Have Computer Speed Improvements Slowed Down?
I'm sure this has been discussed here before but I couldn't find it by searching.
I just had a basic question: Have computer speed improvements slowed down over the last few years or is it just my imagination?
I purchased my first Mac (a Classic) in 1991. 5 Years later I got a Mac Clone by Power Computing. I remember the benchmark tests at the time showed the 100mhz Mac clone to be 100 times faster than my Classic overall (disc speed, processor speed, and graphics speed)
In 1999, I got a G3. It was several times faster than the G1 clone. In 2004 I bought a 1.6Ghz iMac. It's several times faster than the G3.
So, in other words, every few years I buy a new entry level Mac and get a huge boost in performance.
I still use my nearly 5 year old 1.6Ghz iMac. Recently, I decided to research getting a new Mac. I again looked at the bottom of the line computers--iMacs and Minis. I noticed the clock speed has improved little since nearly 5 years ago. But I figured there must have been other speed improvements so I looked at benchmark tests. It looks like the latest entry level iMac is only about twice as fast as my nearly 5 year old iMac! Not much reason to upgrade so I'm waiting for now.
Would you say that Macs have maxed out their performance potential and now it's a point of diminishing returns? Why has computer hardware stagnated? Will it ever "take-off" again? By my calculations, and keeping with speed improvements from the past, I'd say that iMacs should be about 10Ghz by now--not 2.4.
I just had a basic question: Have computer speed improvements slowed down over the last few years or is it just my imagination?
I purchased my first Mac (a Classic) in 1991. 5 Years later I got a Mac Clone by Power Computing. I remember the benchmark tests at the time showed the 100mhz Mac clone to be 100 times faster than my Classic overall (disc speed, processor speed, and graphics speed)
In 1999, I got a G3. It was several times faster than the G1 clone. In 2004 I bought a 1.6Ghz iMac. It's several times faster than the G3.
So, in other words, every few years I buy a new entry level Mac and get a huge boost in performance.
I still use my nearly 5 year old 1.6Ghz iMac. Recently, I decided to research getting a new Mac. I again looked at the bottom of the line computers--iMacs and Minis. I noticed the clock speed has improved little since nearly 5 years ago. But I figured there must have been other speed improvements so I looked at benchmark tests. It looks like the latest entry level iMac is only about twice as fast as my nearly 5 year old iMac! Not much reason to upgrade so I'm waiting for now.
Would you say that Macs have maxed out their performance potential and now it's a point of diminishing returns? Why has computer hardware stagnated? Will it ever "take-off" again? By my calculations, and keeping with speed improvements from the past, I'd say that iMacs should be about 10Ghz by now--not 2.4.
Comments
I still use my nearly 5 year old 1.6Ghz iMac. Recently, I decided to research getting a new Mac. I again looked at the bottom of the line computers--iMacs and Minis. I noticed the clock speed has improved little since nearly 5 years ago. But I figured there must have been other speed improvements so I looked at benchmark tests. It looks like the latest entry level iMac is only about twice as fast as my nearly 5 year old iMac! Not much reason to upgrade so I'm waiting for now.
Your iMac G5 1.6 has a Geekbench score of 839 and the current bottom of the line iMac has a score of 3556 which is over 4 times higher (geekbench only measures CPU and RAM performance).
http://www.primatelabs.ca/blog/category/mac-os-x/
Speed improvement of CPU have slowed down. I think that the main reason, is software. Speed improvement is now based upon multi core. The last mac pro have 8 core and HT, thus able to sustain 16 threads.
The problem is that most soft just take care adavantage of 2 cores and for very shorts moments of 4 cores (like photoshop)
That's why while running only one application, a 4 core nehalem 2,66 is faster than an octo core 2,66 for some applications.
It's also the case for 64 bits computing. Intel Xeon are 64 bits, chip, but currently most applications for mac are only 32 bits. It slow down the application (some comparisons shows that some applications run faster on windows than on mac os X, on the same mac, because of the 64 bits thing).
In the future things will change, and the next version of sofware, will take more and more advantage of the multicore 64 bit architecture. At this moment, speed improvement will continue to move on.
Your iMac G5 1.6 has a Geekbench score of 839 and the current bottom of the line iMac has a score of 3556 which is over 4 times higher (geekbench only measures CPU and RAM performance).
http://www.primatelabs.ca/blog/category/mac-os-x/
And here lies part of the problem. Different websites and different software use different methods to compare computer speed. I can't remember which site I saw the speed comparison on but it also looked at HD speed and graphics. I think HD have gotten a lot faster than they used to be 15 years ago but maybe not too much faster than they were 5 years ago. This alone could skew tests.
And here lies part of the problem. Different websites and different software use different methods to compare computer speed. I can't remember which site I saw the speed comparison on but it also looked at HD speed and graphics. I think HD have gotten a lot faster than they used to be 15 years ago but maybe not too much faster than they were 5 years ago. This alone could skew tests.
Don't fool yourself. The current entry level iMac runs circles around your one.
The real speed increases these days come from things like increasing cache and new CPU architectures every couple years, not the clockrate. The "more clockrate" way of doing things wasn't going to be sustainable for much longer mainly because of physics and technology limitations at the time.
So they hit the reset button and re-focused on multiple cores and improving instructions PER clock cycle, rather than just jacking up the number of cycles.
If/When software catches up to true multi-core support, that'll help too.
But yeah, today's iMac will still wipe the floor with the 1.6Ghz model.
Part of your problem is that you think GHz as a unit has any meaning at all. It doesn't. You're also ignoring the advantage of multiple cores.
Quoted for emphasis.
Even if gigahertz were a good metric in isolation, the proper way to measure it would be to sum the speed of all cores. That is, if trying to use Ghz as a meaningful indication of perceived speed.
Well think about it for a sec what do you use your mac for? Do you really NEED a new iMac, lately ive been noticing people getting really expensive iMacs even though they just do some music email websurfing photos etc when they could get something cheaper save a bit of money, try to use it as long as you can get the most out of your iMac.
I guess most people don't really NEED a new computer. Sometimes an older one that gets too sluggish can get annoying, however. I've just updated a bunch of my software and now I think I'll actually just use this computer for at least another year unless this friggin motherboard blows up on me again. I'm not a gamer and I don't work with graphics very often. Usually, I just use the computer for surfing, word processing, email, and accounting--nothing really processor intensive.
I guess most people don't really NEED a new computer. Sometimes an older one that gets too sluggish can get annoying, however. I've just updated a bunch of my software and now I think I'll actually just use this computer for at least another year unless this friggin motherboard blows up on me again. I'm not a gamer and I don't work with graphics very often. Usually, I just use the computer for surfing, word processing, email, and accounting--nothing really processor intensive.
Ic i could use a bit faster machine seeing i game on it use ilife, final cut, motion, photoshop and flash and those kinda programs not to mention my iMacs lower fan is broken and is really annoying and loud.