CPU Wars: Top Trumps with CPUs

CPU Wars is a Top-Trumps-style game whose play-tokens are cards bearing the likeness and specifications of various CPUs (what else?) through the ages, from 8088s up to contemporary 64-bit multicores. It was produced with the help of a successful Kickstarter, and is now available as a normal object of commerce, with regular expansion packs.

CPU Wars is a trump card game built by geeks for geeks. For Volume 1.0 we chose 30 CPUs that we believe had the greatest impact on the desktop history. The game is ideally played by 2 or 3 people. The deck is split between the players and then each player takes a turn and picks a category that they think has the best value. We have chosen the most important specs that could be numerically represented, such as maximum speed achieved and maximum number of transistors. It's lots of fun, it has a bit of strategy and can be played during a break or over a coffee.

CPU WARS - The Card Game / SHOP

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

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inkfumes

I like this… I could use a set of these in my digital media classroom.
Quiet Wyatt

You think your Commodore 64 is “really neato” –
What kinda chip you got in there, a Dorito?
- Charles Freeland
  
  It’s all about the pentiums.
- http://ae4rv.com/ royaltrux
  
  No, it was an MOS 6510.
Glen Able

I’m no CPU expert, but I wonder if this set of cards would suffer from a playability issue. That is, since CPUs tend to get better in every category over time, you wouldn’t have the skill component where you learn which of the categories for a particular card is unusually strong/weak.

To illustrate the point, I’d say the Athlon shown above beats/equals the PowerPC in everything, although it depends on how you interpret “better” for some of the fields – I’d say the 65nm is better than 90nm despite being numerically smaller. Not sure about the die size, though!

And I’ll just include this, in case it tickles any other middle-aged reader’s nostalgia bone.
http://www.sabotagetimes.com/wp-content/uploads/16-Zetan-Warlord-e1320251240681.jpg
- ymendel
  
  I believe the arrow to the left of the category name indicates whether higher or lower is better. If that’s true, the PowerPC beats the Athlon in three categories: Introduction Year, Die Size, and Max TDP. They tie in Data Width, and the Athlon is better in the four remaining categories. Not a bad match-up.
  - harrymylo
    
    That’s exactly how it works :)
Paul Renault

I’m disappointed that there’s no Intel 4004 card – at the very least for historical reasons.
It could be the equivalent of ‘Enchanted Bunny ‘ or ‘Small Rock’ inMystic Warlords of Ka’a.

Still, I ordered it.
- harrymylo
  
  Hi Paul, thanks for the order! I didn’t include the 4004 because although it was the first microprocessor it wasn’t used in what we would now call a desktop computer. I would like to add it in a later version if I manage to get a hold of one.
MythicalMe

A bit outdated. AMD has introduced chips, called APU’s that put the GPU on the same chip as the CPU. I was going to use an APU in my latest machine, but decided that a 6 core Athlon 2 was better suited to my needs.
atom

here is an interview of the game creator, Harry:
http://youtu.be/cECFYsRgCEg
If you want to see what the game looks like, Harry donated a couple decks to London Hackspace (if you’re around that is)