Are computers outdating themselves in the long run?

jeffrys

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hi guys,

i get the feeling and this since a few years that computers are stuck in performance and development.

CPU producers finally stopped making faster CPU's. Sure you get more threads and so, but i do not see much difference here at home CPU wise.

The FSB seems still to be a problem which cannot be overcome. It is nice to multiply by 20 or 25, but let's face it,

that cannot be the future.

So motherboards always seem to improve however with limitations.

SSD's or PCI-e cards are a good improvement over HDD's, and there still will come better solutions.

Memory...soon we will have DDR4, that probably will start at 3000Mhz to go fast to 4000Mhz and more.

What i try to say is: there should come a new technology in computer world.

I remember Digital (bought by Compaq in 1998) had a different approach in computing, but disappeared after C

Compaq bought this. Probably to get rid of Digital's concurrence.

Maybe this belongs in Drivers & Hardware, but since it is a General Discussion.....

Jeff
 

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Quantum computing perhaps.
I think there is no limit to computing power.

Maybe hybrid computer/human interface. :)
 

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Pretty heavy thread...

The actual speed limits seem to be reached but from a user point of view.
On a technical point of view every minor improvement counts and you'll consider some of these steps too small.
That's why I don't expect huge leaps in short time only on the long run.

It's not the future, it's always the present. It will be the future... :D

Electronic components always improved and the nano scale will be ultimate for them.
We still fix minor things here and there, as you said.
We wait for Magnetic RAM (MRAM) as well: no more booting like we know it now.

The next level will however require major breakthroughs on the related technology. Quantum computers know 4+4=8 at the moment.

Maybe hybrid computer/human interface.
Not excluded at all but due to the complexity of the human brain, heavy progress in biology has to be made first. :)
It takes time, improvements between generations.


Are computers outdating themselves in the long run?

No. If we do get to a unbreakable limit, then we'll probably see multi-cpu motherboards until the quantum pc evolves enough .
Reaching a maximum on the electronical/electrical part will be good: very good pc's and the attention can be set on new stuff like optical systems that need to be developed.

Just some of my point of view by looking around today.
 

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I was looking at the big picture.
Maybe a hundred thousand years in the future, if we still exist.
Computers are maybe 70 years old or so.
They are still babies.
Going to the moon was science fiction in H. G. Welles' day.
 

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Good point.

I like the big picture as well.

In the meantime,
Maybe i7 will still be supported when Mars gets colonized, as an old CPU, who knows.:)
 

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hi Hopachi,

My impression was that Multi-CPU motherboards exist for some years now, but they do not provide faster processes.

They are ok when many users are involved.

I am talking for myself here: do not like to wait on my computer. Computer has to wait for me.

So yes, more speed is what i want.

Real Ram SSD's are faster, but expensive and a Personal Computer is hardly something one wants that expensive....

I hope you are right about the MRam. I thought Samsung or Micron where working on that, but i might be wrong, i forgot.

Jeff


Yes David, computer development exploded since the start, but as i said, right now we have had the best op it with this technology.
And yes, computers saw the light begin op the 1940's, so around 70 years.


Jeff
 

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I think software isn't keeping up with hardware.

I regularly sit in front of my PC wondering why some process is taking so long.
When I check my hardware monitors, I see that my PC is using basically no RAM (~12.5%) and no CPU cycles (~10%).
 

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Well Lehnerus,

i have that too. CPU usage low and my Excel docu 97-2003 takes sometimes for minutes (really hate that), so converted this to

Excel 2013, improvement, but not that much and sometimes this takes way too long also.

But your solftware can only be as fast as your hardware lets it to be.

Take any Software, install this on a fast computer and a slow one and you will see that the faster the computer (hardware) the

faster the software on that computer.

Jeff
 

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I was reading something about a new processor in popular science. I think it captured electrons and then used them to complete a bridge. A processor with one bridge would work as fast as a modern day consumer processor. Now imagine having hundreds of bridges in a row. You would have a Cray supercomputer in your lap. I also think the thermal output was very low. It just needs to be developed. It was pretty insane.
 

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With any thread of technology, it seems to develop really fast and then evens out like a plateau. For example, the wheel and axel developed very rapidly from the bronze age to the classical era. And then it evened out and remained the same for the next 2 thousand years.

The printing press is also another example. Gutenberg invented it and over the next couple centuries it developed into better and better designs. And then it plateaued off and remained the same. In fact, much lf today's printing technology hasn't changed much in the last few decades.

Microchip technology, I believe, has reached its plateau. Sure, they'll continue to add more threads, but the speed limit has been reached. If there's going to be a higher speed limit, they'll have to come up with something new, like quantum computing. Unfortunately, because of the nature of quantum mechanics, technology just isn't quite there yet to make quantum computing viable at the moment. Sure, it looks great on paper. In fact, I once attended a seminar where the lecturer was a quantum computer scientist. He predicted that at the rate of development quantum computers should become common commercial products in 5 or so years. This was 10 years ago, and quantum computing has seen little advancement since.

And no, the human brain would make a lousy computer. Despite what science fiction movies and tv shows have been saying for decades, the human brain cannot store gigabytes of data and if there's a way to turn it into a cpu it would run quite slow.
 

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My recently dead old laptop run Windows same fast as this one, which is, according to all benchmarks, around three times (300%) faster.

I took very long before keeping this one, I tried many, some much more expensive, and to run normal stuff on W8 I could never feel any difference, and sometimes I noticed they were slower.

And this is a very cheap laptop. I don't buy more expensive one for that reason. Otherwise I really would spend more money.

It's the same with phones.

I have the Galaxy S2. I recently tried S4 and S3 and I didn't notice any improvement in performance in anything I do. I mean nothing, zero improvement in speed, lag, etc. I even purchased an S3 finally for the joy of the change and better screen and camera, but ended up returning it as it was really not worth the difference to spend 300€ for almost nothing better. Even some worse things that I do care about, such as the difficulty to reach the buttons and corners of the screen or a worse audio quality.

Windows and Android seem to be the reason why better hardware is not so noticeable.
 

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I don't think the brain would be slow. It can store terabytes of data and process thousands of input signals every second and send out thousands of signals every second. The only reason we aren't super humans is because we can't allocate those resources. Think about voice recognition. Even the most advanced computers aren't as good as humans, and the amount of raw data we process from our eyes is astounding. We just can't allocate our resources to another task.
 

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I think software isn't keeping up with hardware.

I regularly sit in front of my PC wondering why some process is taking so long.
When I check my hardware monitors, I see that my PC is using basically no RAM (~12.5%) and no CPU cycles (~10%).

I very much agree. :thumb:

There are many examples and cases to see.

In short:
The software gets bloated.

One random example office(es) software: "Office 20XX whatever" is meant for the same thing: making text documents, presentations, charts , spreadsheets.... We have newer formats, better features but in the integrity the same thing was performed by Office 1997 and you see the compared requirements of the two.

Speed is also lost with too much 'eyecandy' fancy things + Stardocks(es) running in the background.

Newer OSes have more services, the customer/user is treated better, like in a 7-star hotel...
Going back to more speed is always possible but then the GUI look, services and overall features will have to suffer again.

Good to think about:
Compared with older versions newer software is in general better but improvements on stability and features will not be beneficial for the speed.
 

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The speed of 0's and 1's flipping and flopping through your processor and memory is the speed of LIGHT. Unfortunately, there is this thing called "Resistance" which slows that speed down, so when electricity flows through a circuit, we are limited by the actual construction of the CPU, Ram, and Motherboard, and all of the components on the MB.

Another word for "Resistance" is LATENCY - It takes
newreply.php
79.2 Nanoseconds for the bits to get from the Input of my Ram to the Output- And that's just my Ram according to my benchmark program.

So, our stuff gets HOT. P = IR where I is the speed of light and R is the amount of resistance of the circuit. This would be a Thevenization of all our PCs. New CPUS are made with lower and lower latency, but the factor is always TIME. And I believe TIME is always relevant to the observer.

The CPU is tossing Bits inside of itself at trhe speed of light, the the material of which the CPU is made slows it down. So the research always has to be about creating a CPU with lower and lower amounts of time it needs for a bit to get from one side to another. If the Bit was flying through space, it is always travelling at the speed of light.

So in the future the research would be finding a particle that can travel faster than light, and building a system that can use it to transfer Data. The Enterprise D has a Computer Core that is FTL:

Information about the U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701-D

In the dreams of the guys who thought it up. But as long as we got guys around like Stephen Hawking who looks at that Warp Core Bucket and says "I'm Working on That" - There is a chance this kind of tech can be developed someday.
 

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I think software isn't keeping up with hardware.

I regularly sit in front of my PC wondering why some process is taking so long.
When I check my hardware monitors, I see that my PC is using basically no RAM (~12.5%) and no CPU cycles (~10%).

I very much agree. :thumb:

There are many examples and cases to see.

In short:
The software gets bloated.

One random example office(es) software: "Office 20XX whatever" is meant for the same thing: making text documents, presentations, charts , spreadsheets.... We have newer formats, better features but in the integrity the same thing was performed by Office 1997 and you see the compared requirements of the two.

Speed is also lost with too much 'eyecandy' fancy things + Stardocks(es) running in the background.

Newer OSes have more services, the customer/user is treated better, like in a 7-star hotel...
Going back to more speed is always possible but then the GUI look, services and overall features will have to suffer again.

Good to think about:
Compared with older versions newer software is in general better but improvements on stability and features will not be beneficial for the speed.

Hi there

Software often gets over bloated -- prime examples are NERO(used to be the "De facto" standard in its class -- and then the went Bonkers with it adding every possible feature that you absolutely did NOT want or NEED.

Photoshop was another -- probably reached the Zenith with release 7 now -- with CS6 I have so many filters and effects that I can't possibly ever have the time to learn or use (and I do some Pro photo gigs from time to time). - Would have been MUCH better to have the base price of CS6 lower and then pay extra for some of these really specialized filters and effects.

Another issue is also the software get hideously "IDIOT PROOF" so if something does go wrong you have ZERO chance of fixing it. I can see some advantages in things like 1-click installs but I think there also ought to be an "Expert mode" which works more in a traditional manner.

For example Acronis has mucked around with what was a much better GUI in the old Acronis for Workstation -- now the newer versions are so dumbed down it's really hard to to actually come up with the choices you want. So we are screwed at both ends -- over bloat and over simplification.

A lot of people should recognize "If it ain't broke don't fix it". Mind you some people deliberately design bug and "planned obsolescence" into their products so that you are forced to pay for the newer versions.

Cheers
jimbo
 

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"Mind you some people deliberately design bug and "planned obsolescence" into their products so that you are forced to pay for the newer versions."

Hehe Jimbo,


i get that feeling too......There are several software programs on my PC (that everyone else also has) that gets updated every week. But is this really necessary?

Jeff
 

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My point was that a lot of software doesn't even try to use the available resources on my PC.

If my processor is only using 10% of its available cycles, 90% are doing nothing.
If I'm only using 12.5% of my RAM, 87.5% is doing nothing.

In the "old days" software bloat could be fixed by getting more RAM and/or a more powerful CPU.
In the cases I'm referring to, it would make no difference (other than even less CPU cycles and RAM would be utilised).
 

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Well Lehnerus,

Computers are like cars. I can drive with a small Toyota from Miami to Orlando and someone does this with a Porsche. Thanks to the speed limit and traffic the Porsche will not get faster in Orlando.

Computers now do not have to use a lot of Ram to give good performance, thanks for that.

So it would be nice using only as much Ram as you mention, using only 10% of the CPU, but at much higher speed please.

Jeff
 

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My point was that a lot of software doesn't even try to use the available resources on my PC.

If my processor is only using 10% of its available cycles, 90% are doing nothing.
If I'm only using 12.5% of my RAM, 87.5% is doing nothing.

In the "old days" software bloat could be fixed by getting more RAM and/or a more powerful CPU.
In the cases I'm referring to, it would make no difference (other than even less CPU cycles and RAM would be utilised).

This is right. But look around why:

For more RAM usage: all x64 software not just the OS...

Back in the days you upgraded the RAM, I think most of us were with 32bit OSes and machines (maybe even 16bit in some cases depending of how old those old days are).
The CPU matched well with the software. Over time, 16 bit was very much in the minority being run from emulators and DOS VM's. You run something like XP... every upgrade is felt.
You upgrade to 1GB RAM -> 2GB RAM very good -> 4GB RAM is the limit for 32bit and some software cannot use more than 2GB (see around XP).
When they introduced 32bit to the public, a big bang of 32bit software was made in the years to follow (Win95 -> Win98).
I was a kid and I how I would say it: all of a sudden no DOS games made anymore...

So now what? The transition to 64bit is not the same as from 16 to 32bit;
Because MOST software still is 32bit and will never use over 2-4GB of RAM even if you have 64GB.

The fact that syswow64 made such an easy transition, extending the old x86, and most developers took advantage of this.
I can even say that it looks like all of them got lazy: "the x86 version runs, no need for a x64 one".
What would this mean in the old days: "the DOS version runs, no need for a newer one" (you have 128MB RAM good because we only use 64k like 0.06MB maybe extending to 0.6MB... very good). But the issue was fixed in the old days!
So now, how do you want more improvement to the new 64bit platform if they all cling back to the older one that still works...

I underlined the word runs because the software just runs... but with the same speed as on the original x86.
There are programs that are fully x64 and there are developers who make a lot of improvement but they are still not a majority.

It's obvious that the transition from 32bit to 64bit is way slower than from 16bit to 32bit.
Then why do we need better hardware that already reached limits? Software improvement needs to come first... and not over bloating with features that increase file-sizes but improving the core so that it takes advantage of the new hardware and cpu instruction sets.

If we think all this is going well then we don't need to complain about slow computers but just accept what we got.
The improvement that x64 gives on speed is a small one but it's a step that needs to be done for any next improvement.
 
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My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 10 x64
    Computer type
    Laptop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    HP Envy DV6 7250
    CPU
    Intel i7-3630QM
    Motherboard
    HP, Intel HM77 Express Chipset
    Memory
    16GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    Intel HD4000 + Nvidia Geforce 630M
    Sound Card
    IDT HD Audio
    Monitor(s) Displays
    15.6' built-in + Samsung S22D300 + 17.3' LG Phillips
    Screen Resolution
    multiple resolutions
    Hard Drives
    Samsung SSD 250GB + Hitachi HDD 750GB
    PSU
    120W adapter
    Case
    small
    Cooling
    laptop cooling pad
    Keyboard
    Backlit built-in + big one in USB
    Mouse
    SteelSeries Sensei
    Internet Speed
    slow and steady
    Browser
    Chromium, Pale Moon, Firefox Developer Edition
    Antivirus
    Windows Defender
    Other Info
    That's basically it.
hi Hopachi,

good explained, in fact you are right


Jeff
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    WINDOWS 8.1 x64
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    CPU
    INTEL CORE I--3770K LGA1155
    Motherboard
    ASUS P8Z77-V
    Memory
    KINGSTON 2400 MHZ KHX24C11K4 16GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    INTEL HD GRAFICS 4000
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Philip BDL3245€ 32 inch
    Screen Resolution
    1920 x 1080
    Hard Drives
    2 SAMSUNG 840 PRO RAID 0 ON BOARD 2 x 128 GB
    Keyboard
    LOGITEC MX™ 5500
    Mouse
    LOGITEC MX 5500
    Internet Speed
    120 Mbps
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