Just stop for a sec and reflect on this

[17451]

Not so long ago I had my IBM computer with 25 Mhz 486-processor and was jealous of people having 33 Mhz!!!

Now we are talking about 1,6 Ghz, that is 64 times higher!!!
THAT IS DEVELOPMENT

In 5 years will be looking back and wonder how we could live with that slow 1,4 Ghz processor!

MAN, THAT IS INCREDIBLE!

 

[hkSurfer]

this is what we call technology!

Happy? Sad?

 

[Judgement]

Yeah it is pretty amazing, but I don't think it can go on forever. Lots of things have developed extremely fast, to later have much fewer advancements later on..

Look at cars, they haven't changed much in the last 10 years..becoming a little more gas efficient etc but overall there is no major differences.

I'm sure computers will keep advancing at an amazing rate for awhile to come, but with the economy starting to fail and the lack of a need for faster processors that currently exist for most users..there will definately be a slowdown. When everyone is running at 1.5ghz or higher and most applications can be run extremely well at 700mhz, do you think people will continue to upgrade? When they don't upgrade, AMD and Intel will be forced to cut back and then it will all go downhill from there..

 

[K_Factor]

Moore's Law says that processing power will double every 18 months, and it has held true for many years. The law does not mean that raw core speed will double every 18 months. Changes in cpu architectures over time usually allow them to do more work per clock cycle (exception, Pentium 4 ).
I hope that helps.

 

[Smbu]

Sooner, or later though software will start to catch up to technology again and that "slow" 700mhz just won't be able to cut it at some point and after that the "slow" 1.4Ghz machine will also be too slow at some point.

 

[Grminalac]

Yes, computers seems pretty amazing, but I am a bit dissapointed with how slow they actually are. Try using norton ghost to compress your hard drive, or try ripping video and compressing it from a DVD. It takes a long time, too long. I just installed 3D Mark 2001 and I regrettably say the results were slightly dissapointing. I am quite sure that even a pentium 4 at 1600 or a tbird at 1300 paired with a great video card won't be able to pull off 65-70 frames per second needed to make newer DX8 games shines.
The major difference is that now common activities such as writing a report, playing some mp3's ect.. does not benefit at all from a faster computer. Whereas a few years back microsoft office choked a slower computer.

 

[Grminalac]

What pleases me is the hands on ability computers now have, the diversity that you didn't find when making components was incredible expensive. We have people experimenting with linux. A lot of members tinker with their machine on a daily basis, whereas a few years ago it was not really feasable, One might make their computer 33mhz faster or cool it better, but there was no point to it. It seems unfortunate that the day could come where basically all data is stored online and computers are just terminals, kind of like a web tv (but able to do much much more than even top of the line systems can do now) It seems as if we could be heading toward that direction. I believe for the most part large companies such as microsoft are trying to push towards and online dependant possibly completely online operating system. (possibly because it would stop a lot of pirating for the common person)

 

[emjem]

Before long 2GHz won't be enough to meet our needs.

There's much yet to be done. For example in AI and virtual imaging. Things will come that we can't even yet imagine. Think StarTrek.

 

[17451]

Yea, and we do not even have to talk about DX8 games.
Running Flanker on a AMD 1200-266 with 2100 RDRAM and an Ultra card gives like 35 maybe 40 FPS at 1024-resolution with all the goodies on. I won't even mention FSAA!