The future of the processor - where is it headed?

[sash1]

This article, if you will, is my take on the future AMD and Intel have in store for us for future processors.

The present:

As of now, it would seem that AMD has the speed crown, although I am sure all of you know that Intel has been holding back. The overclockability of their Willamette and Tualitin has been phenomenal and only further proves the fact that Intel could boost their processors to the next level but have chosen to withhold and let their Northwood take care of business. This new processor, utilizing a .13-micron architecture, may have increased upon the speed of the Willamette, but the Northwood still cannot compare to AMD?s new 2000+ installment of their Palomino. While it may beat AMD?s new XP in a few tests, the extra cash that comes out of your wallet is hardly worth it. Just recently, Intel raised their Pentium III Tualitin to 1.4GHz and they will raise it again the second half of this year to 1.53GHz, but I doubt this will accomplish much more than to add increased commotion to the marketplace.

As for the budget market, it would again seem AMD has the crown. The new installments; Morgan for Duron, Tualitin for Celeron, have added performance but not price. For some, even, the lower non-palomino Athlons could become the budget-processors. And the upcoming Appaloosa core for Duron seems even more inviting.

The future:

The problems with the current mainstream processor market are abundant. Intel is priced too high, but they still sell. AMD has moved to a new naming system, which seems rather deceiving. Then again, Intel has been eluding the public with their many hertz but long pipeline and less IPC; the reason why AMD is faster. So what will be happening within these upcoming development years?

The processor world is a large ocean, and we have only managed to get our feet wet; some to their ankles. Both AMD and Intel are planning on hitting the 3GHz mark by the end of this year. But is that kind of speed really needed? The current bottleneck for video games is at the peak of the Athlon core?1.4GHz?and most won?t require more for other programs. If you do, its worthwhile to get a dual system; utilizing the SMP Duron, for those on a budget, or the Athlon MP (Palomino core). So why have AMD and Intel chosen to boost the speed up so high? Well, it seems rather strange to me. Intel will be releasing a new core, the Prestonia along with new Itaniums; and AMD, the Thoroughbred, Barton and Hammer. The Prestonia will be on the soon-to-be-more-common .13-micron architecture, as will the Thoroughbred and Barton. The Hammer will be on the .13-micron manufacturing process, but is aimed to hit the .10- or .09-micron stage. All cores will be going to 3GHz by the end of this year, and then beyond by the next. AMD is planning on the 3400 by the end of this year; and Intel, the 3GHz marker. Next year, AMD will be reaching 4000 and beyond, and I?m guessing Intel will be headed for the next big step, 4GHz. But the big question is, how much will they cost and will anyone require this much power? What programs will benefit from such advances in speed? Dual systems seem to cover all the high-tech areas?CAD, video editing, et-cetera?and the Palomino and Willamette and now Northwood seem to provide ample speed to do anything else. And for high-class servers, the new installments for the Pentium III and Itanium should cover that. Gaming is iffy. I don?t see any new games that can benefit from the extra speed. Just beyond the horizon, a 3GHz processor will find nothing but an empty void is how I see it. But whenever something new comes out, it will meet its match. Intel and AMD are running a race too fast for the crowd to keep up with, and I only hope the finish line holds a challenge for them.

-Anik Mukerjee

Respect to my friend Erik Andrews for his help on this.

Edit - Mixed up Coppermine with Tualitin, thanks Rand.

 

[AGodspeed]

Higher and higher MHz are a result of pure and simple competition. Competition will never stop, even if the result of that competition is unneeded performance potential. Besides, there will always be people who will buy into the latest and greatest product, whether or not they need that huge amount of power.

If it weren?t for AMD's fiercely competing line of Athlon and Duron processors, we probably would be seeing some of the first Pentium 4 processors today, and likely not anywhere close to 2.2GHz.

IMO, it's foolish to think that progress will stop just because we don't need the benefits of that progress now. No one knows how the future will turn out, we may just need that power someday.

 

[audiophan]

i could sure use that extra processing power...curn out a few more eccp dp or seti wu

 

[splice]

People where saying the same thing about the 1GHz proc.

 

[Idontcare]

Why more speed? Well, personally I have some modeling calculations that I would like to do but will easily take >1 year on my 13-node Beowulf cluster composed of 800MHz Athlons and I would really like these types of calculations to take ~5 minutes. I don't just like Moore's Law, my livelyhood depends on it... The sooner we hit terahertz chips the better!

-Phil

 

[sash1]

<< People where saying the same thing about the 1GHz proc. >>

True. And definitely, it has met its match. For the purposes of gaming, these processors will do nothing. But I suppose for more technical apps it will come in handy. But then where will that put dual systems?

~Aunix

 

[CTho9305]

<<

<< People where saying the same thing about the 1GHz proc. >>

True. And definitely, it has met its match. For the purposes of gaming, these processors will do nothing. But I suppose for more technical apps it will come in handy. But then where will that put dual systems?

~Aunix >>


I disagree. When we want to have truly realistic-looking games, more cpu power will be required. Even on super-fast machines with high-end graphics cards at low resolution (to not make the video card be the bottleneck) things can result in framerate drops.

 

[Bovinicus]

<< The processor world is a large ocean, and we have only managed to get our feet wet; some to their ankles. >>

The statement about the ankles is completely ambiguous. You sound like a politician. =)

 

[Agent004]

Remember this, the more advance we are, the more we are expecting from the future cpus. SMT may be a common feature that will be taken for granted in the future. Similarly we also expect the latest generation of nVidia /ATI graphic to perform so and so calculations, output million/billion of polies.

As long there is the speed, there will be software which can takes its advantage(speech to text comes to mind).

 

[MisterDuck]

I think a lot of it has to do with what exactly you're doing with your computer. In all honesty, most office and home users who don't do graphics work, extensive gaming, CAD, or other computationally demanding jobs can do just fine with a P2-400 (if that). With a decent video card, you can game at 800x600 and sometimes 1024x768 in 32 bit color on a p2-400 - it's by no means an "optimal" gaming rig, but it's entirely possible. I don't know why the hell anyone would want 200+ fps in quake 3 anyhow, since your monitor can't even display that many in a second.

Case in point - my dad mostly uses his computer for buisness and communicating. He routinely accesses his shell account so he can keep in touch with people (why he doesn't just use outlook, I'll never know. I like UNIX as much as the next guy, but I just don't see the practicality), writes up documents, and does general office tasks - and he's running a Pentium 133 with 32 megs of ram and a 1.3 gig hard drive.

Still, he also is looking at getting a top of the line computer to do fractal generation - which is a highly computationally demanding process, especially considering that some of the generations he's doing take somewhere on the order of thousands of hours of CPU time on the average desktop. Likewise, my brother does rendering with 3d programs; thus, a Pentium 133 wouldn't be suitable for him. Considering some of those renderings take upwards of a few days on a 1 ghz duron, I don't think a pentium 133 would even be remotely useable for him (I'd guess it'd take a few weeks to render those scenes on a Pentium 133).


To even further drive the point home, I have another friend who does extensive rendering - and his work essentially has a huge linux driven render farm with something ridiculous like 64 nodes - and some of their render times for scenes are on the order of DAYS. I bet doubling or tripling their CPU power would be a much appreciated increase in speed.


...On top of that, operating systems are getting more robust (translation: bloated) and I think the games that will come out in the next few years are going to push hardware like you've never seen before. Quake 3, CS, RFCW, and Unreal are going to be outdated here in a while, IMO - to the point where my p2-400 analogy isn't going to work at all.



AGodspeed had a good point too - competition is going to inherently drive up speeds, and consumers probably shouldn't complain about it. I think software developers in the very near future are going to be utilizing this drastic increase in speed in a number of ways.

 

[MisterDuck]

One more thing: at my work, we're running three IBM E-series mainframes, all maxed out with CPU's and ram - and we're still maxed out. We need more computational power than IBM can currently offer in anything less than a custom built supercomputer.

So in the enterprise environment, there is also a need for more CPU power.

 

[Bovinicus]

It seems like every time new computer hardware comes out a few people ask similar questions. I bet people said this years ago with the Pentium 3 debuted. "We aren't stressing current state of the art hardware, why get anything faster?" People always wonder about this kind of thing. Well the idea is that with more CPU power, we can have more robust and powerful software. Technology drives technology. Don't complain, embrace. =)

 

[tecumseh]

"As long there is the speed, there will be software which can takes its advantage(speech to text comes to mind)."

In my opinion, this will play a huge part in processing speed. Say for instance you want to buy a processor on-line. We'll instead of using the keyboard and mouse to obtain your information, you'll just go up to the computer and tell it to pull up the type of processor, cost of processor, info on processor, etc.... And it will do it in seconds!! But only the fastest processor speeds will be able to achieve this.

Also, if our houses are going to be computerized (centeralized systems) than we will need insanely fast processors. You might walk into the kitchen and you would tell the computer to fix you dinner. Or how about asking the computer to do your daily routines around the house while your at work. We will need insanely fast processors for this type of demanding input.

When gaming is concerned, if we are ever going to reach virtual reality than we are going to need insanely fast processors. No doubt about it. I doubt a 4.0 Pent. 5 (or whatever) is going to be able to render a makebelieve world.


These are just some examples of why I believe we will need insanely fast processor speeds.

 

[JellyBaby]

The future is more speed, plain and simple. That's what sells processors, that's what makes them stand out vs. the competition. Had Intel not had competition you would still see a drive for faster chips because that's what sells processors!

We will always benefit from abundant cpu power. Few can predict the Killer Applications which often need a lot of hp. Some say speech recognition/interfaces are the next Big Thing. Speech takes cpu. If and when pcs are programmed to exhibit some really good AI that will certainly take cpu, too. But we won't get there unless the speed is available.

You think a P4 2.2 will run a Holodeck?

 

[HaVoC]

<< Also, if our houses are going to be computerized (centeralized systems) than we will need insanely fast processors. You might walk into the kitchen and you would tell the computer to fix you dinner. Or how about asking the computer to do your daily routines around the house while your at work. We will need insanely fast processors for this type of demanding input. >>

I disagree completely with this thought. Home automation's current bottleneck is NOT processor speed, but rather STANDARDS for interoperability and the expensive of installing wiring infrastructure into an existing home. I read somewhere that the new YF-22 Raptor fighter has the equivalent of a 486 processor for the central computer, yet can still keep up with the quickest human pilot.

The processing of inputs would not really be that intensive. Rendering, fractals, server apps ARE.

 

[Innoka]

The "article" (perhaps he means essay) doesn't actually express the direction of the title, so he loses marks already. Real discussion of the future of the processor involves prospective technologies and roles. That's what the title means. What does the essay address? Short-term speed improvements of conventional design brands in a few established roles.

Computers will have some problem mimicking our own processes since even psychologists do not seem able to describe them. Controlling radar systems and control surfaces is comparitively trifling. Anyway, computers do make you the dinner. Have you seen a microwave?

 

[Giscardo]

Processor speed has become less important for now. But rest assured that in the future your games will not run fast enough on that old 5ghz cpu with 8 megs of full speed cache. You'll need to get a new cpu to take advantage of your shiny new bitboys video card.

Other applications like voice recognition, video compression/decompression will take up more cpu cycles. Games could have more advanced AI, more precision (in wolfenstein i sometimes snipe a guy and kill him but the crosshairs weren't even aimed at his body, more like 2 feet to the left of him). Realistic physics (i mean real, body parts being blown off, if a guy is killed in counterstrike and part of him is over a box or some stairs or something, the body should rest naturally like it would in real life, i don't want to see my opponent's dead body lying perfectly horizontal with one leg on a crate, and the rest floating in the air like a stiff board). Doom3 should use more cpu cycles then today's games as well, but i'm sure it's still more dependant on cpu speed (otherwise what would be the point of having specialized 3d hardware). Once games take more advantage of the advanced geometry architecture available in today's video cards, this should add more overhead to the processor as well thereyby using more cpu cycles, but we'll be glad because your games will look better and better. We wont stop until we get a realistic game. Does anyone think we will get photorealistic games in our lifetime?

 

[BFG10K]

True. And definitely, it has met its match. For the purposes of gaming, these processors will do nothing.

I definitely disagree with that. In fact a 1 GHz processor is pretty much the minimum you need for good 3D gaming these days.

Processors will continue to get faster and faster and games, simulators, compilers and scientific programs will continue to take all the CPU power they can get.

 

[Soccerman]

i could sure use that extra processing power...curn out a few more eccp dp or seti wu

that's exactly why we need more CPU power! some applications might not benefit, but these ones WILL.

I definitely disagree with that. In fact a 1 GHz processor is pretty much the minimum you need for good 3D gaming these days.

ok then. are you talking about maintaining acceptable framerates? say we're playing Max Payne, I would agree (at least partly) with you.

however even those games don't move all the T&L to the video card which sucks the big one (otherwise why would it require so much CPU power for 'acceptable' framerates).

also, it depends on the OS you're running. with windows 98 the requirements for CPU power are easily enough for a P2 400 with plenty (256 megs and up) of RAM to run office. I would not recommend anything higher than that. if you want to add gaming to that computer's abilities, then you would probably need a faster CPU ( I think 600mhz Athlon or P3 minimum) and more importantly (with newer games) a brand spanking new video card. why? well we all know the CPU is doing alot of T&L calculations (otherwise why would a Kyro 2 have ever been considered over a Geforce besides it's price).

with win2K, you automatically have to have hardware that is supported in it, and plenty of RAM as well (again I recommend 256 megs with it becuase I start up with about 80 megs used, and never go past 120 megs, but that's only when surfing. this is the OS of choise for people who work with large files), so I would consider it to be in line with the requirements of todays games (when it comes to RAM). the CPU power it requires I have yet to figure out (cause I've only used it on a Duron @866mhz), but I didn't notice any speed difference compared to windows 98 /w 256 megs PC 133 SDRAM).

so what are CPU's going to be used for when games become more T&L dependant? physics. I don't think that the CPU requirements will go down with the newer games, nor will they go up (unless you have a non T&L card) all that much.

so what will the newer CPUs be used for? well we all know windows XP was made for lots of RAM and CPU power, so there's one OS that will benefit.

Divx encoding will benefit. pretty much anything that scales with CPU power (like distributed projects) will definately take advantage of the newfound power. I want to try out some beowolf projects for Seti@home

 

[Goosemaster]

Anyone played Resident evil for PS1?

remember the cg scenes..?


ANyone seen Lost In space the movie...?

Final Fantasy...?
Toy Story....

THe list goes on...

Imagine the day when the entire game or program has those graphics..and ONLY THAT QUALITY...not just in the cutscenes...

I remeber seeing those scenes, and even Tekken 3, but the games looking horrible in comparison(still ok but no where near the cg)

One day we will have something like that...

 

[sash1]

<< True. And definitely, it has met its match. For the purposes of gaming, these processors will do nothing.

I definitely disagree with that. In fact a 1 GHz processor is pretty much the minimum you need for good 3D gaming these days. >>


LOL, BFG, how did I know you were going to comment on one of the statements about faster processors and gaming?

 

[Nova101]

"Intel is priced too high, but they still sell"

Is it? How does the price of their processors now compare to their processors 1 year ago? 2 years ago? 5 years ago? Are they higher, lower or the same now. It would also be fair to not include prices for the weeks right after release since those prices are heavily inflated by market pressures (the same is true for everything the week after it comes out).

The flip side to the quoted statement is, is AMD too low? Right now the top of the line XP 2000+ is $302 at newegg.com. This is approximately exact same price as a top of the line nVidia Geforce3 Ti 5000 video card. I say what? A video card with a GPU, RAM, the card, etc is the same price as a processor? Wow. Are you sure Intel is too expensive? Or is their top of the line stuff a tad overpriced? Or is AMD undercutting Intel to gain market share?

Not sure who you are writing that article to since it has an obvious anti-Intel twist, thus your opinion of the future is tainted by your obvious bias. You are also missing several issues about why people buy the equipment people do. For instance, the price/performance issue. People scream that night and day about AMD whenever Intel has a good chip out. I think its funny to hear people say dont buy overpriced Intel products! and then they buy an expensive Asus/Abit mobo (those boards are more expensive using the same chipset than other mobo makers like Epox) and a very expensive Geforce3 Ti 500 video card (the Geforce3 Ti 200 is CLEARLY the price/performance winner). Price performance? NO WAY. They are buying AMD because everyone else is on the net while many other people are buying Intel systems. Then the person can sit back and flap their lips about how stupid people that buy Intel systems are. Their are not buying AMD systems because their cheap (well, some are...) they are buying them to feel superior. This is not a new human attitude or things like BMW, Mercedes, First Class seats on planes and the KKK would not exist. These things have nothing to do with comfort or hating other people but feeling superior than your fellow man.

Another thing you have failed to consider it chipsets. The stability of the chipset is proportional to the stability of the system. I think many people chose "intel" so they can build a system around an intel motherboard rather than build one around a VIA motherboard. That is the way I pick my systems. I am about to build a system and for me the choice is not Intel vs. AMD but Intel (850,845) vs Via (KT266A). Eventually, I will pick the motherboard I deem stable and build my system around it. Think about that issue. If AMD was 10 times faster than Intel and 50% of the cost, but your mobo was unstable, would you build a system around that system? Some people would tolerate the instability for the speed. Now what if AMD is about the same speed and 2/3 of the price and unstable? Murkier decision. And stability itself is a relative thing. Some people think their system is stable if it crashes only once per day. Others think once per month is unstable. Some people like a $5 bottle of wine while another would call it swill and only drink a $20 wine.

My 2 cents...