There's already definite gains to faster memory on Trinity- it's graphics performance will scale with memory bandwidth as far as DDR3-2133, whereas IB's graphics seems bandwidth saturated at ~DDR3-1600.
What is the reason the CPU frequency has topped out at current levels? Is there any physiological explanation?
If you want to look at physiological barriers, you can first start by looking at the turbo frequency of chips to see what's possible without touching the design. Mind you the absolute physiological barrier is higher if you could go back into the chip and actually change the physical device sizing etc... (and the worst case is to go into the uArch). So there's no real physiological barrier on why the frequency is where it is.
I mentioned it earlier, it's just because there's better places to spend your thermal budget (and power delivery budget!)
Well, as mentioned in my previous post, the CPU frequency increased from 233 MHz to 2.0 GHz in 4 years from 1997 to 2001. I.e. it increased about 1000 %.
Well, as mentioned in my previous post, the CPU frequency increased from 233 MHz to 2.0 GHz in 4 years from 1997 to 2001. I.e. it increased about 1000 %.
Do you really think we could repeat the same journey in the next 4 years if the thermal budget would be spent differently? I.e. we'd be at 35 GHz in 2016. I don't think we'll be anywhere near that, regardless of thermal budget decisions or TDP increases.
So clearly the CPU frequency has topped out compared to how things progressed during 1985--2005. And clearly there must be a physological reason for it, otherwise we would have seen much larger CPUs frequency increases from one CPU generation to the next during the last 4-6 years.
Well, as mentioned in my previous post, the CPU frequency increased from 233 MHz to 2.0 GHz in 4 years from 1997 to 2001. I.e. it increased about 1000 %.
Do you really think we could repeat the same journey in the next 4 years if the thermal budget would be spent differently? I.e. we'd be at 35 GHz in 2016. I don't think we'll be anywhere near that, regardless of thermal budget decisions or TDP increases.
So clearly the CPU frequency has topped out compared to how things progressed during 1985--2005. And clearly there must be a physological reason for it, otherwise we would have seen much larger CPUs frequency increases from one CPU generation to the next during the last 4-6 years.
The Quest for More Processing Power, Part One: "Is the single core CPU doomed?"
As to why GHz makes power use go up, not 100% on the specifics, IDC might be a good bet, or hunting through old AT articles.
And what happened to TDP? What's the increase if it's normalized to CPU only power budget?
That was in an era where CPU only power budget exploded, and the architectures receded in terms of any measurable computations per MHz metrics. We're now in an era where CPU power budget is shrinking every generation to allow for higher GPU power budgets and increased integration of motherboard components and metrics for compute performance per MHz are improving. Of course frequency per time is huge in your example time-frame, but measurable compute efficiency (computational output per power input) is a significantly more meaningful metric, and I'm willing to bet my house that if you used that metric the growth from your example time-frame will look significantly less favorable compared with the last (or next) 4 years.
Most 2500K and 2600K could hit 4.5 GHz, too. What was the model name of that 4.5 GHz Xeon btw? Just because Intel only released one CPU of that kind, doesn't mean anything.
If you want to stay at the same process, take Yorkfield -> Nehalem. Not higher clocks, but a hefty 30% higher IPC (in games).
10% more performance is disappointing in my opinion. I don't doubt Intel could have put 10% higher clocks into a 95W TDP envelope if they had wanted to.
All the way from the 1980--2005 we saw steady increases in CPU frequency for each new CPU generation. This was responsible for much of the performance increase during that period.
For example we went from:
Pentium II 233 Mhz (May 7, 1997)
Pentium II 450 Mhz (August 24, 1998)
Pentium III 800 MHz (December 20, 1999)
Pentium 4 2.0 Ghz (August 27, 2001)
So looking at the CPU frequency alone, the performance increased by almost 1000% in about 4 years! :awe:
Sure there may be bottlenecks and uArch differences so it's just an approximation, but still...
What is the reason the CPU frequency has topped out at current levels? Is there any physiological explanation?
Pentium II 233MHz reportedly used 34.8W on 350nm.
Pentium 4 2.0GHz reportedly used 71.8W on 180nm.
So power basically doubled while clockspeeds increased 8.6x, all from a mere 2 nodes of shrinking.
That is actually rather remarkable considering how little is gained from a process node nowadays.
For comparison, on 22nm if you triple the power budget for the 3770k it buys an extra 1.3GHz of clockspeed (3.5GHz -> 4.8GHz).
Hardcore clockspeed increases began in the Pentium 4 era, and Intel even was trying to get 7 Ghz with Tejas and Jayhawk. They stopped and came to their senses though. If they were released, Intel would have been seriously burned.Well, as mentioned in my previous post, the CPU frequency increased from 233 MHz to 2.0 GHz in 4 years from 1997 to 2001. I.e. it increased about 1000 %.
Do you really think we could repeat the same journey in the next 4 years if the thermal budget would be spent differently? I.e. we'd be at 35 GHz in 2016. I don't think we'll be anywhere near that, regardless of thermal budget decisions or TDP increases.
So clearly the CPU frequency has topped out compared to how things progressed during 1985--2005. And clearly there must be a physological reason for it, otherwise we would have seen much larger CPU frequency increases from one CPU generation to the next during the last 4-6 years.
Tejas was slated to operate at frequencies of 7 GHz or higher, twice the clock speed of the fastest-clocked Core 2 processor, which is clocked at 3.5 GHz. However, Tejas would likely have performed worse, as it would have executed fewer instructions per clock cycle, and it would have run hotter as well with a TDP much higher than the Prescott core of Pentium 4. The CPU was cancelled late in its development after it had reached its tapeout phase.[1]
If we look at the desktop, the fastest CPU of the performance segment was the i7-880 at 3.06 GHz. The 2600K, its successor, clocked 10% higher and had 10-15% higher IPC, too.
My point is, we haven't seen these seizable jumps since Sandy Bridge.
It will be mine as well, so long as I can get 70fps instead of 60fps (that would be siiiiick).
P4 < P3 in IPC.
P4 at 2 GHz is more like a 1.5 GHz or so there's another % chunk less.
All summed up for GT2 vs HD4000: ~10%(?) more IPC,4% clock and 25% more EU. In perf. numbers: 1.1x1.04x1.25=1.43 or 43% faster than HD4000. GT3 in turn would be 1.43x1.33=1.9x or 90% faster than HD4000 (if it hits desktop).
The question : will 43% more GPU performance than HD4000 be enough to trigger the memory BW bottleneck?
Think 20-30% instead. Bottleneck isn't all or nothing though. Because it varies from application to application, scenario to scenario and even frame by frame! The fact that Ivy Bridge's HD 4000 scales going to DDR3-1866 means its somewhat bottlenecked, but not as much. Perhaps it'll become sensitive as fastest desktop Llano does.
Correct. Northwood -> Hammer -> Conroe -> Sandy are the only meaningful jumps in IPC improvements for me. Admittedly there was a multi-core revolution during the Hammer/Conroe era so I can cut some (large) slacks for that. But there hasn't been anything interesting to me since the original Nehalems and Thubans. Sandy is fast, to be sure, but is kind of boring. Ivy is.. ugh. Bulldozer? LOL.
What happened to this forum?
What happened to this forum? Why are so many (erroneously) co-relating Haswell's 84 watt TDP with the 'stagnant' clock it shares with IVB, and then acting as if the sky is falling?
Turn it around. Why are so many here vigorously defending the low CPU performance increases we've seen during the last 4 years, compared to how things progressed all the way from 1985 to around 2003 (and a one time jump in 2006 when transitioning to new uArch with Conroe)?
Do you have to create some hallelujah spirit to motivate purchasing Haswell? I don't think so. It has plenty of benefits such as better iGPU, integrated VRM, and lower power consumption for some use cases (mainly applicable to ultrabooks/laptops/etc).
But when it comes to pure CPU performance increases... sorry, it's nowhere near what we saw going from one CPU generation to the next during the golden years. Is that so hard to admit?
So, you still clinging to the megahertz myth? There's a reason benchmarks are used to guage performance instead of clockspeed: benches are more accurate, even the inconsistent Passmark is more useful than seeing 1.6 Ghz except when talking about processors with identical microarchtectures.
The gains of the Pentium 4's Netburst archtecture were not astronomically high compared to its Pentium III predecessors, and lower clocked Pentium Ms would provide the same performance as a highly clocked Pentium 4.
Four years ago, Nehalem was just released in November and offered substantial performance increases over Conroe while also lower power consumption. Now we are at Ivy Bridge, where the i5s are unequivocally faster than the QXXXX series.