Where'd the gigahertz go?

[nomad10101]

Hello, first time poster here. I was just wondering where all the gigahertz went. I remember when the biggest number meant the most processing speed -- and maybe that's still true -- but why did the numbers jump from around like 3.8 to the 2.2 vicinity? I think it's something about new architectures, but I can't find much to explain it. I saw this one good-looking site (A CPU History by David Risley), but it seemed kind of old, and I didn't want to read through 11 pages to find out it didn't address what I really wanted to know. So if anyone has an answer or a couple links to some good sites or articles, I'd appreciate it big.

Thanks a mill,
nomad

 

[The General]

omg

The gigaherts war is over, and has been over since the release of the Opteron. Well, the K7 really, but the Opteron really got everyone's attention.

 

[bmxfreakrider]

by any chance are you comparing amd to intel? if so a 2.2ghz amd ~ intel 3.8....its in another fourm on another catagorey, it explains it(also with nvidia vs ati, lcd vs crt, powersupply vs powersupply, etc..it goes on,, 23 pages, i got to 15 and fell aslep...

 

[The General]

by any chance are you comparing amd to intel? if so a 2.2ghz amd ~ intel 3.8

Eh? Not anymore, buddy. And I don't think it was ever that extreme, maybe a 2.6Ghz AMD ~ 3.7Ghz Intel, but the Core Duo ended that, and now the Core 2 Duo is the Core Duo coming back for dessert.

 

[ATIRAGEPRO]

"I'm just bored, it's not my fault..."

I think the market is leaning a bit more towards the size of one's Cache ($), rather than how fast a CPU likes to Move it - move it.

What I'm saying is, Instead of company's like IBM making their CPU's soo freken hot by making the hurtz faster, and people spending hundreds more trying to keep the CPU on dub and really ICY, they are doing the next best thing; Instead of making it just go faster, why not make it handle more DATA at once? It has the same effect, but no disrespect!!

Maybe Gigaherts being 'High" will be a thing of the past... Just Maybe...

Anyway, this kind of funny because at first glance, I thought this was one of those n00bish questions like:

It wasn't.

 

[nomad10101]

reply

Ok. Well, none of those posts really helped, for the most part. Any links to official articles, anyone?

I wasn't comparing intel to amd, those numbers just seem to be what most websites offer on standard type models.

So, the war of the gigahurtz is over, and the emphasis is on doing more at once instead of faster. Thas helped. I read something about bigger data pipes that handle more? I guess that was it, then?

My biggest confusion or problem though is I used to be able to measure a computer by the number of gighertz. But now, the number seems useless.. So now I'm looking for a reference or minimum benchmark to pit all other machines against. It doesn't seem to be just about the one number now. Now it's about the cache and all other sorts of more technical hardware attributes. New technology forces the layman to learn more..

Anyway, though, if anyone has a link they consider informative and relatively easy to get trhough, I'd appreciate it.

Thanks,
Nomad.

 

[The General]

You don't understand, the emphasis isn't on doing more instead of faster, it's doing more and faster.

Higher clock speed doesn't mean faster anymore.

Picture it like a 3 lane highway with a speed limit of 100mph, compared to a 16 lane highway with a speed limit of 65mph, which one would transport more cars in 1 hour? (The 16 lane one would. )

We are able to do more operations per clock cycle now, which means that a new 2.2ghz Athlon 64 would obliterate a 2.2ghz Athlon XP. Just like how a 2.16Ghz Intel Core Duo will obliterate a 2.16Ghz Pentium 4.

 

[COD2_fanatic]

ROFL you said "obliderate" (one of my favorite words)

 

[nomad10101]

Ok. I think I get it. The P4 3.8 (or whatever) is slower than the newer model 2.16's and whatnot because these newer ones, from whatever technical reason, have 16 lanes? So the lanes are the amount it can do, while the speed [limit] kind of doesn't matter as much.. This newer one doesn't neceserily go by nature as "fast" as the other older ones, but its newer design can do more, hence it's overall faster.. I think I get that, if I'm right. So, basically I need to just forget the idea of processor numbers and focus more on other attributes of the thing. Like I said before, it was much easier determining which CPU to get when all you had to do was read the number.

Thank Y'all!
Nomad.

 

[The General]

Well, they don't have 16 lanes, but they do more operations per clock cycle. The 16 lane thing was just an analogy to show you how it works, but you've got the idea.