I think the more illustrative comparison is with the i7 920, which came out in 2008. In the intervening 7 years, there's only been a ~160% improvement by the st

I think the more illustrative comparison is with the i7 920, which came out in 2008. In the intervening 7 years, there's only been a ~160% improvement by the standard given. That's a rate of 23% improvement per year, rather than the 130% per year that your example implies. Most of the improvement from the Athlon 64 X2 3800+ to current CPUs was concentrated in the release of the Nehelem architecture. http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Core+i7+920+%40+2.67GHz&id=834 http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Core+i7+920+%4... The i7 920 was an incredible step forward, but progress has stalled since its release.