Moore's Law

[merrillmck]

Is it still valid? Or has the computer speed race slowed down in recent years?

(Moore's law refers to the notion that the speed of computers would double every 2-3 years or so.)

 

[Twinkie]

It has not, what has slowed down is the economy, and the need to use all that processing power. Until there is a need for that sort power, the development will remain at a stand still.

 

[Smith6612]

Actually Moore's Law still does apply. Just take a look at the high end processors these days and compare them to processors from 2-3 years ago and you'll see that the processors are much faster. Same goes with video card, RAM, etc

 

[Twinkie]

I wonder when computers will surpass the human brain?

 

[vekou]

i think it still applies. even though processing speed of processors seem to reach their limit, manufacturers found a solution by putting 2 or more processors in a motherboard.

 

[alexandgruntz]

It doesn't apply to the new Intel Atom processors. They have decreased power consumption, but only gained 60MHz in speed.

 

[vekou]

It doesn't apply to the new Intel Atom processors. They have decreased power consumption, but only gained 60MHz in speed.

yup, as i was saying before, processors is almost at their speed limits. that's why there exist cpus with 2 intel atom processors inside.

 

[merrillmck]

i think it still applies. even though processing speed of processors seem to reach their limit, manufacturers found a solution by putting 2 or more processors in a motherboard.

I tend to think it no longer applies. A dual or quad core processor doesn't come close to running 2X or 4X faster than a single core. Sure it'll run two jobs or 4 jobs faster, but a single-threaded job isn't going to get much of a speedup.

Not all CPU intensive programs lend themselves to multiple threads. Some are impossible to code in parallel.

Also, as mentioned in the original reply, economic demand is affecting Moore's law. Back in the 80's processor speed was your primary bottleneck. These days, your Internet connection speed is more likely to slow down the end user while your computer CPU sits relatively idle. Power consumption is another bottleneck in mobile devices.

Very often the end user doesn't have enough work to give the CPU - websurfing and checking your email certainly isn't CPU intensive. It seems like gaming and limited scientific/business endeavors might be the only ones demanding faster speeds. And they don't have the economic pull that the general public does.

 

[vekou]

^yeah got your point. although multi-cores help a lot on multithreading support, assuming that the application supports multiple cores. i'm thinking engineers are now focusing on handheld devices rather than the big and bulky desktop ones.

 

[zen-r]

Moore's Law could still be applied ie. we still have the capability, it's just that it is less likely to apply in practice now.

I think merrillmck covered it quite nicely, re the parallel processing (actually quite hard to write the software to utilise it) & also re the economics (less money in the economy, & less demand for greater speed).

One additional point which hasn't been mentioned is the fact that to create ever faster chips, it is becoming increasingly expensive to develop the technology capable of fabricating the newer chips. The manufacturers are really pushing the boundaries of what is possible now.

This graph highlights the problem ;

It illustrates that as the chip geometries have to become increasingly smaller in the future (in order to increase clock speeds) then the chips will have to be kept in production for much longer periods of time in order for the manufacturers (Intel, AMD etc) to get a return on their ever-increasing investment.

This article covers it in detail ; http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/06/21/isuppli_semi_process_forecast/

Finally though, don't forget that Moore's Law can easily become kick-started again. All it would take is 1 revolutionary breakthrough in CPU technology, whether that involved going 3D with the chip's structure, leaving silicon based chips behind completely, or something else we haven't even considered. Then, the speed race could continue again un-checked!

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[Smith6612]

Finally though, don't forget that Moore's Law can easily become kick-started again. All it would take is 1 revolutionary breakthrough in CPU technology, whether that involved going 3D with the chip's structure, leaving silicon based chips behind completely, or something else we haven't even considered. Then, the speed race could continue again un-checked!

I think GPU Parallel computing is technically starting to do that