Every few years, they tell us that performance won't matter anymore in a few years, because CPUs keep getting faster. "In a few years any CPU will be able to d

Every few years, they tell us that performance won't matter anymore in a few years, because CPUs keep getting faster. "In a few years any CPU will be able to decode DVDs easily. SIMD will be obsolete!" And every single time, a few years pass, and it never, ever happens, because CPUs don't get faster in a vacuum. Just as much, our demand for performance increases. In fact, right now, I'd say that the demand for performance is outpacing CPU development. The CPU requirement for 1080p H.264 from a Blu-ray disc is easily 20-40 times greater than the video from a DVD. CPU's haven't gotten that much faster in the meantime, forcing graphics card makers to add hardware acceleration, just as in the earliest days of DVD playback.