4 ms·
The article doesn't go into it in depth, but I think the answer is that chip makers hit a wall somewhere over 3Ghz range where it became difficult to ramp up cp
by trustfundbaby 12y ago
The article doesn't go into it in depth, but I think the answer is that chip makers hit a wall somewhere over 3Ghz range where it became difficult to ramp up cpu frequency without spending ridiculous sums on cooling the processor so it could operate properly (you'll notice that even now, the fastest intel chips come in at the 3.1-3.2 Ghz range ... theres a reason for that)
I was big into building computers during the cpu race between AMD/Intel back in the late 90's early 2000's and the Intel Pentium 4 processor line is notable for pushing the envelope from the the high 2Ghz range all the way up to the 3.4Ghz and 3.6ghz (I still have a 3.4Ghz chip sitting in my home office ... those were the days!)
Wikipedia does a great job of chronicling what happened with the Pentium 4 line here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentium_4 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentium_4 with hints to what I've just alluded to above
"Overclocking early stepping Northwood cores yielded a startling phenomenon. While core voltage approaching 1.7 V and above would often allow substantial additional gains in overclocking headroom, the processor would slowly (over several months or even weeks) become more unstable over time with a degradation in maximum stable clock speed before dying and becoming totally unusable"
It was after their failures with the brute force attempt at higher cpu cycles that Intel finally went a different way with initially the Pentium M line (code named Dothan and Banias) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentium_M http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentium_M and eventually the Core duo/Core series that they've since built on.
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- habitue 12y agoBut comparing the same processor, higher clock speed means faster processing. And, to a lesser extent but still usefully, clock speed is a good indication of relative speed in the same processor line. Let's not totally throw the baby out with the bathwater, just because the processor speed on different CPU organizations is not 100% equivalent. It's very often times a good proxy.
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- jl6 12y ago> Using clock speed as a simple way to determine which CPU is faster than another is just plain wrong. But neither of the posts you've replied to in this subthread have recommended that.
- josho 12y agoIf not clock rate, then what measurement? CPUs are sold by clock rate and processor type, e.g an i5 at 3Ghz. So, yes you are technically correct, but clock speed has been the practical way that consumers know to measure speed.
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- nirvdrum 12y agoTrue. But how many people run a single application at a time on a desktop?
- sliverstorm 12y agoHe's not comparing performance, he is pointing out that frequency has been fairly stagnant since the very early 2000's
- personZ 12y agoYour haughty response is so incredibly out of place that I have to think that you replied to the wrong post or something. But there you have quotes from the parent post, so you must simply have a trigger finger for trying to point out that someone is wrong. But they aren't. There is nothing they said that is wrong in any way. Indeed, you continued this with replies to various other people where again your replies barely relate to what they are saying. What is your motive?
- sliverstorm 12y agothe processor would slowly (over several months or even weeks) become more unstable over time with a degradation in maximum stable clock speed before dying and becoming totally unusable This is an electromigration[0] and/or hot carrier injection[1] problem. Both are exacerbated by temperature and voltage, but are not the reason chips are stuck at 3-4GHz. One actual limiter is pipeline depth. Deeper pipelines is an easy way to enable an increase in frequency. The problem in a nutshell- the longer the pipeline, the greater the overhead & the larger the penalty of branch misses. [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromigration http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromigration [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot-carrier_injection http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot-carrier_injection
- zokier 12y ago> you'll notice that even now, the fastest intel chips come in at the 3.1-3.2 Ghz range while this nitpick does not change the overall argument, Intels high-end has hovered in 3.5-3.7 GHz area for some time now, with "turbo" hitting 4 GHz.