Computer question - something I have been wondering about

[LeftyFingerPop]

I have noticed lately that while looking at specs in computer advertisements, the processor speed is rarely quoted anymore, only the processor type. Does anyone know why?

Thank you in advance.

[Xipe Totec]

1. No longer a meaningful measure

Clock speeds stoped advancing around 2003.

CPU performance growth as we have known it hit a wall two years ago. Most people have only recently started to notice.

You can get similar graphs for other chips, but I’m going to use Intel data here. Figure 1 graphs the history of Intel chip introductions by clock speed and number of transistors. The number of transistors continues to climb, at least for now. Clock speed, however, is a different story.

Around the beginning of 2003, you’ll note a disturbing sharp turn in the previous trend toward ever-faster CPU clock speeds. I’ve added lines to show the limit trends in maximum clock speed; instead of continuing on the previous path, as indicated by the thin dotted line, there is a sharp flattening. It has become harder and harder to exploit higher clock speeds due to not just one but several physical issues, notably heat (too much of it and too hard to dissipate), power consumption (too high), and current leakage problems.

See more here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=228&topic_id=30922&mesg_id=30924

[Deja Q]

2. Agreed; not CPU clock cycles (in GHz), but how many instructions are processed per clock cycle...

:)

AMD's Athlon was speedy... until Intel's new dual and quad core CPUs came out. My next PC will probably be Intel.

[Xipe Totec]

3. The processor is no longer the bottleneck

keeping the instruction and data pipelines full has become the problem. That's why we're going to wider buses (64-bit instead of 32), larger caches, and quad data rate front side buses.

But there is no system, no mater how powerful, that can't be brought to its knees by crappy inefficient code.

The free lunch is over. That's what the article is all about.

:hi:

[LeftyFingerPop]

4. Thank you Xipe Totec and HypnoToad. n/t

[darkstar]

5. Thanks for asking this.

And the answers as well folks. I've been wondering too.

[qdemn7]

6. Clock speed has hit a wall

That's why AMD and Intel are in a race for Dual and Quad Core CPUs. The problem is that there is very little software written to take efficient use of multiple cores.

Don't let that keep you from buying a multicore computer or CPU. Intel is planning a big price drop on July 22. The price of their Quad-core Q6600 CPU (2.4ghz x 4) is going to drop to $266 on July 22nd. Right now it's running at around $530. Last year it was $850.

[Lethe]

7. is Moore's Law coming to bear?

or is this just a temporary slowdown?