP@1.73GHz"

Should be stated as this:

The fact is, if you're part of the general public that knows nothing about a computer, then you're going to buy a P4@2ghz rather then an AthlonXP@1.73ghz"

I'm not attacking you or anything, just giving a suggestion.
 
You might want to toss in some benchmark graphs or something to back the statements and help illustrate the difference between speed and performance.
 
Well, that's kinda hard when I dont have a P4 ;-)

Also, this site is hopefully not going to be something only techies will be interested in. I am hoping to appeal to techies and new PC buyers, so in that case a regular PC buyer wouldn't normally be able to understand "benchmarks".

Besides, benchmarks are crap. That is just marketing B.S. Benchmarks numbers mean nothing when it comes to actual performance. That is a proven scenario but I don't feel like getting into that ;-).

In my opinion if I want to see what hardware can do then I want actual screenshots showing FPS on the different hardware, not benchmarks.
 
Something to be aware of is that 'techies' will already know about processor performance of Athlon vs Pentium, so I suspect that this particular article would be aimed more at 'joe public'.

This is where the article needs a little attention as it is very condescending and critical of joe public. I suspect your technical support side is showing here and indicates your frustration with having to deal with non-techies on a daily basis. :(

Here are a couple of quotes ...

1) "... the general public who don't know any better." :eek:

2) "... the general public that knows nothing about a computer ..." :eek:

If I were joe public then I'd feel insulted and would not read any further.

What you must never do is tell joe public (i.e. the reader) that they know nothing and are ignorant, and so you are here to help. You should just simply provide useful information, as joe public will already be aware of their ignorance, which is why they are reading the article in the first place.
 
Yeah..i agree with Nic, it might be better off if you introduce terminologies and explain them in a simple and well understood level as you go along your article.
 
They might not understand a benchmark, but they would understand the longest bars on a bar-graph showing the results.
 
It doesnt matter whether you understand benchmarks are not. Benchmarks just arent practical or logical. Just cause you get high benchmarks in graphics doesnt mean your system will perform well playing high-end games with high graphics. Benchmarks are mostly useless.
 
(benchmarks) fair point :) AND they say 80% of statistics are made up :)

BUT... ppl get that feel good factor when they see something they've got or are thinking of getting performing well.

Really you're an AMD Fan boy, moaning at Intel ya? ;)

But I agree with the point made before, "techies" would know what you're saying, so I'm not saying it's not helpful, but I wouldn't need to read it, so if you're going to aim it at an end-user, which i would suggest, put some terminolgy in there and the purpose of the article, otherwise reading that, i'm just assuming you've got some hidden agenda to big up AMD :)

just my 2cents
 
Well.. I do have an agenda.. to take over the entire brand name PC world with nothing but my PC toolkit muahahahahah!!!!!!!! na.. lol.

I dunno it's just gonna be a hobby.. a learning experience if you will ;-). Only had one site that was "popular". I think I got abotut 9000 visitors a month. Was a site way back with pics of chicks on it lol. (in bikinis and stuff :p)
 
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