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To be honest it feels like "advances" in computers have been speed, cores and little else. Ever since the abandonment of the last non-PC platform. It might get

To be honest it feels like "advances" in computers have been speed, cores and little else. Ever since the abandonment of the last non-PC platform. It might get interesting again when ARM is directly competing against x86 - but that's due to the advances of handhelds/phones. Lots of cores is all very well, but a lot of applications still can't utilise them that well. The last time computing hardware felt exciting was late 90s, or early 00s when there were half a dozen graphics players, SPARC, PowerPC, 680x0 and the odd strange idea like NeXT, transputers and BeBOXes. That we care more about the case, the interfaces and the coloured LEDs says we're firmly past the innovation era.

lmm 10y ago
> Lots of cores is all very well, but a lot of applications still can't utilise them that well. Right, which is the real issue I think. It's not that we can't make faster computers, it's that we've run out of good software use cases, just like the limiting factor on how good videogames look is no longer how good the engine and rendering are but rather how good the artists can make the textures and models. There is still innovation going on - intel's recent hardware transactional memory support is very exciting - but for the most part we simply already have more CPU capability than we know what to do with.
- dom0 10y ago
  Probably a more interesting development is secure memory (Intel SGX, AMD SME/SEV), because that has the potential to make virtualisation / cloud offerings far more secure - it effectively allows a VM to enforce that the hyper-visor / service provider cannot read it's memory. Effectively barring the SP from being a few commands away from root on every hosted system.
- anexprogrammer 10y ago
  That and so much of our computing is now using all that horsepower to play thin client.
- cr0sh 10y ago
  I think we might see more cores (and other innovations) becoming useful for offline AI/ML purposes, as well as virtual reality applications. Both right now are mostly dependent on GPU cores (the more the merrier), but can be bottlenecked by the CPU usage (depending on the task, of course - games tend to want more of everything). Though both of those might stay niche areas, since most people are moving to mobile devices and any need for more compute power can come from "cloud resources".

lmm 10y ago

> Lots of cores is all very well, but a lot of applications still can't utilise them that well. Right, which is the real issue I think. It's not that we can't make faster computers, it's that we've run out of good software use cases, just like the limiting factor on how good videogames look is no longer how good the engine and rendering are but rather how good the artists can make the textures and models. There is still innovation going on - intel's recent hardware transactional memory support is very exciting - but for the most part we simply already have more CPU capability than we know what to do with.

dom0 10y ago
Probably a more interesting development is secure memory (Intel SGX, AMD SME/SEV), because that has the potential to make virtualisation / cloud offerings far more secure - it effectively allows a VM to enforce that the hyper-visor / service provider cannot read it's memory. Effectively barring the SP from being a few commands away from root on every hosted system.
anexprogrammer 10y ago
That and so much of our computing is now using all that horsepower to play thin client.
cr0sh 10y ago
I think we might see more cores (and other innovations) becoming useful for offline AI/ML purposes, as well as virtual reality applications. Both right now are mostly dependent on GPU cores (the more the merrier), but can be bottlenecked by the CPU usage (depending on the task, of course - games tend to want more of everything). Though both of those might stay niche areas, since most people are moving to mobile devices and any need for more compute power can come from "cloud resources".