Microprocessor Report: Intel, Fix the PC!

[mindless728]

... much is wasted by software engineers who refuse to take advantage of multiple cores ...

apparently you haven't done any lick of serious programming, if you had, you would know there are a few reasons as to why a lot of software has not been turned multi-threaded

1) Some problems CANNOT be turned into a parallel algorithm as each step in the program needs to happen before the other
2) Sharing data between 2 asynchronous running threads is not all that easy, especially in consumer grade software with thousands of lines of code
3) The speed-up is small, none, or negative. Locking data costs cpu time as any other thread trying to access the data will not be able to do so and have to wait for the first thread to be done with it

So before blaming software people in general, learn that there are some things that cannot be done at this point

 

[tomfreak]

[citation][nom]jkflipflop98[/nom]The problem is there's no "killer app" for PC's that make people clamor for more horsepower. Sure there are specialized computer functions some of us use for work, but for the general population an i5 is good enough. Even gaming has slowed down because all we generally get is half-assed xbox ports.[/citation]i5 is good enough? that is too high to say for casuals. I think the 5yrs old core 2 duo is still running pretty strong.

I have a 4yrs old 3Ghz core 2 duo with 9800GT it plays pretty much 60% of the games out there @ high details. if I turn it into a websurfing machine, I think it could last another 5yrs.

I still think Microsoft is one of the major developer to be blame. windows 8 isnt spectacular, people arent upgrading from win7. Microsoft should have empowered desktop/laptop win8 with a AI enabled assistant to help u. Make my desktop computer think for me, more human. I dont see how this being a problem with the compute power of i5/i7, it is just a matter of they arent creative enough to figure that out. Steve job did it with "siri" but siri isnt intelligent/amazing because it is quite limited with phone capability, it is an idea. But at least u can see how amazing is if ur computer actually thinks smarter than siri with the processing power of i7.
[citation][nom]wavetrex[/nom]The problem is in the software and peripherals. I've been waiting and hoping for stuff like this for a long time:- Star-trek like voice recognition (ability to detect free speech of anyone without any training)- Star-trek like speech generation (natural voice, indistinguishable from a normal human voice)- A true 3D immersive user interface, fun to use (in which I could "walk" inside my computer's content and place and arrange items spatially)- Image content recognition (categorize my thousand photos by what's inside them, without forcing me to "tag" or "put in folders")- AI capability (let me talk with my computer and ask him his opinion on various stuff that he's aware of)- VR headsets for games and interactive movies (ability to watch a movie's action from the perspective I want, like in a ST holodeck)(and many more stuff we've seen in movies)We're still stuck with mouse/keyboard and clicking links and buttons on webpages. (Everything has just become bigger, to adapt to the higher resolution screens of today). Can't really call that progress...And now a tablet, small laptop or other internet-enabled device can do that, why on earth would a common person need many-core CPU's which eat 100-200Watts of energy in a big case, just to point and click on a website?Yes, give us software stuff that a tablet/small laptop CAN'T do, and we'll definitely buy new powerful desktop PC's ![/citation]WOW, u said everything I wanted to say. I still remember everyone was rushing to upgrade the latest CPU back when it is 2000, because it wasnt fast enough to be enough for daily use.

 

[mcd023]

[citation][nom]mindless728[/nom]apparently you haven't done any lick of serious programming, if you had, you would know there are a few reasons as to why a lot of software has not been turned multi-threaded1) Some problems CANNOT be turned into a parallel algorithm as each step in the program needs to happen before the other2) Sharing data between 2 asynchronous running threads is not all that easy, especially in consumer grade software with thousands of lines of code3) The speed-up is small, none, or negative. Locking data costs cpu time as any other thread trying to access the data will not be able to do so and have to wait for the first thread to be done with itSo before blaming software people in general, learn that there are some things that cannot be done at this point[/citation]
A problem I'm running into while writing some apps for phones.

 

[ddpruitt]

performance is increasing at just 10 percent per year for desktops and 16 percent for laptops, a far cry from the good old days of 60 percent annual performance increases

She's definitely not qualified to speak on the subject. She just regurgitated an incomplete version of Moore's observation. CPU's computation power increases in spurts 386->486 Pentium 4-> Core 2 etc. with lower computational power increases in between. However these are usually met with increases in efficiency and decreases in die size. Right now Intel (and to some extend AMD) are working on increasing efficiency because CPU's are more than powerful enough to run most apps for most people. This happens around every five years or so. Once the apps catch up AMD and Intel will go back to cranking out number crunchers.

I mean duh! Didn't this individual ever notice what happened in the past??

 

[ddpruitt]

[citation][nom]Marcus52[/nom]The modern CPU and its supporting chipset are very limited as products for my purposes. There are too few PCI lanes, no on-board Thunderbolt support, and much is wasted by software engineers who refuse to take advantage of multiple cores, and it becomes apparent that the CPU and OS are going to have to force software into better performance by making use of the added cores themselves. The SATA 3 interface is already being saturated.The ATX mainboard form is sadly out of date, and there seems to be no mainboard manufacturer willing to support someone who might want to build a system with a decent RAID card, 3 graphics cards, and a decent sound card. If you want any one of those you are okay, but all 3, you are SOL.Could we get like at least a PCIe x1 slot above the first PCIe 3 x16 slot? Could we get some PCIe slots that aren't covered up by PCI x16 video cards? Hasn't anyone figured out a modern high end graphics card takes up at least 2 expansion slots worth of room?I have a 2560x1440 LCD that can overclock to 120Hz, and I'd like to run 3 of them in surround, but I'd also like to slap in a decent sound card, too. I don't really need a RAID card (well of course it's all one giant toy anyway, so I don't "need" any of it, heh), but I don't see why I can't build a high-end rig that's really high-end all the way. I could use the power today - and what will the future bring? What happens when we start getting real high-density monitors, capable of running decent refresh rates to support those high frame rates that give us nice smoothness when we pan our cameras in games?I'm looking forward to Haswell, but at the same time, I wish the whole industry would get out of yesteryear thinking and bring us into what we all know is possible.[/citation]

Like you said, your purposes. Your looking at an extremely specialized setup. Something like this is more akin to workstation graphics for scientific viz systems that wouldn't really fall into the mainstream, more a custom solution for now.

But then I recall this:

I have a 2560x1440 LCD that can overclock to 120Hz

and realize you really haven't got a clue.

 

[Guest]

What good is all this powerfull hardware going to do! They'll only install Windows 8 on it, and flash crap in your face! What computing needs is for someone to write a better OS, and stop spending their time writing new and "Better" UIs! Computers should come with a good type 1 hypervisor installed, one that controls the hardware drivers and the VMs and lets the user run the OSs that the user needs to get work done, but also lets the user run any number of OSs at the same time, hardware resources permitting! Intel has a problem with allowing computer OEMs to customize their HD graphics drivers, and never requireing the OEMs to keep these drivers updated, and Intel is not Known for having the best graphics or graphics drivers out there! The problem is competition, where is the laptops with The thunderbolt ports on them, not many at this time unless you want to pay Apple prices for the so called ultrabooks or other high end non Apple PCs! where is the $600-$800 laptops with one or two thunderbolt ports on them, and the ability to connect desktop GPUs to the laptop! Damn! lucid has software that can make existing laptops more HSA compliant, buy allowing computers to take advantage of internal GPUs and external GPUs at the same time Regardless of the brand of GPU hardware! What is happining is that with no competition the Intels and Microsofts will try to milk as much profits out of as little innovation as possable, and what little innovation that there is, will cost too much buy design!

 

[JonnyDough]

[citation][nom]SuperVeloce[/nom]60% annually? what a load of bullcrap. Some of us actually have a working memory in our brains... yes, 386->486 was 100% increase in arhitecture alone. 486-> P5 was almost 100%, awful Pentium 4 (netburst) to amazing core arhitecture was a jump forward... But thats like once every 10 years, while every year we were lucky to see 10% increase in frequency or sth..[/citation]

Technically, there is no such thing as a 60% increase. 60% of anything is less than 100%. I think you all mean 160% increase.

 

[JonnyDough]

[citation][nom]Tomfreak[/nom]i5 is good enough? that is too high to say for casuals. I think the 5yrs old core 2 duo is still running pretty strong. I have a 4yrs old 3Ghz core 2 duo with 9800GT it plays pretty much 60% of the games out there @ high details. if I turn it into a websurfing machine, I think it could last another 5yrs.I still think Microsoft is one of the major developer to be blame. windows 8 isnt spectacular, people arent upgrading from win7. Microsoft should have empowered desktop/laptop win8 with a AI enabled assistant to help u. Make my desktop computer think for me, more human. I dont see how this being a problem with the compute power of i5/i7, it is just a matter of they arent creative enough to figure that out. Steve job did it with "siri" but siri isnt intelligent/amazing because it is quite limited with phone capability, it is an idea. But at least u can see how amazing is if ur computer actually thinks smarter than siri with the processing power of i7.WOW, u said everything I wanted to say. I still remember everyone was rushing to upgrade the latest CPU back when it is 2000, because it wasnt fast enough to be enough for daily use.[/citation]

I totally agree. Customization on Windows 7 still isn't that easy, and the OS is not as large or smart as it could be. They're trying to dumb it down for tablets and phones, but they should be adding more depth to it instead for the desktop. Start big, trim it down. Not the other way around. It's no wonder I would rather pay $100+ for Windows 7 than $70 for Windows 8.

 

[InvalidError]

[citation][nom]Tomfreak[/nom]i5 is good enough? that is too high to say for casuals. I think the 5yrs old core 2 duo is still running pretty strong.[/citation]
I agree.

Were it not for me needing at least 16GB RAM for what I do these days, I would still be using my C2D-E8400/8GB. But since 16GB DDR2 cost over $330, I decided to go with i5-3470/H77/16GB for $380 instead. Shaving it a little close in simple games like Diablo3 or WoW (hitting 40-50fps on C2D vs solid 60fps on my i5 using the same HD5770 GPU) but otherwise fine for non/casual-gamer everyday use.

My mother is perfectly happy with her AMD E450 laptop, my father was still happy enough with my 12 years old P3/512MB and my sisters are still happy with their 4+ years old "crappy" PCs/laptops. A few of my uncles collect PCs/laptops on the curb and fix 'em as a hobby and are happy enough with the 4+ years old "junkers" they get that way. People who use their PCs mostly to get on Facebook, email, etc. really don't need much.

The newest non-gaming mainstream killer app I can think of is 1080p h264 software decoding but almost everything down to the slowest Core2 can handle that easily and most semi-modern PCs have at least partial hardware acceleration for it.

 

[InvalidError]

[citation][nom]JonnyDough[/nom]Technically, there is no such thing as a 60% increase. 60% of anything is less than 100%. I think you all mean 160% increase.[/citation]
You are confusing "AS FAST" with "FASTER". 60% FASTER is strictly the same as 160% AS FAST.

A relative percentile change is mathematically defined as: change% = (new_value - reference_value) / reference_value x 100%

If the new CPU does 160 units of work over a given time period while the reference CPU does 100 units of work over the same period, you get (160-100)/100 x 100% = +60%, the new CPU is 60% faster than (or 160% as fast as) the old one.

This works just as well for both positive and negative change%.

 

[bobbybamf12]

If they are serious about this and want to improve their cpu's even more then AMD is going to be having some troubles playing catch up...

 

[DRosencraft]

To be honest, I think too much of the burden is being put on the hardware developers. To be honest, there isn't much right now that can't be done with the hardware we have now (from the general consumer standpoint, not the research and science perspective). It used to be that there was a great clamor for better hardware because we wanted to run top-notch games, or use programs like Photoshop, but existing tech was too slow. That is hardly the case anymore. It's not hard to get the parts for a top-tier gaming rig that can certainly play every game out there. There aren't any popular stuff like Photoshop that drink resources like water, therefore pushing better hardware. That kind of think brought excitement to computing and got people interested in it. Intel could make a super fast processor, but anyone with half a brain is going to first think about what they can do with it before just throwing money at it. Intel or any other hardware maker can innovate, but unless there's a market it can be applied to, it's innovation for innovation's sake. That may be its own reward, but it's not going to help PC sales much. Look at Thunderbolt. As a technology it's amazing. But there is little reasonable application for all of its benefits so it's been struggling to catch fire. There is an inverse relationship between hardware and software right now - hardware becoming more powerful, software becoming more resource efficient. Let's face it, most people have very little need for high-end computing, and those are the sales that are disappearing. It was always this way, but there weren't alternatives. You got this computer or you got that computer. Now it's get this computer, or that tablet, or that smartphone, or that netbook/ultrabook. The enthusiast/gaming crowd may number in the millions, but it is still a relatively small portion of sales, and not enough to support an entire industry at the current levels. Enthusiasts have to face the reality that these hardware makers are going to have to diversify and focus on some of these less than ideal sectors, and scale back work on the high-end stuff. To survive at all they'll need to make stuff they can sell to a lot of people, not just the crowd salivating at the next super-fast processor.

 

[Firion87]

well why Intel? Why not the HDD manufacturers???? I can build a pc out of cheap parts except for storage! Memory is accesible now, a cpu doesn't need to be right now the most powerful (good intel and amd options), gpu's are not a question because the market is balanced (thanks amd, really good work! says a intel fanboy!) but I can't buy a 16GB usb stick as a boot medium for my server because 2 years ago for that money I could get a huge second hand drive...........

 

[chibiwings]

Ill buy a tablet but there's no way it'll replace my PC. i'm not a temple run fanatic.

 

[ohim]

Consoles are to blame (at some point), in the past gamers (i know they don`t represent the whole PC industry) would always want to upgrade to play the latest titles, but since every title is now made to be played on 7 years old consoles, nobody really feels the need to actually upgrade their PC.

 

[leon2006]

I do electronic circuit design. I use PC and Servers for that type of work. I have very little use for Tablet. I have a mobile engineering work station. That's heavy enough to carry around to add tablet. For meetings smartphones and its associated functions (apps) do the job.

 

[InvalidError]

[citation][nom]chibiwings[/nom]Ill buy a tablet but there's no way it'll replace my PC.[/citation]
While current tablets may still be too limited in RAM and CPU power to be suitable for lots of traditional PC-style applications, tablets 3-5 years in the future will get there. The new generation of ARM chips coming out of Samsung are 2-3X as fast as the fastest ones available only a few months ago. Slap 4GB RAM and another ~3X performance increase on top of that ~3 years from now, you get something that is ready for some reasonably serious general productivity.

A lot of productivity is already possible on something like a Nexus7/10 or iPad but apps for it are either missing, heavily crippled, awkwardly adapted or butting into arbitrary Android/IOS limitations that require jailbreak or 3rd-party firmware to fix.

 

[rgeiken]

Almost everyone that wants a PC has one and the market is mainly replacements. For Tablets, many people are still acquiring them, but eventually the market for them will be saturated to. Lots of people have a desktop, laptop and a tablet, namely me! I'm sure there are lots of other people who have more than one device. I just acquired a Nexus 10, and hopefully the will releasing their Pogo docking station, and then I will be in business. Right now I have a bluetooth keyboard and mouse I use that when I am installing apps and checking things out on the device. To use any mobile device, it is profitable to learn how you can make necessary adjustments to it to suit your use. I would just like to be able to use the USB connector for something other than the power input. Almost all of the Tablets have a SSD and a simple operating system compared to Windows, so that is the reason it is so much easier to use. Removing Programs with Windows can turn out to be pretty time consuming, while removing apps in Android is a piece of cake. PCs = Power, and Tablets = Simplicity. The simplicity doesn't prevent the device from being usable. I really enjoy using my Nexus since I can jump around so easily look at a lot of things. Tablets and Phone sales rates may not drop as rapidly since the cost for some of these devices is fairly low. Most people are not terribly computer literate, so the Tablets give them something that they can easily populate with apps and most of the time they will operate with a minimum of problems. Maybe when we jump of the Fiscal Cliff sales for all devices will be affected.

 

[cmcghee358]

[citation][nom]ddpruitt[/nom]Like you said, your purposes. Your looking at an extremely specialized setup. Something like this is more akin to workstation graphics for scientific viz systems that wouldn't really fall into the mainstream, more a custom solution for now. But then I recall this:and realize you really haven't got a clue.[/citation]

 

[Guest]

Intel get to work on your driver software, make OEMs that customize your HD graphics drivers keep them on the same update schedule as you have with your genaric HD graphics drivers! Microsoft instead of writing the most crappy UI in your history, try to make your OS more heterogeneous system architecture aware, there is no excuse for a computer OS to not be able To UTILIZE an integrated GPU at the same time that it utilizes a descrete GPU, I need openCL and openGL, etc. and to be able to utilize all of my GPU resources at the same time for rendering! HSA is the future of computing, Intel get your Thunderbolt technology into affordable laptops, so I can attatch extra GPUs and CPUs to my laptop for rendering! Intel, The ability to attatch more prcessing power to a laptop could have fueled a CPU/coProcessor sales boosts for you, But you dropped the ball and instead focused on the "Ultrabook". Microsoft you need to Split your OS department into a separate OS division and tell your marketing MORONS to KYFHO of the OS division!
And Microsoft, give users the option to get their new hardware with Windows 7, beacuse windows 8 is a deal killer for new PC hardware sales!

 

[STravis]

As some have said, there's no killer app out there that requires new faster CPUs. This weekend we build a new PC (using an I5) to replace the older Q6600 (4 year old). But we didn't dismantle the Q6600 as it still plays all the games and does everything we need it to do. The I5 ended up being an addition to as opposed to a replacement unit. I also have a Q9550 micro lying around that will one day replace the Q6600.. Basically that PC will get replaced when the MOBO fails (and that will be a sad day indeed)

 

[rgeiken]

I bought a Vista Computer back in 2007, and it had a Q6600 processor, and it served me well for many years. I gave the compute to a friend a couple of years ago when I bought a new one. I had to get a new motherboard, but it supported the Q6600, so it is still running. It has Windows 7 now and also 4 gig of memory. The Q6600 was a good Intel Processor. I have a desktop and Laptop today, and they both run i7 chips. Even better than the Q6600, but that was like due to the 8 cores and more modern technology. Nothing beats a well tuned up W7 computer with an i7 processor and 6 or 8 gig of ram or more. I have never found anything that I couldn't do with the i7s.

 

[Duckhunt]

There is your problem. They pay the CEO and upper management too much. Then there is no money for R&D. We need to make the PC more energy efficient and also we need to make it do more.

I want the manufacturers to start adding passive sensor technology on the pc gear. I want the BIOS to recognize these things. Where is the R&D to futher integrate the pc into the home.

I want the pc to talk to the fridge, toaster,tv,fridge. I want the go home and say, TV turn on. Or maybe say " Computer what happened?" It goes through the video footage around the house and i know what happened.

We can't have all this. WHy? The rich folk stole all the money. We bailed out the banks. We bailed out the rich folk. The rest of us can go to hell. YOu want to understand why the economy does not work? Simple. It works on credit. There is not wrong with that. The problem is when 99% of the people are not credit worthy enough to borrow any money ( get credit) the system falls apart.
When we have a recession this is what happened. The only way to fix it. We need to redistribute the wealth by taxing. That simple

They stole it. We tax it back. Under FDR we taxed the wealthy at 93%. We need to tax anyone with an income over US250k a year at 90% .

 

[dipper2010]

My last PC upgrade involved an AMD Athlon X2 5200 paired with 1GB nVidia video card and 4GB RAM. I never saw the need to install all the latest games, sticking instead to the what I consider the great classics, Diablo 2 LOD, CounterStrike, RedAlert2/Yuri's Revenge, BattleRealms 2. Why upgrade, when I have barely explored the depths of these games, and when they provide more than enough entertainment values and avenues for me, digitalwise. For and editor like me who barely have time to really immerse in disc-and-ram hungry games of today I just don't see any reason to upgrade and update. I am sure I am not alone with this attitude about games and pc systems and all.

 

[techguy911]

New sandy bridge don't you mean Ivy bridge cpu's have hit a wall in terms of raw cpu power 4.8 ghz seems as fast as a cpu. gpu's are out pacing cpu's for jobs like cracking passwords hackers are now using banks of gpu's allowing the test of 350 billion guesses per second for less money.