Processing Power?

[Chris D]

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"

[Azeke]

Chris,

I know some companies, i.e. IBM are currently working on a RAM Chip called MRAM, which utilizes EM (electro-magnetism), this chip is supposedly cutting edge and will eliminate long shut down times, faster start ups, and also instantenous access to your applications. I believe IBM stated they will start to include these new chips in the units in the next 6 months. Perhaps they have shifted their R&D efforts.

Regards,

Azeke

[aud19]

Yes MRAM.... I made a post http://www.htguide.com/cfboards/inde...artRow=1&CFB=1 a while back about it. No responses though.... :cry:

Jason




Need a new display? Questions about new display technologies? Visit RPTVs, plasmas, and other monitors @ HTguide

[Kevin P]

MRAM sounds interesting. It drives me nuts how long Win2k takes to boot up with today's fast CPUs and hard drives. :roll:

As for processor speeds, maybe they've reached some sort of dissipation limit. The faster the chip the hotter it gets. Maybe at 5 Ghz you need a cryogenic cooling system to support it, and the power consumption is getting out of hand. Besides, the bottleneck in most systems nowadays is hard drive speed, not CPU anyway (hence Win2K taking 2 minutes to boot on gigahertz-speed processors).




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[JonMarsh]

Boy, this topic coudl take a lot of discussion to really explore it thoroughly.

In a nutshell, they (Intel, AMD, IBM, others) are running up against some barriers to performance because of the very small features size and resulting parasitic effects in the silicon transistors, especially device capacitance and leakage current.

Intel made a strategic decision in the development of the P4 in it's various flavors to emphasize using a deep pipeline with simpler logic (and less work done per clock cycle) and go for sheer Gigahurtz to improve performance. Well, at least the Santa Clara development team took that path; the Isreali design group developing the Pentium M had different goals and realized rather high performance in a manner more philisophically similar to the AMD Athlon than the P4... maybe that's why their head was recently brought back to the US and is thought to be groomed for possible CEO status at Intel...

Anyway, Intel also decided in P4/Prescott development that they didn't need silicon on insulator, or some of the other fancy technobobble developments IBM microelectronics has been working on, so we now have the curious situation that Intel's 90 nm technology (Prescott) is the first new silicon generation Intel has introduced where the feature size shrink did NOT result in an immediate power consumption reduction and clock improvement. Prescott 2.8 GHz CPU's are shipping in quantity, but the higher frequency ones aren't available, and won't start to be until the 775 pin socket T is available.

In a curious recent comparison at one site, I saw a comparison of CPU temperatures and power dissipation between Prescott and AMD 64 which was quite compelling- at full tilt, 52 degrees C versus 78 degrees C, I'll let you guess which was which; AMD delayed the Hammer series of processors so that they could incorporate IBM silicon on insulator technology in the K8, and it's paying off for them, as they even have 30 watt and 50 watt rated consumption Opterons for blades and the like. And reportedly the 90 nm IBM process AMD is using will have further dividends on power consumption. Intel didn't want to license or cross license with IBM, though.

We're at a point in CPU development where just throwing more Gighurtz at a 32 bit data path is probably not the solution for future performance gains. Mutliple cores, fast shared memory, and better software will all have to play their roles.

OTOH, how much through put does the average user require? For a lot of folks, a 2 GHz Athlon is way over kill. For me, doing CAD, circuit simulation, DTP, and 3D gaming, well, you'll probably always be able to sell me a faster computer. And dont' forget PCI express, and the higher performance peripherals it should enable. When I think of what we should be able to buy in 6-9 months from now, I drool... but that's what I'm waiting for.

Paradoxically, I'll probably get a new system with AMD64 technology first in a low cost laptop, like the eMachines new systems. A PR3400 rated system with Radeon 9600XT graphics, 80 GB Hd, and DVD burner is ridiculously cheap from them, and the batter cost is reasonable- and the operating time on one battery is quite good, too- typical 2:45. I'm very happy with the eMachines widescreen laptop I currently have; it's fast, compact, reliable, and the only thing I'd I'd currently like to have a little more of is sheer throughput when hooked up to AC, and for gaming. For about ~1500, I can get that.

~Jon




Earth First!
_______________________________
We'll screw up the other planets later....

[Chris D]

Wow, I didn't quite expect that kind of response. Thanks!

One of the reasons this is getting my attention is because my computer is getting pretty slow. It's a P4 2.2GHz Dell Dimension 8200, (THX certified) with 256 MB of RDRAM--still quite capable with today's technology, not like it's severely outdated even though it's 2 years old.

I don't really multi-task very much. Typically I'll have up my MSN Explorer progam , (which I use to access dial-up internet and leave E-mail up on the desktop) several Internet Explorer windows with various internet pages, and then in the background have a few programs running like Weatherbug, Norton Systemworks, a wallpaper changer, and the typical system tray items. I typically have 20-60MB of physical memory free, according to Norton System Doctor, so I think I'm getting close to my memory limits but not exceeding them.

It just seems like my computer gets slower and slower. I routinely do virus scans and use Ad-Aware to keep my system clean of programs that try to hijack my computer. I never have any viruses (I'm very diligent about what I download or open via E-mail) and the only things Ad-Aware finds are cookies, which I delete, and some registry items that I have no idea if I should touch or not. (I don't want to mess anything up) I defrag my hard drive maybe once a week to keep it less than 10% fragmented.

None of that seems to help. The computer just gets slower and slower, taking time to bring up program windows, and sometimes even just to swap between open windows, with lots of hard drive access activity in the process. It's really disappointing me. I would expect to have more quick performance.




CHRIS
Luke: "Hey, I'm not such a bad pilot myself, you know"

[JonMarsh]

The computer just gets slower and slower, taking time to bring up program windows, and sometimes even just to swap between open windows, with lots of hard drive access activity in the process.

My friend, there are probably two factors at work, here.

First, I assume you're running XP. If not, you should be. Now, realisitcally, though, you want 512MB with XP, given the overall footprint of the OS and it's components.

Second thing that happens is that as you install programs on your system, a lot of them put stuff stuff in that's run in the background during boot up, usually with an icon available in the system tray, and these are taking an additional footprint in memory before you load your first application.

The symptoms you describe are classic for virtual memory swapping- i.e., your system doesn't have enough physical RAM, and is swapping too much back out to the hard disk.

Now, I'm an animal, and run 1GB on my systems, but I'll bet you dollars for donuts that if you plot another 256 MB in, you'll feel like you have a new system. Another tack to take is run MSCONFIG, and kill some of the things being added in during startup.

You can get a feel for the footprint such components may be taking by starting up the task manager, and looking at the running processes, not the running apps. If you get one of the XP ref books, they'll help you sort out what is a valid OS component, and what components are services installed and running (often unecessarily) by applications programs. For example, I use a skinning program called Style XP, and two components it installs at startup use a total of about 18MB of RAM.

The easy way (from an effort level) is just to get more RAM.

Best regards,

Jon




Earth First!
_______________________________
We'll screw up the other planets later....

[ThomasW]

I second Jon's recommendation of adding more RAM and using msconfig.exe. It's usually an eye opener to see the things that are in the start-up tab, and all of them are hogging system resources. Both MS office and Norton use a ton of resources. I uncheck everything related to Office.

Also having all the options turned on for Norton uses TONS of resources. I have and use Norton but I don't have it running in the background, nor do I use it to scan incoming email. For that task I use a little program called MailWasher. It allows you to 'read' your email while it's still on the POP server. It will delete and or bounce any suspect email before it gets to your PC. That as far as I'm concerned is the ultimate virus protection. And the 'bounce' setting allows me to have 11 different email accounts and receive no more than a total of 2-3 spam emails per week. After spam has been 'bounced' a couple of times, your email address starts dropping off the spammer's lists.......




theAudioWorx
Klone-Audio

[Chris D]

Yeah, I was kind of afraid of that. Even though Norton System Doctor usually says I have 20-60MB of physical memory left at any one time, I don't really think it goes to 0 so I wouldn't be too suprised if I was running out of memory.




CHRIS
Luke: "Hey, I'm not such a bad pilot myself, you know"

[Chris D]

Well, I just added 512MB more memory to my PC, for a total of 768MB now. It's running much better, but still not quite as blazing-fast as I would have expected. Strange. Still takes a while to boot up and stuff. Norton System Doctor now says that out of the 768MB total memory now, typically about 300MB is free.