Why couldn't they make todays best cpu ten years ago?

Monserrat said:
I remember us chasing the megahertz back in the 90s and early 00s, like top clockspeed would be 1.5x more the next year than in the previous year. E.g. 1996 200MHz, 1997 300MHz, 2008 450MHz and so on. I remember looking on OcUK in late 2003 and they were stocking 3.6GHz and 3.8GHz as the top 2 Intel processors. In 2004, the top speed then went back down to 3.4GHz with hyperthreading introduced. In 2006, hyperthreading got replaced by dual-core. Then dual-core got replaced by Core 2 Duo™ then 4, 6, 8 cores in later years. For all of this time, the top speed remains around 3.4GHz, but I guess that processor in dual-core would be like having a 6.8GHz CPU?
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I bet waiting 11 years for an extra 150MHz was worth it then? :p

(yes, I know you meant 1998)

If anyone wants a blast from the past with OcUK you might want to click here.
 
Thanks Energize, and Vinni3, yes it was a typo *doh!*

PS - Vinni3, just checked your Wayback machine link, went to 6th July 2000. Voodoos were in stock! <3
 
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I'm not sure I see the OP's logic.

10years ago, I had iirc a p200 with 128MB RAM and 2 SLI Voodoo 2 GFX vcards.

I played Combat Flight Sim 2 and MS FS2000 and was blown away by the experience.

Today, I have the rig in my sig, which tbh is relatively old hat yet its a quad core, has an SSD C: drive a GTX260 that produces stunning visuals in BFBC2, FSX etc etc and boots from cold to desktop in the time my old p200 got to its BIOS screen & found its hard drives!

progress seems to be doing just fine to me. :)
 
Vinni3 @H|H said:
I bet waiting 11 years for an extra 150MHz was worth it then? :p

(yes, I know you meant 1998)

If anyone wants a blast from the past with OcUK you might want to click here.
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Haha, that's cool. Found my monitor from July 2004...Still using it now :D

Viewsonic VP191S Pro Series 19" TFT Monitor - Silver (MO-003-VS)

The innovative VP191s LCD monitor with thinedge ultra-slim bezel design is ideal for multiple-display configurations to enhance productivity, accuracy and decision-making for financial traders, corporate planners, graphics professionals and engineers. Digital HDTV clarity, 170º XtremeView™ wide viewing angle and ClearMotiv™ video response deliver immaculate performance for high-density graphics and mixed-media data. Comprehensively equipped with height, pivot, tilt and swivel adjustments and multiple digital/ analogue inputs, the VP191s sets the world-class standard for professional flat-panel displays.

- 1280x1024 Optimum Resolution
- 600:1 Contrast Ratio
- Viewing Angle 170° horizontal, 170° vertical
- 25ms Response Time
- 250 cd/m2 Brightness
- Two Analog Inputs
- One DVI-D Input
- DVI Cable Included
- 3 Years On-Site Warranty


Price: £409.95 (£481.69 Including VAT at 17.5%)
 
Rants like asking why we didn't go straight from stone age to splitting atoms over night.

The technology didn't exist.
You need to utilise smaller and smaller wave lengths to create them.
 
Imagine in 100 years time....

Couldnt even think what they would have....

The funny thing is that in 100 years time they can prob browse to this very post and see what we were using.
 
Andr3w said:
I wonder what they will be like in 10 years!

Do you think we will get to some kind of bottleneck or keep advancing at the rate we are?
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These days hard disks are the biggest bottleneck in a computer system. But this has been solved by the introduction of solid state drives. Though they're still very expensive for a lot of people and not really viable for storage use.

Your average hard disk has a write speed of 50-60MB/s (laptops even slower). A time will come when even your internet connection will be bottlenecked by a hard disk.
 
i had a celeron 600 @ 1003mhz it was a big deal at the time beating the ghz barrier but i purchased the athlon 1.2ghz which was a super quick chip when i got it.
 
Imagine trying to explain today's PC's and the internet to someone 100 years ago, you'd probably be burned on a stake lol
 
It'll be totally awesome in 10 years to have like 16+ core processors and tens of gigabytes of ram. Wow, my word processing and porn surfing is going to go ballistic, I tell you.
 
Jonny69 said:
It'll be totally awesome in 10 years to have like 16+ core processors and tens of gigabytes of ram. Wow, my word processing and porn surfing is going to go ballistic, I tell you.
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Dude, where have you been? LOL

You can already get 16 cores and 24GB ram in a computer. :D
 
It would be interesting to see what Intel could pull out of the bag if their lives depended on it. Something quite impressive I'd imagine.

I assume AMD are not capable of any big jumps at the moment, otherwise they wouldn't allow themselves to be behind the competition for so long.

Without taking costs into consideration*
 
Davefran said:
Haha, that's cool. Found my monitor from July 2004...Still using it now :D

Viewsonic VP191S Pro Series 19" TFT Monitor - Silver (MO-003-VS) (£481.69 Including VAT at 17.5%)
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Snap! Bought mine around the same time as you did, and signed up to this forum pretty much at the same time. May 2004 it should be. Paid the same £481 as you did. I remember arranging it to be delivered to my work (as I worked full time and couldn't stand in the house for couriers), and my boss, seeing it, said "are we paying you too much?" The bloody cheek of him!
 
Will it not get a to a point that its deemed we don't need any more processing power for desktop PC's?
 
Radiation said:
Just a thought i had recently while looking into processing power and the progress of technology, to me it feels like things have slowed, moores law says the number of transistors doubles about every two years but that doesn't necessarily mean we get anywhere near double the performance in general use, so i wondered what made it physically impossible to get the equivalent of todays cpu just ten years ago?

I know architectures etc change and improve but don't we know enough now that we could make big jumps in processing power, i mean we have the knowledge and tools, is it about money as always, do the chip makers just want a steady product line for the next 50 years?
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You realise transistor number doubles because the size halves. Take todays best chip, make it on the previous process, twice as big, make it on the previous process, 4 times as big, previous process, 8 times as big.

Now a wafer roughly costs $8000-1000 they are currently 300mm diamter circles because thats simply how silicon comes. So how many i7's at probably 16 times the size a decade ago, do you think you'd get off one wafer, which costs $10k, and how much do you think the chips would cost.

Ultimately with a lower clockspeed, there would be no real reason you couldn't do this a decade ago, however, it would cost $20-30k per chip, it would be so big the mobo would have to be 3-4 times the size, which means your computer case would be 3-4 times the size, and it would use minimum, a couple thousand watts in power, which would require cooling, which would require a massive heatsink, which would require a wind turbine on the roof to power and cool, etc, etc, etc.

No, they aren't holding back, theres lots of limits in the process tech, its moving forwards pretty fast, the limit to transistor count in realistic terms is the maximum die size that maintains a profitable chip on the biggest wafer manufacturing we have, which limits us to 200-300mm2 in most situations, which means you have to wait for a new process to fit more transistors into that same size each time.
 
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