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> This graph shows transistors basically maintaining pace... I'm no expert in silicon scaling but from reading technical papers, my (naive) understanding is th

> This graph shows transistors basically maintaining pace... I'm no expert in silicon scaling but from reading technical papers, my (naive) understanding is that transistor density has almost kept up but now that scaling comes with increasingly stringent design constraints which architects must make trade-offs over. Broadly speaking, things like "You can have 2x last gen's density but they can't all be fully powered on for very long." That's a greatly simplified example but much of what I've seen has been far "thornier" in terms of interacting constraints along multiple dimensions. My sense is that in the 90s we usually got "denser, faster AND cheaper" with every generation. Now we're lucky to get one and even that comes with implementation requirements which can be increasingly arcane. My understanding is that different fabs are having to roll more of their own design libraries which embody their chosen sets of trade-offs per node. In addition to limiting overall performance and being harder to design, this apparently makes reusing or migrating designs more challenging. While certain headline metrics like node density may appear to be scaling as usual. The reality under the hood is more complex and far less rosy.

Dylan16807 4y ago
> My sense is that in the 90s we usually got "denser, faster AND cheaper" with every generation. Now we're lucky to get one You can still get all three, though you can only pick "cheaper" so many times before you fall off the mainstream product stack. Two generations ago in 2019, the 3700X launched at $329. This generation, the 7600X launched at $299. The 7600X has fewer cores, but they're about 50% faster individually and 25% faster total. And it's N5 instead of N7.
- sitkack 4y ago
  You made me think that maybe computing is a deflationary force (I am not a libertarian, this isn't some free market bro idea, I think)d, the more that can be subsumed by computation, the more things that can get cheaper over time not more expensive, even if the face of rising material costs. The relative price of steel has remained flat, while the steel performance has greatly increased. https://www.metalbulletinresearch.com/Article/3532290/Commodity-prices-A-100-year-history.html https://www.metalbulletinresearch.com/Article/3532290/Commod... Between material science and cheaper compute, we can build higher tech parts and techniques. The cycles/consumed/per/person/per/year is an exponential, what are some important points on that curve? When the computation to design something is on the order as the same amount of energy to create it? This interesting, https://www.in2013dollars.com/New-cars/price-inflation/1980-to-2022?amount=5000 https://www.in2013dollars.com/New-cars/price-inflation/1980-... You could buy a Honda Civic new in 1980 for 5000$, that would only be just under 10k in todays dollars. What 1980 Honda Civic quality car can you buy today for 10k? Or am I a being nostalgic. And look at the bump in inflation during the recession, https://blog.cheapism.com/average-car-price-by-year/#slide=67 https://blog.cheapism.com/average-car-price-by-year/#slide=6... of car prices. Was the 2008 recession triggered by excessively inflated car prices? Like causing a bubble in a pipeline, an economic embolism. Current average price has dropped 10k$ from 35k to 25k in the years since 2008.
  - eru 4y ago
    Productivity improvements in the economy are indeed deflationary. That's a general idea in economics. https://cdn.mises.org/Less%20than%20Zero%20The%20Case%20for%20a%20Falling%20Price%20Level%20in%20a%20Growing%20Economy_4.pdf https://cdn.mises.org/Less%20than%20Zero%20The%20Case%20for%... is an interesting book on the topic. (Ignore for a moment that it's hosted by mises.org..) Some people think that deflation is bad for an economy. That's a bit confused. What's bad for the economy is a fall in aggregate nominal spending. That one leads to recession and unemployment. If prices fall, but total spending stays stable, that's fine.
    - sitkack 4y ago
      So it sounds like we need to do more of nothing but employ a lot of people doing it and we can be carbon negative AND have full employment. We figure out how to turn atmospheric carbon into cheese. Take CO2 -> C12H22O11
      - eru 4y ago
        Could you please try to explain what you want to say with less snark? I'm a bit confused. Paying people to do nothing gives you nothing. Full employment isn't an end in itself, but it's useful because it is typically related to things we do care about. Employing people to do nothing is like fiddling with the speedometer of your care in order to 'go faster'. Or relabeling your amplifiers to go to 11. You can sort-of turn atmospheric carbon into cheese. Have grass capture the carbon, and a cow eat the grass. That's totally doable, just not viable or efficient if your goal is to capture carbon at scale. (If your goal was to go carbon negative at all costs, you could instate a whooping big carbon tax, and let the economy figure it out.)
        sitkack 4y ago
        Right now our economy basically runs on carbon at the core. We make stuff, move stuff and emitting carbon is necessary. If we switched our economy to owing and moving information, then we could still have full-employment, move money in the ecosystem while from the viewpoint of a materialist, just be moving useless bits around. I think we already have a lot of high paying jobs in the economy that don't do much and pay people to do nothing (of value). We should absolutely spread that around.

Dylan16807 4y ago

> My sense is that in the 90s we usually got "denser, faster AND cheaper" with every generation. Now we're lucky to get one You can still get all three, though you can only pick "cheaper" so many times before you fall off the mainstream product stack. Two generations ago in 2019, the 3700X launched at $329. This generation, the 7600X launched at $299. The 7600X has fewer cores, but they're about 50% faster individually and 25% faster total. And it's N5 instead of N7.

sitkack 4y ago
You made me think that maybe computing is a deflationary force (I am not a libertarian, this isn't some free market bro idea, I think)d, the more that can be subsumed by computation, the more things that can get cheaper over time not more expensive, even if the face of rising material costs. The relative price of steel has remained flat, while the steel performance has greatly increased. https://www.metalbulletinresearch.com/Article/3532290/Commodity-prices-A-100-year-history.html https://www.metalbulletinresearch.com/Article/3532290/Commod... Between material science and cheaper compute, we can build higher tech parts and techniques. The cycles/consumed/per/person/per/year is an exponential, what are some important points on that curve? When the computation to design something is on the order as the same amount of energy to create it? This interesting, https://www.in2013dollars.com/New-cars/price-inflation/1980-to-2022?amount=5000 https://www.in2013dollars.com/New-cars/price-inflation/1980-... You could buy a Honda Civic new in 1980 for 5000$, that would only be just under 10k in todays dollars. What 1980 Honda Civic quality car can you buy today for 10k? Or am I a being nostalgic. And look at the bump in inflation during the recession, https://blog.cheapism.com/average-car-price-by-year/#slide=67 https://blog.cheapism.com/average-car-price-by-year/#slide=6... of car prices. Was the 2008 recession triggered by excessively inflated car prices? Like causing a bubble in a pipeline, an economic embolism. Current average price has dropped 10k$ from 35k to 25k in the years since 2008.
- eru 4y ago
  Productivity improvements in the economy are indeed deflationary. That's a general idea in economics. https://cdn.mises.org/Less%20than%20Zero%20The%20Case%20for%20a%20Falling%20Price%20Level%20in%20a%20Growing%20Economy_4.pdf https://cdn.mises.org/Less%20than%20Zero%20The%20Case%20for%... is an interesting book on the topic. (Ignore for a moment that it's hosted by mises.org..) Some people think that deflation is bad for an economy. That's a bit confused. What's bad for the economy is a fall in aggregate nominal spending. That one leads to recession and unemployment. If prices fall, but total spending stays stable, that's fine.
  - sitkack 4y ago
    So it sounds like we need to do more of nothing but employ a lot of people doing it and we can be carbon negative AND have full employment. We figure out how to turn atmospheric carbon into cheese. Take CO2 -> C12H22O11
    - eru 4y ago
      Could you please try to explain what you want to say with less snark? I'm a bit confused. Paying people to do nothing gives you nothing. Full employment isn't an end in itself, but it's useful because it is typically related to things we do care about. Employing people to do nothing is like fiddling with the speedometer of your care in order to 'go faster'. Or relabeling your amplifiers to go to 11. You can sort-of turn atmospheric carbon into cheese. Have grass capture the carbon, and a cow eat the grass. That's totally doable, just not viable or efficient if your goal is to capture carbon at scale. (If your goal was to go carbon negative at all costs, you could instate a whooping big carbon tax, and let the economy figure it out.)
      - sitkack 4y ago
        Right now our economy basically runs on carbon at the core. We make stuff, move stuff and emitting carbon is necessary. If we switched our economy to owing and moving information, then we could still have full-employment, move money in the ecosystem while from the viewpoint of a materialist, just be moving useless bits around. I think we already have a lot of high paying jobs in the economy that don't do much and pay people to do nothing (of value). We should absolutely spread that around.