Graphics card with a core clock of 1GHz.

[Akaru]

http://www.guru3d.com/article/msi-radeon-4890-cyclone-soc-review-1ghz/1

 

I wonder when the graphics card core clock will hit a wall like processors did.

[TheVirus]

Processors didn't hit a wall, technically speaking. There was a whole discussion on the 'Megahertz Myth' from AMD/Intel. Basically, it said that more MHz does not mean more speed. Instead, the two companies redesigned their architecture of their CPUs to perform more efficiently. This is why a new 1.8GHz CPU will easily out perform a P4 3.0GHz.

 

GPUs will more than likely follow suit, and I believe they already are. Core clock speed isn't the only determining factor in performance. There's also cache size and speed, pipelines, on-board RAM, and many, many other factors.

[Wrathek]

Processors didn't hit a wall, technically speaking. There was a whole discussion on the 'Megahertz Myth' from AMD/Intel. Basically, it said that more MHz does not mean more speed. Instead, the two companies redesigned their architecture of their CPUs to perform more efficiently. This is why a new 1.8GHz CPU will easily out perform a P4 3.0GHz.

 

GPUs will more than likely follow suit, and I believe they already are. Core clock speed isn't the only determining factor in performance. There's also cache size and speed, pipelines, on-board RAM, and many, many other factors.

 

They did hit a wall in some way. Not to where "oh we can't make them go any faster because technology doesn't allow it", but more, "holy shit this stuff runs hot as fuck".

 

And, because of this, like you said they restructured. And unless we find a new material that can dissipate heat vastly more efficiently, we will continue adding more and more cores.

 

And as for the "why a new 1.8GHz CPU will outperform a P4", that has to do with more than just the restructure, you have to remember that even if software isn't threaded, the cores can work together, nearly effectively adding their processing power.

[TheVirus]

They did hit a wall in some way. Not to where "oh we can't make them go any faster because technology doesn't allow it", but more, "holy shit this stuff runs hot as fuck".

 

And, because of this, like you said they restructured. And unless we find a new material that can dissipate heat vastly more efficiently, we will continue adding more and more cores.

 

And as for the "why a new 1.8GHz CPU will outperform a P4", that has to do with more than just the restructure, you have to remember that even if software isn't threaded, the cores can work together, nearly effectively adding their processing power.

 

Artificial diamonds are one material that is vastly superior than silicon. Also, I was only talking about a single core CPU. Dual cores don't technically work 'together', the OS balances the load to different cores. If you're only running one major process, a dual core will do very little to make it run faster.

 

If the software isn't multithreaded then it will not take advantage of the multi-core CPUs, plain and simple. The only benefit is the OS off loading processes to other cores while one is under heavy load. We won't see multi-core supported software for quite some time since multithreaded programming is an absolute pain in the ass and that doesn't even take into account modifying existing code to utilize multi-core CPUs.

[Wrathek]

Dual cores don't technically work 'together', the OS balances the load to different cores. If you're only running one major process, a dual core will do very little to make it run faster.

 

When i said that i was lazily referring to the os doing this work. That's why i said "effectively", because I wasn't sure if you were referring to one major process or not. I didn't say they technically work together though, because i totally agree that they don't.

[jazzy]

I think car makers can learn a thing or two from CPU makers