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What Applications Will Drive System Performance?

Posted by Cliff on from the games-are-an-obvious-answer...what-else? dept.

Foredecker asks: "Companies like AMD, Intel, NVIDIA, ATI and others are continuing to drive silicon performance to new levels. Of course, every day computing (basic web browsing, email, word processing, spreadsheets, personal finance, and the like) don't require a Intel 3.2Ghz P4 with Hyperthreading or a AMD Athlon 64 FX and their associated platforms. Of course, there are apps that will leverage today's high performance platforms. Games are an obvious category, as is video editing. I'm looking for apps that will be widely adopted and will drive volume hardware shipments. Things that come to mind are: effective, speaker independent voice recognition, accurate repeatable object recognition in digital photos and videos (or from live feeds such as web cams). What other application categories are there that will drive the need for bigger-faster-better hardware platforms?"

10 of 106 comments (clear)

  1. Current demand isn't abating any time soon. by Mr.+Darl+McBride · · Score: 3, Funny
    Have no fear: High end systems have a long and brilliant future as penis extensions for spreadsheet-jockeying corporate accountants. These tiny men will continue to demand 3.2GHz CPUs and ATI FireGL 9600s to make clippy the fastest little bugger possible. (In this case, we can only assume that he wants to give Clippy, his only friend, his own monitor to make Excel that much more of a magical happy friend land.)

    I mean, what the hell? This isn't the first time I've seen this kind of thing. Why are the guys who are hired to pinch pennies in corporate always the ones who aren't happy until their toilets flush with freshly imported springwater?

  2. Windows? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    It's quite the resource hog.

    1. Re:Windows? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      I see you haven't had the opportunity to experience Gnome....

  3. As in all things.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    Porn will lead us.

    Massive amounts of storage, and fantastic amounts of cheap processing power will lead to a generation of smart capable web spiders capable of autonimously downloading and indexing porn while avoiding banners, advertisments, pop ups, P2P spam or crap-floods and duplicates.

    The unibiquitious nature of regular porn will make it tame and uninteresting through sheer availability. This will lead a secret cabal of Japanese scientists (and school girls) to create ultra-porn which will require consumers to be at least a half century old. As the shocking depictions will require a cushion of life's experiences at least that substantial to avoid harmful or even debilitating side effects.

    In the year two thousand....

    1. Re:As in all things.... by AMystery · · Score: 2, Funny

      But you said you wanted to avoid crap-floods... What else would require japanese school girls and a minimum middle aged audience?

  4. The same apps that have always driven performance by skinfitz · · Score: 3, Funny

    Games and pr0n.

    And pr0n games.

  5. MS Office by stinkyelf · · Score: 2, Funny

    subject says it all

  6. Animated paperclips by cabalamat2 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Animated 3-dimensional paperclips, obviously.

  7. I can't run Gnome by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    I can't run Gnome, which is why I mentioned Windows. I do not yet have a 6 ghz Colosseon (AMD chip) system with 4 tera ram and the 500 gig HD space required to run Gnome adecquately.

  8. Inefficient or unintelligent coding by tchdab1 · · Score: 2, Funny

    How about the extension of lazy coding, coding by automated consultant or AI coding?
    Theoretically, code gets bigger as the interface gets easier (practically, it seems to just get bigger no matter the interface). As the coding interface is progressively automated, the code can theoretically get progressively larger.

    Vision: in 10 years Google has given rise to Hackle, where you can write a simple request for any program and have it ready to download in 5 seconds. But the result is Huge.

    Yow - I've got to lay off the Christmas cheer....