How fast will the fastest PCs be in 5 years?

I think that there will come a point of diminishing returns in computer speed, where greater speed is not only unnecessary, but would engender many engineering problems. I don't have the foggiest idea of what that speed would be.

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The current top of the line from Intel is just over 3GHz. Using the correlation of a doubling every 18 months that puts things right around 11 or 12GHz in 5 years but I think we'll start seeing more shifts in other areas as more significant.

Every time the processor clock speed has risen significantly the failings of the other subsystems show and then we get a jump in those. The I/O bottlenecks will have to be overcome again during that 5 yar period too.

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11-12?
Something seems a bit off here. If the rendition of Moore's law you quoted here continues to hold out for 5 years, since the speeds are at 3GHz right now it should be around 40GHz then. And oh how beautiful life will be! Very Happy

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Last night I heard that IBM was developing a computer that would be as fast as the human mind! Now how are we going to keep up with that. It is not a PC as yet. I voted not PCs, I hope for smaller more compact units so that the we won't have to use so much space. My most wanter computer component at this point is a flat screen. The speed of my unit now is satisfactory for my use.

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Re: 11-12?

Monger wrote:

Something seems a bit off here. If the rendition of Moore's law you quoted here continues to hold out for 5 years, since the speeds are at 3GHz right now it should be around 40GHz then. And oh how beautiful life will be!

You are right. I used the wrong math operation. I knew what I meant but muffed it. Very Happy

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@Monger,

Monger wrote:

If the rendition of Moore's law you quoted here continues to hold out for 5 years, since the speeds are at 3GHz right now it should be around 40GHz then. And oh how beautiful life will be!

If.....

What unfortunate timing to ask your question right at the exact moment that Dennard scaling failed.

As it happened, five years after you asked, the top processor speed was exactly the same as it was when you asked your question.

Code:

July 2007

Core 2 Extreme QX6850	4 cores 3.00 GHz	$999

Core 2 Duo E6850	2 cores 3.00 GHz	$266



November 2007

Core 2 Extreme QX9650	4 cores 3.00 GHz	$999

Data culled from:
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_Core_2_microprocessors

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No matter how fast they are, Microsoft will build an operating system so complex and buggy that it will drag the processor to its knees.

I hope someday the US will have an internet infrastructure that will make my 3 Ghz PC run any better than the 8 Mhz PC I had back in the 80s. We are becoming so cloud centric that the PC speed almost doesn't matter.

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The following article was written moments before Dennard scaling failed:

http://web.archive.org/web/20030207224749/theinquirer.net/?article=7481

Quote:

10.20GHz Intel Nehalem slated for 2005

Future Desktop Roadmaps Tejas to reach 9.20GHz, Prescott 5.20GHz

By Mike Magee: Wednesday 29 January 2003

INCLEMENT WEATHER ON this side of the Atlantic ocean threw a turquoise parakeet off course today and a note it was holding in its beak fell into the INQUIRER's back garden.

The contents of the note appear to reveal future plans for future Intel desktop processors right up until 2005.

By then, according to the note, Intel will be able to deliver 10.20GHz desktop CPUs codenamed "Nehalem" and produced using 65 nanometer technology.

If Intel manages to migrate away from the 90 nanometer technology it will introduce towards the end of this year, by then the "Prescott" core will deliver at least 5.20GHz using the 800MHz system bus.

The immediate successor to Prescott after it tops out at 5.20GHz will be the "Tejas" core, also produced on a 90 nanometer process and delivering 5.60GHz using a 1066MHz system bus. That's slated to start appearing towards the end of 2004.

Tejas will increase in steady increments which appear to be 6GHz, 6.40GHz, 6.80GHz, 7.20GHz, 7.60GHz, 7GHz, 8.40GHz, 8.80GHz and topping out at 9.20GHz.

The first Nehalem is supposed to appear at 9.60GHz before Intel succeeds in its goal to produce a 10GHz+ chip, the Nehalem, and using a 1200MHz front side bus. µ

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@Leadfoot,

Leadfoot wrote:

No matter how fast they are, Microsoft will build an operating system so complex and buggy that it will drag the processor to its knees.

Microsoft operating systems seem to me to be getting lighter and more nimble.

Someone just got one of the new Kaby Lake processors to overclock at 7 ghz, although they had to turn off hyperthreading and disable two of the four cores (I presume because of the heat).

http://www.techpowerup.com/229007/intel-core-i7-7700k-cracks-7-ghz-bench-stable-overclock

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@Monger,

A little more faster, but not much. That is a tough question to give a specific answer to. There are always advancements in the creation of ways to make computers faster, and I doubt we will not make a big progress in 5 years.

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@Bernstein987,

Bernstein987 wrote:

A little more faster, but not much. That is a tough question to give a specific answer to. There are always advancements in the creation of ways to make computers faster, and I doubt we will not make a big progress in 5 years.

Note the date that the question was asked.

But anyway, what do you think of those new AMD CPUs coming out next month? Looks like AMD is going to give Intel a serious challenge again.

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@oralloy,

Quote:

Microsoft operating systems seem to me to be getting lighter and more nimble.

Yes, they have improved a little since the bad old days of W95. Now it's the move toward cloud-centric computing that's slowing things down. But maybe that's just me stuck out here in the boondocks where the internet is just barely able to stream low-rez video

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An engineer and carpenter were having a beer together. The engineer said: "In my line of work, accuracy is required to within 0.00000001mm." "That's nothing, " replied the carpenter. "I have to be spot-on every time."

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How fast will the fastest PCs be in 5 years?

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