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"Moore’s law—that the computing power available for a given price doubles about every 18 months—continues to apply. " Then why are Intel desktop CPU's not gett

"Moore’s law—that the computing power available for a given price doubles about every 18 months—continues to apply. " Then why are Intel desktop CPU's not getting any better the last 3 years?

sliverstorm 13y ago
Because the article, like just about damn everyone else, completely misunderstands Moore's law, which actually observes that the number of transistors we can fit on a chip doubles every two years. Transistor count does not directly correlate to performance.
- moarzLaw 13y ago
  Wrong again. Moore's law is actually not any kind of law at all. It's merely a business practice adopted by Intel, which they attempt to adhere to. The fact that they refer to it as a law, and that journalists around the world parrot their term, is all merely a magical marketing sales pitch. They TRY to double the transistor count on a periodic basis, and, when they do, suddenly, they've got a newer, better, more expensive thing to market and sell. Wowee! The future is such a miracle!
  - icebraining 13y ago
    "Moore's law" is the name, it doesn't matter if it's a real law or not.
  - guard-of-terra 13y ago
    If they won't try to double the transistor count, then somebody else will come and eat their lunch. Trying to make better products is the only viable strategy for them. Moore's law is about their success in doing so. Your car's horse power doesn't increase twofold every 1,5 years neither its gas consumption decreases, but with transistors it actually happens.
  - sliverstorm 13y ago
    It's not a law, nor is it a business practice. Read what I said again: Moore's law ... OBSERVES that the number of transistors we can fit on a chip doubles every two years. If you are trying to argue with me calling it "Moore's law", you are too late. You missed the boat. That's what it is called, law or not.
    - moarzLaw 13y ago
      > Hey, guys, I bet every 18 months we can draw a picture on a thin slice of substrate, and make it twice as small as we did 18 months ago. Let's call it a law, and proclaim that it "drives the economy." > Jesus H. Christ, Gordon, that's a fucking fantastic idea! Get marketing on the phone. Holy shit, we're gonna be fucking rich. Yeah, okay, "observe" whatever you want. Sorry to contradict you on a website. Don't forget to down vote this comment as well. Boo hoo.
      - sliverstorm 13y ago
        I "observed" nothing. That's what Moore's law says, not me. P.S. HN doesn't let me downvote your comments, because you are replying to my comments. But, I suppose it's impossible I'm the only one that disagrees with you, so I must be hacking the website.
mapleoin 13y ago
you misread computing power as CPU clock speed
- Aardwolf 13y ago
  No I didn't. Intel desktop CPUs did not gain a significant amount of computing power the last 3 years. Compare 1995 CPUs to 1998. Now compare 2010 CPUs to 2013.
  - mapleoin 13y ago
    think parallel
    - Aardwolf 13y ago
      Yes, they had 4-core CPUs in 2006, and still have 4-core CPUs in 2013 (with a few rare xeon 6-cores).
      - skorgu 13y ago
        You can get 8-core Xeons (X7550 to pick a random one) and 16-core Opterons (6378 for example). More importantly 2013 Xeons do much more per clock cycle than 2006 Xeons (and 2013 Opterons for that matter). Improvements in pipelining, branch prediction, caches, etc are harder to nail down to one number like clock speed or core count but can be huge contributors to real-world performance.
  - wtallis 13y ago
    http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/701?vs=191 http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/701?vs=191 That's a big enough difference to count as significant. Especially when you consider that Intel's been lowering their power budget and spending larger portions of their transistor budget on the integrated GPU. The Pentiums on the market in 1995 were 10-12W, and the Pentium 2s on the market in 1998 were 30-45W followed by a die shrink that brought power back down to 20-30W.
hkolek 13y ago
It's wrong. It's not the computer power that's doubling, it's the number of transistors. Big difference. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moores_law http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moores_law
Ilverin 13y ago
The "Moore's Law" used in the article "that the computing power available for a given price doubles about every 18 months" is correct, but it is a slight redefinition of the actual "Moore's Law". In any case, the costs are going down, the number of cores are growing, and, more importantly, computing power is not restricted to CPUs (see GPUs/APUs).

"Moore’s law—that the computing power available for a given price doubles about every 18 months—continues to apply. " Then why are Intel desktop CPU's not getting any better the last 3 years?

sliverstorm 13y ago

Because the article, like just about damn everyone else, completely misunderstands Moore's law, which actually observes that the number of transistors we can fit on a chip doubles every two years. Transistor count does not directly correlate to performance.

moarzLaw 13y ago
Wrong again. Moore's law is actually not any kind of law at all. It's merely a business practice adopted by Intel, which they attempt to adhere to. The fact that they refer to it as a law, and that journalists around the world parrot their term, is all merely a magical marketing sales pitch. They TRY to double the transistor count on a periodic basis, and, when they do, suddenly, they've got a newer, better, more expensive thing to market and sell. Wowee! The future is such a miracle!
- icebraining 13y ago
  "Moore's law" is the name, it doesn't matter if it's a real law or not.
- guard-of-terra 13y ago
  If they won't try to double the transistor count, then somebody else will come and eat their lunch. Trying to make better products is the only viable strategy for them. Moore's law is about their success in doing so. Your car's horse power doesn't increase twofold every 1,5 years neither its gas consumption decreases, but with transistors it actually happens.
- sliverstorm 13y ago
  It's not a law, nor is it a business practice. Read what I said again: Moore's law ... OBSERVES that the number of transistors we can fit on a chip doubles every two years. If you are trying to argue with me calling it "Moore's law", you are too late. You missed the boat. That's what it is called, law or not.
  - moarzLaw 13y ago
    > Hey, guys, I bet every 18 months we can draw a picture on a thin slice of substrate, and make it twice as small as we did 18 months ago. Let's call it a law, and proclaim that it "drives the economy." > Jesus H. Christ, Gordon, that's a fucking fantastic idea! Get marketing on the phone. Holy shit, we're gonna be fucking rich. Yeah, okay, "observe" whatever you want. Sorry to contradict you on a website. Don't forget to down vote this comment as well. Boo hoo.
    - sliverstorm 13y ago
      I "observed" nothing. That's what Moore's law says, not me. P.S. HN doesn't let me downvote your comments, because you are replying to my comments. But, I suppose it's impossible I'm the only one that disagrees with you, so I must be hacking the website.

mapleoin 13y ago

you misread computing power as CPU clock speed

Aardwolf 13y ago
No I didn't. Intel desktop CPUs did not gain a significant amount of computing power the last 3 years. Compare 1995 CPUs to 1998. Now compare 2010 CPUs to 2013.
- mapleoin 13y ago
  think parallel
  - Aardwolf 13y ago
    Yes, they had 4-core CPUs in 2006, and still have 4-core CPUs in 2013 (with a few rare xeon 6-cores).
    - skorgu 13y ago
      You can get 8-core Xeons (X7550 to pick a random one) and 16-core Opterons (6378 for example). More importantly 2013 Xeons do much more per clock cycle than 2006 Xeons (and 2013 Opterons for that matter). Improvements in pipelining, branch prediction, caches, etc are harder to nail down to one number like clock speed or core count but can be huge contributors to real-world performance.
- wtallis 13y ago
  http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/701?vs=191 http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/701?vs=191 That's a big enough difference to count as significant. Especially when you consider that Intel's been lowering their power budget and spending larger portions of their transistor budget on the integrated GPU. The Pentiums on the market in 1995 were 10-12W, and the Pentium 2s on the market in 1998 were 30-45W followed by a die shrink that brought power back down to 20-30W.

hkolek 13y ago

It's wrong. It's not the computer power that's doubling, it's the number of transistors. Big difference. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moores_law http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moores_law

Ilverin 13y ago

The "Moore's Law" used in the article "that the computing power available for a given price doubles about every 18 months" is correct, but it is a slight redefinition of the actual "Moore's Law". In any case, the costs are going down, the number of cores are growing, and, more importantly, computing power is not restricted to CPUs (see GPUs/APUs).