Explaining CPU 'speeds' to average users

Okay, once again I had this problem:

A customer of mine flat-out refused to buy any laptop with core / core 2 duo because he didn't want to 'walk backwards' and get stuck with a slow laptop. Apparently he saw the 1.8 or 2.0 ghz speed rating and freaked out. This guy is looking at getting a celeron because he says it's faster.

For the love of god, he must be stopped.

I never had a problem before explaining why 'slower' speeds did not always translate to lower performance but this guy takes the cake. I've tried everything to get him back on the right path- benchmarks, real-world testing, running my own core duo tests for him to compare... No luck.

I don't want to just write him off, but this is increasingly frustrating.

Any advice on a way to get him to realize that clock speed is not the real determining factor in performance? He'd benefit from a dual core, especially since he does a lot of photoshop work and has a very active desktop.

 

Refusing to accept or not understanding a theoretical explanation is one thing; refusing benchmarks and solid figures is another. He sounds like an incorrigibly obstinant tool. Let him buy the Celeron and be vindicated when he comes into the shop some time later complaining because it is slow.

 

I dunno, I have never had this problem. I was recommending a laptop to a friend, and she was thinking that she should have a 3GHz cpu and stuff. I told her that they had moved to dual core cpus that were about half the clock speed but theres two cores. so it produces less heat and gets better batterylife, while being better for multi threaded things.
add the core speeds together. 1.66+1.66 = 3.32GHz.

Its not the most scientific or accurate, but it works, and describes it pretty well in laymans terms.

 

give him some links from respected websites

 

A good way of explaining is this : "See here , A core duo means two cores they each have 2.0GHz inside themselves ,so 2+2 = 4 ...."

 

I really have to agree with the addition part. Helps those who sometimes cant be saved. Also make comparisons to cache size. Like such and such has 512kb, where this one has 4mb total between the 2 cores.

 

Can always get technical on his ass....
A good way to convince people can just be to make it absolutely clear that you know more about it than they do. Even if they don't understand what you tell them, they might just realize that you do.

Clock speed: How many cycles of work can be performed per second.
And to get anything useful from that number, you also need to know how much work is actually performed per cycle.

instruction width:
P4 (And their celeron counterparts): Theoretical peak of 3 instructions per cycle, or one vector instruction (= 4 floating point instructions)every 2 cycles.
Core 2 Duo: Theoretical peak of 4 instructions per cycle, or one vector instruction (= 4 floating point instructions)each cycle.

cache:
Celeron: 512KB
C2D: 2-4 MB

pipeline length (longer pipeline = more time spent waiting for preceding instructions to finish, and more time wasted at code branches)
Pentium 4: 31 stages.
C2D: 16 (or is it 18?)

Or you can just tell him that the P4 (and Celeron in particular) has a ridiculously low IPC (instructions per cycle), so while it can burn a lot of cycles, very little work is actually performed during each.

Otherwise, analogies can sometimes get you quite far. Compare it to a car (MHz = RPM, maybe? Or compare it to the car's theoretical top speed, which ignores things such as acceleration, grip, handling or whatever else might matter), or to one of those old slave galleys (The clock rate is the speed at which the big mean guy beats his drum. Beating faster doesn't make the boat go faster, it still depends on how many rowers there are, whether they can keep up with his drumming, and whether they're all seasick. If the drummer goes too fast, the rowers will just get out of sync, and screw up. Same things is holding the P4 back)

And yeah, while "adding up the cores" might convince him, it's not exactly accurate.
Especially not because that would imply a Pentium D was the fastest CPU ever.

 

Use the production line method analogy. Imagine two productions lines, one thats 100 metres long with 6 workers, or one that is 50 metres long with 12 workers. The 50m one, although shorter, still the same amount of work as the 100m one, because it has more workers on it. A shorter production line does not mean it is not as productive as longer ones.

 

What I've always used is trucks vs. cars. You may run a lot of cars faster, but a single truck can still carry more in one load. The Core 2 Duo's work more like trucks, and the older Pentium 4's work more like a lot of cars.

 

I'd show him both a Celeron and Core 2 machine, with everything else inside as close in specs as possible. Let him see for himself, and if he chooses the Celeron I'd say you did your best.

Addition might work, and the truck analogy works perfectly with that as well. Let him have it with both barrels. If he believes that stock speed is the only thing that matters...

But no one here is going to fault you if that dude gets a slow laptop...just try, but don't lose sleep over it.

 

talk to him bout two cars...
talk to him bout an old car with a big engine which doesnt do as much as a newer car with a smaller turbo charged engine

 

Or, "Question my PC knowledge again and I'll make sure that you know the pain of child birth".

 

This guy may be beyond saving though. Some people are just so set in their ways and so sure that what they "know" is right regardless of what anyone else may say. Perhaps showing him some Intel literature may help him--since he's obviously bought into their "higher clocks = higher performance" spiel before.

This is an excellent explanation for this question. I have a feeling it might be lost on a guy like this though.

I like this analogy .

 

First take a Polaroid picture of him. Now---and this is the tricky part---mock him in a high pitched irritating voice until he leaves. You can also just throw random syllables of technical specifications from Intel's site until he leaves---trust me most non-techy people glaze over when you talk geek to them. Make sure the boss doesn't see this. Then, whip out the Polaroid picture in front of you and calmly explain to the now much more cooperative customer why two cores is better than one---it helps if you wave it a little, as he'll be nodding in agreement with your simple yet effective line of reasoning.

 

So? Another way to "win" is simply to convince the customer that "I know what I'm talking about", and one simple way of doing that, is by going technical. True, he probably won't understand all of it, but does he need to? As long as he understands that you're not just making it up when you say the Celeron is slooow.

 

Celerons aren't slow! Not Celeron-Ms anyway, they're just not as unecessarily over-powerful as many of the cpus currently on sale.

 

Well, long story short... I basically told him that he was being too 'quick' in deciding on a new laptop and that what was new in the market was unproven. I got him to look around some more and seeing that there weren't any celerons or pentium-m's in new laptops, he agreed and said he'd take some more time and carefully review all the information I could gather for him.

Two days of research and so many websites later, I sent him an e-mail bundle of around 200 sites that had comparisons on dual-core, single core, 64-bit, etc. He likes being able to compare apples-to-apples performance spec sheets (as much as I loathe trying to explain those data sheets to low-experience users) on all these chips and chipsets.

I think he might just convince himself, so I am going to take a hands-off approach to him and just nudge him in the right direction when he starts telling me about what he found that he likes.

I'd refer to him as an obstinate a**hole, but he's the best customer I ever had =)

Thanks for the input- serious and humorous - and the help.

 

jeez i want a computer salesman like you otakuoverlord !!! all that trouble ?? eish good job mate !!!

 

first of all if the guy wants the other cpu let him buy it, its his money, tellem the other one is better but if he dont want it oh well thats his fault. dont go out of ur way to tell him this and that, me as a customer doesnt want to be told im wrong remember that old saying the customer is always right, well there ya go even though hes wrong hes right.

 

Just write him off! An obstinate fool doesn't worth your time!