Ask Slashdot: Why Are There No Huge Leaps Forward In CPU/GPU Power?

dryriver writes: We all know that CPUs and GPUs and other electronic chips get a little faster with each generation produced. But one thing never seems to happen -- a CPU/GPU manufacturer suddenly announcing a next generation chip that is, say, 4-8 times faster than the fastest model they had 2 years ago. There are moderate leaps forward all the time, but seemingly never a HUGE leap forward due to, say, someone clever in R&D discovering a much faster way to process computing instructions. Is this because huge leaps forward in computing power are technically or physically impossible/improbable? Or is nobody in R&D looking for that huge leap forward, and rather focused on delivering a moderate leap forward every 2 years? Maybe striving for that "rare huge leap forward in computing power" is simply too expensive for chip manufacturers? Precisely what is the reason that there is never a next-gen CPU or GPU that is, say, advertised as being 16 times faster than the one that came 2 years before it due to some major breakthrough in chip engineering and manufacturing?

Comments

Intel's shady tatics

[bongey]

Intel is up to their shady tactics again with AMD's new Ryzen release. Maybe not out right paying off computer makers, just now they are sponsoring reviewers. The reviewers jump through all kinds of hoops to make sure that Intel is on top of the benchmark graphics and read like a Intel marketing brochure. None of the reviewers disclose that they are sponsored by Intel.
Examples of oddities from reviewers that are sponsored by Intel.

1) Tom's Hardware: Complains about the power consumption being higher than spec, leaves out that the result was from a overclocked test and an MSI board that has an additional CPU power.
2) GamersNexus (one worst of them)
a) Had to compared the 1800x to 6 different Intel processors that were overclocked with the 6900k overclocked by 700Mhz.
b) Only one AMD processor was OC by -100Mhz(yep) . There OC vs stock were almost exactly same.
c) Makes the 6900k pop on the top of the benchmarks.
d)1800X only loses 6 vs 8 to the Intel 6900k at stock speeds. With only 2 benchmarks with the 1800x losing by more than 7fps.
e)Pretty much all benchmarks by the same author never included OC tests, but suddenly he had to compare it to 6 different OC benchmarks. http://www.gamersnexus.net/gam... http://www.gamersnexus.net/gam...
f) Out right lied saying AMD told him not to benchmark Ryzen at 1920x1080. AMD just asked him to benchmark at multiple resolutions , not just 1080P.

Re:Limitations

[Half-pint HAL]

In a way, process limitations are a welcome obstacle, that should motivate reflection on legacy decisions, and perhaps finally allow the x86 architecture to be put to rest. Many consider x86 "good enough", but the problems with legacy hardware run a lot deeper than performance, and are largely responsible for the horrific state of computer security today.

The main problem isn't legacy hardware, but legacy software. The x86 architecture is already dead, and most of what we see is a hardware translation of x86 to a CPU architecture that isn't accessible to the coder.

I believe that the only way out of this is for us to start making more heterogeneous parallel chips. At the moment, this only really exists in the form of packages of CPU+GPU on a single chip. But if we had (for example) ARM+x86+GPU, we'd be able to run an ARM-based Linux or Windows environment, but power up the x86 core as required to run any vital legacy apps. This would mean it would slowly become more and more economical to develop for ARM (or whatever your chosen architecture is) and we'd be able to start thinking about retiring x86 sooner. And hell, it's not like even Intel are really fans of x86 themselves -- they've already tried to ditch it once (remember Itanium?), and in the end it was AMD who extended the x86 architecture to 64-bit, not Intel. Intel wants away from x86, the market wants a better architecture, we just need a stepping stone that guarantees legacy software compatibility, and when so many multiple cores lie idle, I don't see why heterogeneous multicore isn't recognised as the solution.