Orders of magnitude
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More interesting than just the clock frequency are the advancements in processor architecture. For example: Intel 80286: 1.8 MIPS at 12 MHz -> 0.15 MIPS/MHz Intel Core i7 Extreme 965EE: 76,383 MIPS at 3.2 GHz -> 23.860 MIPS/MHz
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More interesting than just the clock frequency are the advancements in processor architecture. For example: Intel 80286: 1.8 MIPS at 12 MHz -> 0.15 MIPS/MHz Intel Core i7 Extreme 965EE: 76,383 MIPS at 3.2 GHz -> 23.860 MIPS/MHz
Good point - that's 2 orders of magnitude accounted for :) But look at transistor counts: 80286: 134,000 i7: 731,000,000 So we could have a single chip containing 5,455 286s! Nick
---------------------------------- Be excellent to each other :)
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Since it's slow this morning, I thought I'd share something I've been pondering. My first PC had about a 107 byte disk and a clock cycle was about 10-7 seconds. So we as developers had a range of about 14 orders of magnitude to balance - which was pretty impressive even then. Current PC's have 1012 disks and 10-9 processors - a range of 21 orders of magnitude. So in 20 years, the range has increased by 7 orders of magnitude. That's some rate of change! You can also compare the size / Hz ratio. 20 years ago this was about parity, but now we have 103 more data than speed. Since size keeps increasing but clock speeds have topped out, do we need 1000-core processors? I know it's not scientific! I just thought it might be interesting :) Nick
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What impresses me more is the range of complexity we deal with. It is the highest of any profession or trade ever.
I think you'll find that engineers in all fields are dealing with a ranges of complexity that didn't exist 20 years ago, not just software engineers. :)
Chris Meech I am Canadian. [heard in a local bar] In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is. [Yogi Berra]
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I think you'll find that engineers in all fields are dealing with a ranges of complexity that didn't exist 20 years ago, not just software engineers. :)
Chris Meech I am Canadian. [heard in a local bar] In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is. [Yogi Berra]
Yes, but we hold the record, across all fields. :)
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This goes back to the "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." mentality, coupled with lethargy from their customers.
Henry Minute Do not read medical books! You could die of a misprint. - Mark Twain Girl: (staring) "Why do you need an icy cucumber?" “I want to report a fraud. The government is lying to us all.”
Maybe they should hear my pitch? :cool:
Last modified: 17mins after originally posted --
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Good point - that's 2 orders of magnitude accounted for :) But look at transistor counts: 80286: 134,000 i7: 731,000,000 So we could have a single chip containing 5,455 286s! Nick
---------------------------------- Be excellent to each other :)
I remember many years ago seeing on TV a graphics house put out a little tower with 256 gfx chips, one per pixel, haha.
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harold aptroot wrote:
They're like 3 years behind on Intel.
Get back to the Valley! Like!
------------------------------------ "I'm going to walk around a field dangling my keys on a bit of string until I hear whistling noises. " Steve Harris 2009
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We already have 1600 core chips. Raedeon 5870[^]
The latest nation. Procrastination.
Radeon HD 5870 X2 - 2x2154 = 4308000000 transistors. That number won't even fit in a DWORD. The mind boggles...
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More interesting than just the clock frequency are the advancements in processor architecture. For example: Intel 80286: 1.8 MIPS at 12 MHz -> 0.15 MIPS/MHz Intel Core i7 Extreme 965EE: 76,383 MIPS at 3.2 GHz -> 23.860 MIPS/MHz
ZX Spectrum Z80: 0.12 mips at 4 MHz -> 0.03 MIPS/MHz (13 000 transistors) Storage: 1365bits per seconds on audio tape (a whopping 900k on a C90 tape)
Help me! I'm turning into a grapefruit! Buzzwords!
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Good point - that's 2 orders of magnitude accounted for :) But look at transistor counts: 80286: 134,000 i7: 731,000,000 So we could have a single chip containing 5,455 286s! Nick
---------------------------------- Be excellent to each other :)
or 56230 Z80s
Help me! I'm turning into a grapefruit! Buzzwords!
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Since it's slow this morning, I thought I'd share something I've been pondering. My first PC had about a 107 byte disk and a clock cycle was about 10-7 seconds. So we as developers had a range of about 14 orders of magnitude to balance - which was pretty impressive even then. Current PC's have 1012 disks and 10-9 processors - a range of 21 orders of magnitude. So in 20 years, the range has increased by 7 orders of magnitude. That's some rate of change! You can also compare the size / Hz ratio. 20 years ago this was about parity, but now we have 103 more data than speed. Since size keeps increasing but clock speeds have topped out, do we need 1000-core processors? I know it's not scientific! I just thought it might be interesting :) Nick
---------------------------------- Be excellent to each other :)
Nick Butler wrote:
and 10-9 processors
Dang. What's left? The hair on the chiny-chin-chin of the squirrel? Marc
I'm not overthinking the problem, I just felt like I needed a small, unimportant, uninteresting rant! - Martin Hart Turner
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Yes, but we hold the record, across all fields. :)
Hmm... I wonder if the engineers in other fields would agree. Mechanical engineers have to deal with new materials, reliability concerns, and safety issues all the time. Chemical engineering is ever-more complicated by environmental concerns. Electrical engineers are dealing with parts with sub-nanosecond switching times and effects caused by the behavior of countable numbers of electrons.
Software Zen:
delete this; -
Nick Butler wrote:
and 10-9 processors
Dang. What's left? The hair on the chiny-chin-chin of the squirrel? Marc
I'm not overthinking the problem, I just felt like I needed a small, unimportant, uninteresting rant! - Martin Hart Turner
Marc Clifton wrote:
Dang. What's left? The hair on the chiny-chin-chin of the squirrel?
Not far off - about 4" at the speed of light :-D Nick
---------------------------------- Be excellent to each other :)