What gets the best MPG: 1 Sports Coup or 4 Compacts?
This is going to sound kind of strange but I'm writing this paper comparing computer processors to cars and I'm trying to figure out what would be more efficient.
I need to transport 32 people from one location to another. There's no traffic. I have two options: 1 V8 Sports coup that seats 4 and gets 12MPG & we'll be driving at 100 mph the whole time! 4 V4 Compact Sedans that seat 4 each & get 24MPG but we'll only be driving at 25mph the whole time. So what would allow me to move all those people the fastest and/or the cheapest? I know this is kind of a math question but I'm trying to determine if using multiple high MPG sedans is more effective than one low MPG coup. With the sedans I only have to take 2 trips but I'm using 4 cars. With the coup I take 8 trips and only use 1 car. Thanks in advance. |
Depends upon your definition of efficiency. (actually, it doesn't, after calculations were done)
The compacts will definately get it done with less fuel used, however, time wise... Given 100 mile distance, the compacts will take... Let's see. 3 total "legs" at 4 hours each (there, back, there), 12 hours. Sports car.... 8 trips, 15 legs (there, back, there, back, ect...), 1 hour each leg.... 15 hours. The 4 compacts win in that aspect as well. Though they are only 1/4 of the speed, the multiple cars allows them to not waste all that time on return trips. |
Sage, you should pay closer attention to logistics. :p
This seems like homework, and well, you won't learn anything if you don't figure it out for yourself! Biff was more on-key w/ the "legs" comments. Cars can't drive themselves! |
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^Heh I know it does sound like homework but I've already got my degree, I'm past all that. This hypothetical would probably have to assume that you have 3 helpers or family members that can drive with you should you choose option B. (And Actually I guess I should assume each car holds 4 passengers, 1 driver for the sake of simplicity). I'll post the paper so you can see what I was talking about but I gotta finish it first. |
I imagine the point of the paper is just to demonstrate how a quad-core with an "equivalent speed" (or something along that lines) is superior to an equally powerful single core, correct?
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If we're talking about multi-core processors there are some different effects at work. The example that comes to mind is that a heavy, greedy, or runaway process will hog a whole core - and that's regardless of whether you have multiple cores or not. I often have one core completely saturated but I can still use my system without any slowness because the other core is available for normal processing.
For a single heavy data-crunching task I'd rather have two heavy-duty cores than four less capable cores, but for lots of little stuff (moving 32 people) or daily average usage I'd prefer more cores at the cost of lower speed per core. |
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See I'm thinking the V8 car will be way better if you just need to get 1-4 people from point A to point B fast (If you have one process that needs to get done fast) while the sedans will be better when you have multiple places to go. Thanks for the information. I have a first draft if you're interested. I still need to revise it heavily, I don't think I really covered everything I wanted to. Sorry for the strange formatting but we don't seem to have Spoiler tags on this forum. Code:
Computer Processors and Automobiles |
How about the V8 van that seats 8 vs. economy or 2-seat sports cars?
Some thoughts on what you wrote: - Change "coup" to "coupe". They are two very different things. - The compacts have inline-3 engines, not V3. A V3 would never be made because it would rattle your teeth off. - The V12 guzzler won't get anywhere near 12MPG at 120MPH. - FWIW, I think it was about 10 years ago that clock speeds maxed out at 3Ghz before multi-core processors came out, and the multi-core processors had their clock speed significantly reduced. - You forgot to take into consideration traffic and speed limits. Just as there are traffic and speed limits on roads, there are on a system bus. It has always been a problem that the rest of the motherboard can't keep up with a single heavy-duty processor, and I think that's part of the reason multi-core processors came about...less cache required, less predicting the future required to fill that cache, a more steady stream of data rather than having to burst enough data to support all that power in chunks. |
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