Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

Well Ivy Bridge has been reviewed and we are looking at 5-15% of performance boost. […]
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Well Ivy Bridge has been reviewed and we are looking at 5-15% of performance boost.

Compared to the old days this is hardly worth releasing a new product for. I mean when Intel launched the Pentium or Pentium 2 the performance was like double compared to what was previously available.

I honestly don't know if we even need faster CPUs...

And what about AMD? Looking at performance per watt they are so far behind it's sad. I simply don't see how they will get back in the game. Intel's Tick-Tock strategy is brutal for any competitor.

Personally I want SSD to drop in price. They are still way overpriced for what you get. Maybe SSD caching (with a 60GB) drive is the way to go. Haven't made any experiences with this yet.

Xeons typically were only about that much faster than their Pentium counterparts but that didn't stop Intel from selling them or a certain segment of the market from buying them.

IMHO the point of ivybridge for now is the 22nm manufacturing process, it's a milestone on it's own (I would love one but I can't afford to be so greedy as to change my 2600K... 🤣)
It won't be long before intel makes some 22nm 6 or 8 real cores cpus ... that's were 22nm will start paying off 😎

The MHz race is over!
Instead, new CPUs run cooler and are more efficient, both in terms of energy and what they can do per cycle.

Is Ivy Bridge vesa 3.0 compliant and does it scroll properly in Keen 4?

^ I believe so, those 22nm really help with scrolling, something to do with caching of EGA registers I have heard from a guy that has a friend whose uncle works on retail carrot marketing....
🤣

Sune Salminen wrote:

The MHz race is over!
Instead, new CPUs run cooler and are more efficient, both in terms of energy and what they can do per cycle.

I think there is a lot of truth in this.

I remember reading somewhere that we will approach the theoretical physical limits of silicon sometime this decade, of course there is always new research that allows engineers to push a little further. I can't find the article I'm thinking of now though so can't speak as to the veracity of this claim.
But the point is that the focus isn't so much on raw performance any more, its more on efficiency- trying to make what we have, work better.

One big driving force behind consumer PC performance was games - unfortunately, in modern times the gaming market has truly shifted to 7 year old consoles - many PC games are in fact just console ports, designed to run on ancient hardware that barely make a modern PC break a sweat.
Maybe the new xbox and PS4 that are rumoured will change this.... (one persistent rumour is that the PS4 will run an x86 CPU, could be good news for PC gamers as we may see more/better quality ports... personally I'm almost done with modern gaming, I get much more enjoyment from playing stuff from the 90's but I digress...)

There's also a lot of talk of convergence with the PC and ipad/mobile devices. Personally I think that the desktop PC will always have its place (its incredibly painful to actually create content on a tablet/mobile, PC is far superior for that). But these devices aren't designed to be powerhouses, more for power usage/efficiency, so I think regardless of whether the PC merges with tablets, desktop CPU's will be moving more towards efficiency in the future rather than raw power.