Something seems wrong... Technology-wise
by Jonathan Rose · in General Discussion · 04/21/2004 (3:03 pm) · 23 replies
Moore's law states that every 1.5 years, the average processor speed will double correct? Well... has anyone taken note that this hasn't happened over the last 1.5 years? a computer purchase I made 2 and one half years ago was a pentium 4 2.0 ghz processor with hardware specs to match (256 meg ram, horrid integrated graphics chip, etc.) and that cost 600 dollars... More recently (1 week ago) I purchased a new coumputer... with 2.8 ghz and 512 megs of ram and integrated graphics chip (vomits) etc. for 750 dollars. What is up with this? Any light shined on this area would be greatly appreciated.
perhaps in Intel released Pentium 5, things would change, but I don't see that coming anytime soon (I've seen no released information on the subject at all)
AMD Athalon 64 bit processors seem to be less than optimal speed as well. Good for gaming, but still not as fast as one would expect.
The usual trend on technological improvement being broken worries me quite a bit...
perhaps in Intel released Pentium 5, things would change, but I don't see that coming anytime soon (I've seen no released information on the subject at all)
AMD Athalon 64 bit processors seem to be less than optimal speed as well. Good for gaming, but still not as fast as one would expect.
The usual trend on technological improvement being broken worries me quite a bit...
#22
Huh? That's a ~80% increase in speed and the 2.8 ghz P4 came out in the summer of 2002, not a bad increase and right about in line with the simplified marketing version of Moore's "Law" (which, IIRC, is 18 month cycles, not 1 year), especially when you consider that the 2.8 ghz retailed for $637 when it was released. You can pick up a 3.4 ghz for less than $425 right now.
CPU prices are dropping, CPUs are still getting a lot faster each year. It isn't fair to compare 'full systems' in price because memory prices fluctuate wildly (and are, in fact, pretty high right now compared to the last couple of years).
I think the *real* problem right now is psychological, because we went to gigahertz and now the numbers don't seem to be growing as quickly because psychologically we don't put as much weight on numbers that come after the decimal point... But in terms of raw speed, CPUs are still jumping up fast.
I know my 2.4ghz 800FSB HT P4 totally thrashes the 1.2 ghz chip it replaced, both in benchmarks and just in normal every day usage; I can easily feel the difference. It is true that memory is more of a limiting factor right now, but between higher speed memory busses, DDR/DDR2 and PCI Express, things are going to continue to look up for consumer PC performance.
I guess I really don't see the original poster's point. When I look at demos like the ones running on the Nvidia 6800 and see realtime 3D graphics (on systems that will soon be on consumer's desktops) that are better than what one could do with 8+ hours per frame of pre-rendering just a few years ago, I continue to be utterly amazed.
04/29/2004 (12:08 pm)
Quote:
Well if it makes you feel any better, you could have gotten a 3.4 GHZ currently.
Whereas 2 years ago, I could have gotten a 2.8 no? not making me feel any better...
Huh? That's a ~80% increase in speed and the 2.8 ghz P4 came out in the summer of 2002, not a bad increase and right about in line with the simplified marketing version of Moore's "Law" (which, IIRC, is 18 month cycles, not 1 year), especially when you consider that the 2.8 ghz retailed for $637 when it was released. You can pick up a 3.4 ghz for less than $425 right now.
CPU prices are dropping, CPUs are still getting a lot faster each year. It isn't fair to compare 'full systems' in price because memory prices fluctuate wildly (and are, in fact, pretty high right now compared to the last couple of years).
I think the *real* problem right now is psychological, because we went to gigahertz and now the numbers don't seem to be growing as quickly because psychologically we don't put as much weight on numbers that come after the decimal point... But in terms of raw speed, CPUs are still jumping up fast.
I know my 2.4ghz 800FSB HT P4 totally thrashes the 1.2 ghz chip it replaced, both in benchmarks and just in normal every day usage; I can easily feel the difference. It is true that memory is more of a limiting factor right now, but between higher speed memory busses, DDR/DDR2 and PCI Express, things are going to continue to look up for consumer PC performance.
I guess I really don't see the original poster's point. When I look at demos like the ones running on the Nvidia 6800 and see realtime 3D graphics (on systems that will soon be on consumer's desktops) that are better than what one could do with 8+ hours per frame of pre-rendering just a few years ago, I continue to be utterly amazed.
Frank Huang
Anyways, I'm not looking for too much more processor speed improvement (that's not to say I wouldn't refuse it :) ), what I'm really waiting for is the world to switch to 64-bit. Intel thinks that the gerneral public isn't ready for 64-bit yet, but why has the Athlon 64 FX become so known among gaming machines? Intel, of course, has higher processor speeds, now if they would only make a version of their Itanium for home PCs...