Have computers stopped getting faster?

IronWolf

bluenoseam wrote: »

There is a limit to how fast you can percieve the computer running, especially based upon the technology you're using. I'm about to upgrade & it's fair to say that it will be a mighty upgrade from where I am just now - albeit on a 7 year old machine. Clock speed on every major component will be faster by far & as I'll be using an SSD it will boot up in a matter of seconds as opposed to the minute or so it takes today. Faster yes, but in theory it will only be the calculating power of the processor which will be likely to improve, the visible running of the machine on a daily level will be indistinguishable.

(What won't be difficult to see will be the tears running down my face when the parts are being ordered - it's got cheaper but it's still not fun to know I'll be spending more on a new computer than I will for a week on holiday!)

Yeah but a good computer will give you years of pleasure (well, will help avoid years of aggravation)

One thing I've learnt is that you shouldn't be cheap with things you will be using on a daily basis like a computer or phone, you'll regret it for years!

dan2097

Taken out of context:
" In the past decade, though, it has become a case of using more chips, less efficiently. Chip speed stalled sometime around 2004."
is either misleading or wrong. CPU clock speeds stalled then at around 3.6Ghz (Pentium 4) but the actual performance of processors continued to improve due to efficiency improvements i.e. at the same clock speed, using one thread, a modern processor is substantially faster. Admittedly such improvements have been far more incremental since 2008 (Intel core i series released); now scaling of performance relies on the addition of more cores which puts greater burden on software developers. The additional cores are still part of the same chip though...
The inefficiency argument could be in relation to
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amdahl%27s_law
...although if efficiency refers to power efficiency modern processors are very power efficient, i.e. power consumption is high when the CPU is being used fully, but low if the CPU is actually not being used much.

quidsinquentin

I don't think speed has increased perceptibly in the last five years or so (I need a new PC every couple of years due to heavy use) but stability has improved over the last 10 years imo.

Tbh, I'd trade some speed for more improvement in stability. But not to the point where I'd notice a slowdown.

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

quidsinquentin wrote: »

I need a new PC every couple of years due to heavy use

I used to as well.

Then I bought a Mac....

quidsinquentin

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

I used to as well.

Then I bought a Mac....

And there was me thinking a Mac was a PC.

Who knew?

Pennywise

If you use "older" basic/simple programs on a new computer, the speed difference is very clear. I use some fairly simple/basic software programs without fancy graphics etc and they run a lot faster on newer computers. I have several PCs in my office, ranging from one that's 15 years old, to one I bought last year, and I have the same simple programs on them all. The same basic programs run faster on each newer PC. One in particular always took 30 seconds to load, and still does on the old PC, but it up and running in just 2 or 3 seconds on the newest one.

But, if we compare an old version of Excel running on the 15 year old model, to the 2013 version of Excel running on my 2014 PC, they're both equally slow at loading, calculating, etc.

So, yes, as processor speeds and memories have got bigger/faster, the programs have grown and become more complex, so things aren't quicker at all - but you can do more and it looks prettier in the same time!

Faster processors and larger memories have also given the programmers the licence to write more inefficiently. In the old days, when speed and memory were at a premium, programmers needed to write efficiently so as not to waste resources. Now they have a licence to be inefficient and sloppy because high processing speed and huge memories cover for them. I fondly remember my early days of using a ZX80 that basically limited you to one page of coding per program - it was amazing what you could achieve by efficient programming!

Nada666

quidsinquentin wrote: »

And there was me thinking a Mac was a PC.

Who knew?

Don't be tiresome. That's about as interesting as asking why they're using a raincoat as a computer.

Vocabulary is interpreted in context. You no more need to qualify and specify Microsoft Windows personal computer than you do Hoover vacuum cleaner.

InvestInPoker

TEN years ago, computers stopped getting faster

Utterly ridiculous and quite frankly stupid. There are new breakthroughs happening every day due to exponential increases in computer power, things that could not have been 10 years ago.

It is a certainty in my opinion that in 10 years time we will have computer power on our phones greater than that available to the computer science departments of today. The human race will continue to evolve and our technology will continue to become better year on year.

artbaron

InvestInPoker wrote: »

Utterly ridiculous and quite frankly stupid.

And that's all there is to say on the matter. Such a terrible misinterpretation of facts isn't worthy of further discussion. The author appears to have taken one insignificant measure of processor power and used it to make unfounded claims. I guess these journalists need a unique spin on their articles even if they have to make it up.

paddyrg

Technology is getting faster, but not at the entry-level as much as the cutting-edge. What's happening instead is that crappy machines get cheaper, so perception of 'technology' gets skewed towards the bottom end. Software bloat is also a real issue - but that's also because what we try to do with it bloats. Websites in 2015 are rich, immersive, stream HD video etc., games, video editing etc are all possible for the masses instead of being dedicated machines.

We still think and work at the same speed so spreadsheets have a few extra frills and we don't perceive the extra speed