4 ms·

Clock speeds have nothing to do with Moore's law, which was about transistor density. I'm not sure how you can say that a doubling in density hasn't happened w

Clock speeds have nothing to do with Moore's law, which was about transistor density. I'm not sure how you can say that a doubling in density hasn't happened when there are "7nm" 64 core CPUs out there. Transistor density has slowed but not stopped. Moore also predicted an exponential increase in price for density improvements which has also seemed to happen.

ncmncm 7y ago
Previously, die shrinks enabled faster clocking. It is a shame you missed those days, but to deny they happened is just sad. We did not go from 1MHz 6502s to 4GHz Pentiums without a generous series of doublings. Twelve, in fact.
- BubRoss 7y ago
  I get that you are being intentionally condescending and obtuse here, but you were talking about 'the end of Moore's' law, which only talks about transistor density increases in addition to cost, and both of those are still increasing. Clock speeds, instructions per clock, cache, latency, prefetching, out of order execution and many other aspects of CPU performance were not the trend Gordon Moore outlined. You are conflating things that stem from transistor density with Moore's Law.
  - ncmncm 7y ago
    While Moore's original, concise expression was in terms of transistor areal density, the faster clock rate was implied and expected, just as lower latency is implied by the faster clock. Thus, the stagnation of clock rates is rightly recognized as the beginning of its end. Allocation of the newly available transistors to caches, functional units, execution units, and ultimately extra cores was also implied: the transistors are not decorative: they are there to be used. With feature sizes approaching a single lattice unit cell, its final stage will be reached shortly. To insist that transistor count is the only point of Moore's Law is to be deliberately obtuse: it was the exactly the extra value provided by the extra transistors and the machinery built of them, and the faster clocks, that would (and did) generate the capital investment needed to develop each succeeding, more expensive, generation.
    - BubRoss 7y ago
      This is all rationalizing whatever you were trying to say about performance stalling. People only talk about 'the intent' when they realize they have been regurgitating news headlines and haven't looked any deeper. The point is that performance hasn't stalled at all just because clock rates aren't going up. Faster clocks are diminishing returns in performance due to memory latency. Transistor density was the point and performance is still increasing due to transistor density, even if you don't know how to use multiple cores.
      - ncmncm 7y ago
        It is an objective fact that performance increases are much, much smaller than 20 years ago. It is easy to see why, and why continuing (for now) shrinkage of transistors is failing to deliver as much as before. You are welcome to die on your "Moore's Law is about feature size and nothing else" hill, but you will have sparse company there.
        BubRoss 7y ago
        "Moore's law is the observation that the number of transistors in a dense integrated circuit doubles about every two years. " https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore%27s_law https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore%27s_law It doesn't matter how forcefully you repeat yourself without backing it up. Also performance has increased with transistor density with more cores.
        ncmncm 7y ago
        I see that you are convinced that Gordon Moore was an idiot who cared only for counting transistors, and had no interest in how they are used. I also see that you have confused "much smaller increase", which is observed by everyone, with "no increase", which literally no one has said.
        BubRoss 7y ago
        I quoted Moore's Law and linked you the actual history, you have some reading to do.
- code_biologist 7y ago
  If we're being pedants, "Dennard scaling" is the term for the phenomena that allowed for increased clocks: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennard_scaling https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennard_scaling Dennard scaling was a nice side benefit of transistor shrinks.

ncmncm 7y ago

Previously, die shrinks enabled faster clocking. It is a shame you missed those days, but to deny they happened is just sad. We did not go from 1MHz 6502s to 4GHz Pentiums without a generous series of doublings. Twelve, in fact.

BubRoss 7y ago
I get that you are being intentionally condescending and obtuse here, but you were talking about 'the end of Moore's' law, which only talks about transistor density increases in addition to cost, and both of those are still increasing. Clock speeds, instructions per clock, cache, latency, prefetching, out of order execution and many other aspects of CPU performance were not the trend Gordon Moore outlined. You are conflating things that stem from transistor density with Moore's Law.
- ncmncm 7y ago
  While Moore's original, concise expression was in terms of transistor areal density, the faster clock rate was implied and expected, just as lower latency is implied by the faster clock. Thus, the stagnation of clock rates is rightly recognized as the beginning of its end. Allocation of the newly available transistors to caches, functional units, execution units, and ultimately extra cores was also implied: the transistors are not decorative: they are there to be used. With feature sizes approaching a single lattice unit cell, its final stage will be reached shortly. To insist that transistor count is the only point of Moore's Law is to be deliberately obtuse: it was the exactly the extra value provided by the extra transistors and the machinery built of them, and the faster clocks, that would (and did) generate the capital investment needed to develop each succeeding, more expensive, generation.
  - BubRoss 7y ago
    This is all rationalizing whatever you were trying to say about performance stalling. People only talk about 'the intent' when they realize they have been regurgitating news headlines and haven't looked any deeper. The point is that performance hasn't stalled at all just because clock rates aren't going up. Faster clocks are diminishing returns in performance due to memory latency. Transistor density was the point and performance is still increasing due to transistor density, even if you don't know how to use multiple cores.
    - ncmncm 7y ago
      It is an objective fact that performance increases are much, much smaller than 20 years ago. It is easy to see why, and why continuing (for now) shrinkage of transistors is failing to deliver as much as before. You are welcome to die on your "Moore's Law is about feature size and nothing else" hill, but you will have sparse company there.
      - BubRoss 7y ago
        "Moore's law is the observation that the number of transistors in a dense integrated circuit doubles about every two years. " https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore%27s_law https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore%27s_law It doesn't matter how forcefully you repeat yourself without backing it up. Also performance has increased with transistor density with more cores.
        ncmncm 7y ago
        I see that you are convinced that Gordon Moore was an idiot who cared only for counting transistors, and had no interest in how they are used. I also see that you have confused "much smaller increase", which is observed by everyone, with "no increase", which literally no one has said.
        BubRoss 7y ago
        I quoted Moore's Law and linked you the actual history, you have some reading to do.
code_biologist 7y ago
If we're being pedants, "Dennard scaling" is the term for the phenomena that allowed for increased clocks: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennard_scaling https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennard_scaling Dennard scaling was a nice side benefit of transistor shrinks.