Thread: An Old Pc Plus Article

Why are computer stuck at like 3/3.5 gigs lately?

I think its mainly because theres no point to make them faster. With a crap bus speed, no amount of extra calculations is gonna make your computer run faster. The rest of technology has to catch up.

Because clock speed is useless without the bus speed to keep up to it. We are also going through a transition from single to multiple core processors. During all processor transitions the increases in speed slow down, it happened with pipelining and modulating, but as soon as it was sorted out there were large jumps in speed.

After the multicore processors there is also a large disagreement among computer guys about the direction of processors after that. IBM wants to push the new cell processors that it built with sony, others want edgy processors, and others want to make tons of xPUs. It's going to be a mess for a while, each new processor will need new programming techniques.

There is also a maximum speed at while silicon can switch on and off. Heat and power usage will also slow down your processor and the smaller the transistors are, the more heat the computer produces.

analogy time

clockspeed is akin to the rev counter on a car
and we're changing gears