OK, so as you probably worked out, green = good, pink = bad. 
(Unbelievably, Excel appears to lack the ability to draw light red.)

The three points on the right of the chart are all Intel Core 2 
[Extreme] Quad CPUs. That amonolous-looking middle point might actually 
be incorrect. [It's the PassMark rating for an "Intel Core2 Extreme 
Q6800 @ 2.98 GHz" together with the ebuyer price for an "Intel Core 2 
Extreme Quad QX68002.98 GHz". I'm not 100% sure those are the same product.]

That particularly interesting-looking point at 2,701 is an Intel Core 2 

on the whole chart. (The next CPU is over twice the price yet only 15% 
faster...)

The two points between 2,000 and 2,500 are both AMD Phenom quad-core 
CPUs. (The Phenom 9600 and Phenom 9500, respectively.) The 9500 appears 
to be especially good value.

Alternatively, that point at 1,751 appears to be especially *bad* value. 



That other interesting point at almost exactly 1,500 is an Intel Core 2 

processors of roughly the same price. (Notably the AMD Athlon64 X2 6400+ 



analyse. Suffice it to say that at these prices, tiny price hikes yield 

PassMarks).

Not the twin exponential curves I was expecting. But then, there's still 
only about 2-dozen data points here. It turns out ebuyer don't really 
have that big a range of CPUs on offer. (E.g., I have a huge stack of 
PassMark scores for CPUs that I can't find a price for. They simply 
aren't on sale at ebuyer!)

PS. I think the dot at the top of the 1,000 line might be in error too. 
The PassMark score is for an "Intel Core2 6320 @ 1.86 GHz", but the 
price is for an "Intel Core 2 Duo E6320 @ 1.86 GHz"...

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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