3 ms·

But not exactly keeping up with Moore's Law, is it? (Or Dennard scaling, if you're a righteous nerd). I remember when we yawned at any new CPU that wasn't at

But not exactly keeping up with Moore's Law, is it? (Or Dennard scaling, if you're a righteous nerd). I remember when we yawned at any new CPU that wasn't at least 100% faster. Now 50% faster is "insanely great"? Well, it could be worse. At least, we're no longer bedeviled by growing bloatware or slowing languages...

dmitrygr 5y ago
"50% faster in the same thermal and power envelope" has always been impressive. When CPUs were gaining 100% per year, they were often growing their power use just as fast, if not faster.
- durst 5y ago
  I don't think this is entirely true. (Although please let me know if I misunderstood your comment or if I'm wrong.) While it is true that CPUs' power usage increased significantly between the 1980s and 2006, I believe you were able to get much better performance "in the same thermal and power envelope" during that time period. There's two conflicting factors that made these energy efficiency gains less apparent in the market: power efficiency and power usage. Roughly until 2006, both Dennard Scaling and Moore's Law held, so you got ~2x performance efficiency (performance per watt/performance in the same thermal and power envelope) every 1.5 years. [1,2] Power consumption also increased at the same time [3], so you got both more performance in the same thermal and power envelope (useful for mobile/embedded chips) and greater power consumption (useful for desktop/server chips). 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennard_scaling#Relation_with_Moore's_law_and_computing_performance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennard_scaling#Relation_with_... 2. https://iscaconf.org/isca2018/docs/HennessyPattersonTuringLectureISCA4June2018.pdf https://iscaconf.org/isca2018/docs/HennessyPattersonTuringLe... - slide 25 3. http://www.edwardbosworth.com/My5155_Slides/Chapter01/ThePowerWall.htm http://www.edwardbosworth.com/My5155_Slides/Chapter01/ThePow... - "Here is a Clue to the Problem" graph

dmitrygr 5y ago

"50% faster in the same thermal and power envelope" has always been impressive. When CPUs were gaining 100% per year, they were often growing their power use just as fast, if not faster.

durst 5y ago
I don't think this is entirely true. (Although please let me know if I misunderstood your comment or if I'm wrong.) While it is true that CPUs' power usage increased significantly between the 1980s and 2006, I believe you were able to get much better performance "in the same thermal and power envelope" during that time period. There's two conflicting factors that made these energy efficiency gains less apparent in the market: power efficiency and power usage. Roughly until 2006, both Dennard Scaling and Moore's Law held, so you got ~2x performance efficiency (performance per watt/performance in the same thermal and power envelope) every 1.5 years. [1,2] Power consumption also increased at the same time [3], so you got both more performance in the same thermal and power envelope (useful for mobile/embedded chips) and greater power consumption (useful for desktop/server chips). 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennard_scaling#Relation_with_Moore's_law_and_computing_performance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennard_scaling#Relation_with_... 2. https://iscaconf.org/isca2018/docs/HennessyPattersonTuringLectureISCA4June2018.pdf https://iscaconf.org/isca2018/docs/HennessyPattersonTuringLe... - slide 25 3. http://www.edwardbosworth.com/My5155_Slides/Chapter01/ThePowerWall.htm http://www.edwardbosworth.com/My5155_Slides/Chapter01/ThePow... - "Here is a Clue to the Problem" graph