Congrats, you put a lot of work in it, it may actually be usefull. A few constructive comments though:
1) change the order. Move "Picking the right cpu" to the top of the post, its what people will need/want to read. the rest is more...background info. As it is now, a newbie being directed to the FAQ may not even scroll down far enough to find what he needs to read.
2) I know the whole point of your exercise is to make generalizations, but it might be usefull to include links to specific benchmarks if you have the time. Especially things like DivX encoding, 3D rendering or CAD.. people generally use just one specific app for this (not surprising if you know how much a true 3D package costs), and they should mostly only look at the performance of a certain cpu for that single app. So it would be nice to able to click to benchmarks using 3DS, Maya, POVray, ..
3) you knew this was comming: I can't agree with your x86-64 statements. I'll first discuss factual errors:
-"AMD64 is marketing name of x86-64".. minor nitpicking, but x86-64 was also a marketing name. I would rather say "AMD64 is AMDs marketing term to describe its 64 bit extentions to the x86 ISA" or something
- "and it will overcome the 4GB memory limitation of current 32 bit CPUs. Since this feature is currently not utilized in windows environment and more than 4 GB memory is going to be necessary in desktop PCs at least until 2006, "
NO NO NO NO, and again NO. LOL, please Spitfire, didnt you read any of the discussion on this ? 64 bit is <b>not</b> about accessing more than 4 GB RAM, its about having a flat memory address space, allowing apps to break the 2 GB address space limit, regardless how much or how little RAM you have. A 64 bit cpu and OS are definately usefull even with only 1 gig or RAM. please, do me a favor, and read <A HREF="http://www.chip-architect.com/news/2003_04_20_Looking_at_Intels_Prescott_part2.html#The need for 64 bit processing: Closer than you think." target="_new">this little piece by Hans de Vries</A>. Scroll down to "The need for 64 bit processing: Closer than you think." Its only 1 paragraphs, and nearly a year old, but still as true as ever. Keep in mind Hans is not at all a DTP'er, and there are plenty of people using Photoshop. And this is just one tiny example. Also bare in mind, he is not even mentioning the fact windows (and every other 32 bit OS) is limited to 2 GB /process as they reserve 2 GB for the kernel, VMM, etc. (okay, 3 GB for XP PRo if you edit boot.ini, but you need recompiled apps to take advantage of this).
You are entitled your own opinion on 64 bit adoptions, but at the very least I think you should report that opinions vary widely on this matter... minimum minimorum. Otherwise, I believe you are doing your readers a disservice by not giving them the whole picture. At least allow them to make up their own minds.
= The views stated herein are my personal views, and not necessarily the views of my wife. =<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by bbaeyens on 02/03/04 04:24 PM.</EM></FONT></P>
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