Well, if you think clock frequency is misleading, then the AMD's PR number is also misleading.
What the clock frequency tells us? Actually, only one thing is for sure: under the same circumstances, a processor with higher frequency will be as fast or faster than a processor, of the same kind, with lower frequency.
However, what is the AMD's PR number trying to tell us? If they just want to tell us "CPU with higher PR will be faster than CPU of the same kind with lower PR", they don't need to bring the PR number. Clock frequency will do the same thing. The purpose of the PR number is to compare between different kind of CPUs. Unfortunately, it is even more misleading than clock frequency. Comparing Athlon XP to classical Athlon may be ok for most cases. However, comparing Hammer to Athlon XP can be problematic, since their microarchitecture has some differences. Comparing Athlon XP to Pentium 4 is even worse.
The bottom line is, it is impossible to compare two different CPUs with just one number. And that's what the PR number is trying to do.
<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: pcchen on 2002-03-05 15:01 ]</font>