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I agree that computer hardware manufacturers need to either build poor quality (selling you a new light bulb every 1000 hours) or rent things out as peak Moores

by bullen 5y ago

I agree that computer hardware manufacturers need to either build poor quality (selling you a new light bulb every 1000 hours) or rent things out as peak Moores law unfolds, even if some predict the litho to keep getting smaller (EUV) the CPU performance per watt will not increase, mostly because the architecture can't take advantage of the new transistors and random memory speed has been stuck for 20 years.

Aeolun 5y ago
> random memory speed has been stuck for 20 years Isn’t this just because random memory speed has never really been the limiting factor for a lot of things?
- maximus-decimus 5y ago
  Trying to write fast c++ code is eye opening about how slow ram can be. Adding two number on the cpu is gonna take ~1 ns. Getting the number from ram takes about ~100 ns. If you store your numbers sequentially in memory, you can bulk download them and it isn't so bad. But let's say you used a linked list where everything is store in a different memory location... you're basically gonna take 100 longer to iterate over a linked list than an array and that's entirely because of ram speed. Same thing if you're storing Integer objects into an arraylist in Java or something similar since your array contains pointers and you have to check a new ram location for every number. Facebook wrote their own version of a C++ string to reduce heap use because of this. What I'm saying is you can often get around it for stuff that matters, but a lot of code that wasn't written with that in mind is definitely limited by ram speed. And let's be honest, most people who are not programming in C or C++ don't think about RAM data locality.
bserge 5y ago
Or build more shit, which is already happening. A computer in your pocket, a computer in your fridge, a computer on your face (still hate that they insist on that for AR glasses and smartwatches), a computer for your car, a computer for games, a computer for your dog. Oh and you can't swap parts between them or even fix them without professional equipment and training.
- bullen 5y ago
  Yeah, I just figured as the virtual space becomes the only expanding part of our universe the more computers (at peak 2 Gflops/W) you have the more powerful you become, specifically servers. So you are right quantity will expand as much as the energy supply allows it to, but we are seeing the limits of energy so maybe don't invest too heavily in 200W machines? I'm pretty deeply sunk cost in ARM and Atom servers, and I'm considering going "more in" but hesitating because of thermodynamics, basically 100W (including EVERYTHING, router, modem, switches etc.) is the most you can operate with enough lead-acid backup to survive power cuts before things get ugly!

by bullen 5y ago

Aeolun 5y ago

> random memory speed has been stuck for 20 years Isn’t this just because random memory speed has never really been the limiting factor for a lot of things?

maximus-decimus 5y ago
Trying to write fast c++ code is eye opening about how slow ram can be. Adding two number on the cpu is gonna take ~1 ns. Getting the number from ram takes about ~100 ns. If you store your numbers sequentially in memory, you can bulk download them and it isn't so bad. But let's say you used a linked list where everything is store in a different memory location... you're basically gonna take 100 longer to iterate over a linked list than an array and that's entirely because of ram speed. Same thing if you're storing Integer objects into an arraylist in Java or something similar since your array contains pointers and you have to check a new ram location for every number. Facebook wrote their own version of a C++ string to reduce heap use because of this. What I'm saying is you can often get around it for stuff that matters, but a lot of code that wasn't written with that in mind is definitely limited by ram speed. And let's be honest, most people who are not programming in C or C++ don't think about RAM data locality.

bserge 5y ago

Or build more shit, which is already happening. A computer in your pocket, a computer in your fridge, a computer on your face (still hate that they insist on that for AR glasses and smartwatches), a computer for your car, a computer for games, a computer for your dog. Oh and you can't swap parts between them or even fix them without professional equipment and training.

bullen 5y ago
Yeah, I just figured as the virtual space becomes the only expanding part of our universe the more computers (at peak 2 Gflops/W) you have the more powerful you become, specifically servers. So you are right quantity will expand as much as the energy supply allows it to, but we are seeing the limits of energy so maybe don't invest too heavily in 200W machines? I'm pretty deeply sunk cost in ARM and Atom servers, and I'm considering going "more in" but hesitating because of thermodynamics, basically 100W (including EVERYTHING, router, modem, switches etc.) is the most you can operate with enough lead-acid backup to survive power cuts before things get ugly!