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Great Moments in Microprocessor History
An anonymous reader writes "The microprocessor changed the world: how did we get from the first 4-bit models in the 1970s to today's 64-bit multicore monsters? This article covers the history of the micro from the vacuum tube to today's dual-core multithreaded madnes."
The jump from the 6502 to the 68000 (a scant four years apart), was a huge one. Ditto for many of the x86 generations. But performance has leveled off quite obviously in the last few years. The difference between a 3GHz P4 and a 3.6GHz P4 is fairly small, as both tend to be memory bound for real-world applications. And at the same time the power consumption for the 3.6GHz has increased more than the performance.
So what's going to be the next big leap for desktops and notebooks? 64-bit processors are here, yes, but all else remaining the same these run *slower* than 32-bit processors, because the cache effects of 64-bit pointers more than offsets the ability to do 64-bit integer math (note that the x86 FPU has been 80-bit since its inception). Dual core is nice...but it's only a win for multithreaded applications or when you're running multiple applications at the same time. Even then, the effect of multiple threads sharing a cache can result in lower performance than many people expect.
Surely someone is going to set the PC world on its ear with a massive performance leap that doesn't require 1000 watt power supplies?