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I was a little surprised that it was called a myth that CPUs are not getting faster. CPUs may still be getting a little faster, but they are way off the exponen
by mtdewcmu 12y ago
I was a little surprised that it was called a myth that CPUs are not getting faster. CPUs may still be getting a little faster, but they are way off the exponential curve that they were on at one time. They look like they're asymptotically approaching some constant now. It certainly wouldn't hurt your code at all if you make the assumption that CPUs are no longer getting faster. Your code would probably be better.
- InclinedPlane 12y agoCPUs are still getting a lot faster, at a geometric rate. But they are doing so at a different rate than they did in the '90s, where CPUS were getting enormously faster year over year. Here's a chart (note that the vertical scale is logarithmic): http://preshing.com/images/integer-perf.png http://preshing.com/images/integer-perf.png In the '90s processors were doubling in performance every 20 months or so (i.e. a factor of 64x per decade). Since about 2005 processors have been doubling in performance about every 43 months. This is much slower than the insanely fast rate during the '90s but it is still very fast and still on an exponential curve.
- lloeki 12y ago> Here's a chart Interesting that in order to compare apples to apples it's single threaded. That means for a back of the envelope estimation of ideally parallel loads performance, the graph goes "through the roof" since it's exactly twice on my laptop or four times on my desktop.
- cma 12y agoThe graph is logarithmic, so it might not go entirely through the roof.
- mtdewcmu 12y agoWhy does it stop at 2011? The last that I've heard of Haswell was that it was a paltry improvement, and that core will be around for the next couple years.
- InclinedPlane 12y agoThat was just the most thorough chart I'd found. Rest assured, the trends have continued since then.