near-term processing power growth

From: Ramez Naam (ramezn@Exchange.Microsoft.com)
Date: Thu Feb 10 2000 - 22:55:53 MST


Hmmm. While this may differ from the SIA roadmap (which I haven't seen),
it does not seem to differ from Moore's law.

Given that today's top end processors are running 750Mhz, and that Moore's
law calls for roughly a 60% performance increase each year, one would
project 3Ghz processors in 2003 and nearly 5Ghz processors in 2004.

Also, as a computer scientist I find it customary and realistic to buffer
near-term product release dates by a factor of 50%. (Though in this case it
sounds like IBM may already have done the proper buffering.)

From: Robert J. Bradbury
> Hot news for the day: IBM announces 3-4 GHz processors should
> be available in 3-4 years. I'll simply note that this is
> more than *DOUBLE* the rate projected in the SIA roadmap!
>
> Step by step, the singularity (picture the big Rock Creature
> from Galaxy Quest) takes huge strides down the Texas highway....
>
> Robert
>



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