Is it me, or has the growth of available CPU processor speeds really slowed down in the past few years? I bought a PII 266 in late 1997 that was cutting edge at the time. Then in early 2002, about four and a half years later, it was really getting obsolete and I replaced it with a P4 2.2GHz, the cutting edge speed then. It was a jump in processing speeds of just under 10 times.
But here we are in mid 2004, over 2 years since I bought the P4, and the top end pentium chip is a P4 3.4GHz, not even 50% faster, much less the 400% or so faster I would have expected by now.
I can't really believe that chip manufacturers can't develop processors faster than 3.4 GHz right now. Are they limited by something I don't know? Or is processing speed becoming less important for some reason, and some other specification like memory becoming the limiting factor in overall computer performance?
CHRIS
Luke: "Hey, I'm not such a bad pilot myself, you know"
But here we are in mid 2004, over 2 years since I bought the P4, and the top end pentium chip is a P4 3.4GHz, not even 50% faster, much less the 400% or so faster I would have expected by now.
I can't really believe that chip manufacturers can't develop processors faster than 3.4 GHz right now. Are they limited by something I don't know? Or is processing speed becoming less important for some reason, and some other specification like memory becoming the limiting factor in overall computer performance?
CHRIS
Luke: "Hey, I'm not such a bad pilot myself, you know"
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