Price/Performance graph revamped

[JasonMel]

The Interactive CPU Charts has a graph called the "Price/Performance Index." The relationship between performance and price is an important concept to convey in any CPU comparison, and I laud this site for creating the graph.

However, the graph is not as useful as it could be. By dividing the numbers, a good deal of information is lost. As long as THG is going to obtain an overall performance number and a price number for each processor, why not simply plot those numbers on a graph, rather than calculating a single index for use on another bar chart?

Here is my attempt at creating such a graph in Excel. I think it is much more interesting and useful than a simple ranking by value index, since it does not put two radically dissimilar processors next to each other who happen to have the same price per performance unit. The bar graph is interesting, but the plot can actually be used to make purchasing decisions.

 

[JasonMel]

I was thinking the plot looked sort of cramped. Here's how I propose to resolve that: Group different platforms together in a series, and put only the name of the platform on the chart. Then each data point could be moused over for the name of that exact processor.

An demonstration of what I mean can be seen here.

[EDIT: Putting the price axis in log scale uncrowds things even more. I find that funny.]

 

[tool_462]

I find the first example of yours the easiest to understand. I always thought they should change the way the price/performance curve was set up. I can understand it, but many people just getting into PC's might misunderstand it.

Well done.

 

[JasonMel]

How do you think they might misunderstand it? Do you think it's counterintuitive that the lower-right part of the graph is most desirable? If so, I agree, and I had some ideas to ameliorate this, but then I thought, hey, let's see what they think of the main idea first.

 

[msummers80]

I agree with you on this. I know they had one of these graphs once. I found it here: http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/31427/137/
It is less than 6 weeks old today, and already quite out of date. If I assume that the prices all changed downward at about the same percent, it is still useful. It would be nice to have this data plot graph with an approximated line as an option on those CPU charts though. Those things require some work to find any useful information right now.

 

[JasonMel]

Wow, they actually took my suggestion! Cool! Thanks for the heads-up, msummers80.