Re:Misleading title (Score 1)

"If you need liquid nitrogen to boost it to 6 GHz, it's not all that interesting. Nehalem 2.66 GHz offering has also been shown to overclock to 4 GHz on air cooling, and some people have got the 3.2 GHz offering up to 4.5 GHz on air. On GHz they're roughly the same, possibly with a slight Intel edge."

Show me an Intel chip that doesn't require LN2 to reach 6Ghz, and I'll agree with you that it's not interesting. The fact that they've been able to at least match an intel offering is very interesting to me, personally...given the 2 years of having their asses handed to them by the wakened Intel giant.

"I thought both companies were ditching the GHz war and fighting for actual performance supremacy? What's with the silly "my GHz is bigger than yours" competition? Do we have PPW numbers, or just press releases that mean nothing?"

Well, back in the day of the P4 versus Athlon...you might have had a point since there was such a huge gulf between the two architectures in instructions per cycle (IPC). These days, the IPC is much closer so Ghz is a decent (though not perfect) measuring stick for coarse comparisons. Obviously, the most important metric is a set of benchmarks on the application that YOU are interested in..but as a first cut Ghz will do these days (it's the closest we've had to an apples-to-apples since the old k5/PIII days). Others have already talked about how reaching the "max freq", on air and cryo-cooled is more of a testament to the engineering soundness of the design, and not necessarily indicative of the consumer-level performance to be expected. Again..benches (and the PPW numbers you cited) are where the real action is at, but it's hard to fit a full set of benches on a shelf tag so Ghz still has its place in marketing. For the first time in a while, the Ghz comparisons actually have some meaning, so enjoy the brief window of sanity in number comparisons between the two camps.