Then what is the average system according to you?

Most people I know have some 1.6-2 Ghz dualcore with 1-2 GB RAM and horrible integrated Intel GPU. Before you get into a tirade of how "cheap" computers today, mind that the real average wage in my country is below 800 Euro/month. Maybe in the Netherlands people usually have better PCs, because they earn more. The world average PC will be even much weaker than the average Slovak PC as Slovakia is still among the 40 top developed countries out of 180 or so.

I know cheap for me is different than cheap for someone else 😉

I think my mistake was to assume we were talking about the average gaming pc. Which would ofcourse not make use of a crappy Intel IGP.

NitroX infinity wrote:

I know cheap for me is different than cheap for someone else 😉

I think my mistake was to assume we were talking about the average gaming pc. Which would ofcourse not make use of a crappy Intel IGP.

I said average PC, not gaming PC specifically. But then, plenty of my friends like playing games yet are stuck with computers that honestly should never have been made.

Intel IGP is perfectly fine...for office work. For games, anything else even a 30€ second hand graphics is probably better.
I actually like that Intel has integrated graphics everywhere, makes office machines much more stable in the long run (I've seen some office machines with passive cooled nVidia cards that were horribly overheating and even active cooling fails after a few years when the dust is not cleaned).

Although new hardware of the last 5-6 years is hardly exciting you cant deny this, Computers are bloody cheap and gave you a platform that has a long service life(generally).

My current rig is 4.5 years old and was a budget build, specs were

Asus MA378-EM - Socket AM2/PCIE
Athlon X2 5000+(?) 2.6GHZ dual core.
2GIG DDR2 800

Along the course of nearly 5 years DDR2 was basically throw away memory, I got given another 2gig and given a 9800GT and up until last night was running windows XP 32bit.

Now having used windows 8 for a few hours I actually don't mind it and that operating system only cost $53 and it runs fine!!! Youtube 1080P works well, granted its not a gaming machine but this has been an excellent system over the years.

Actually I am building some systems with "a great investment for the time" in mind and overclockability, based on PC´s I had in the past, here are what I believe to be the best price and performance choices for the time:

1993: Am486 DX2-66 Mhz
8/16 Mb RAM for Windows 95
Tseng Labs ET4000 1MB ISA Video Card.
Sound Blaster 16

1996: Cyrix 686 PR200 150 Mhz
S3 Virge 2 MB
32 MB RAM
SoundBlaster 16

I know this system is really bad for games, I was disappointed when it only gave 10 extra average fps in Quake compared with my 486 DX4 120 Mhz but for working tasks it had superior performance to the Pentium for almost half the cost or so, but it can still take on games like Tomb Raider 2 or Age of Empires 2 and runs Windows 98 well.

1998: 440BX motherboard Socket 370 with onboard NIC and PCI audio
Celeron 366 Mhz @ 550 Mhz with 100 Mhz SDRAM
3dfx Velocity Voodoo3 8 MB with unlocked TMU (Have a Matrox G250 PCI in its place, since people ask insane price for them, but still looking for a voodoo3)

2004: Intel Pentium 4 2.4 Ghz OC to 3.3 Ghz with HT
MB: Abit IC7-G with gigabit ethernet.
RAM: 1.5 GB DDR
GPU: Nvidia GeForce 6800 GT 256 MB

I only put the last one here since it is my current system with massive overclock since 2008 and I can still do pretty much everything with it, even playing modern games like Skyrim, Mass Effect 3 with surprisingly good framerates for games way below the minimum sys requirements, and also with SQL Server + Eclipse and a few chrome tabs and it still somewhat responsive, best investement I ever did, except the initial GPU was an Radeon 9600.

Sad that nowadays you have to pay extra for unlocked versions of CPU´s to overclock. and all GPU´s below 50 bucks are completely useless, you cant get good deals no more.

I am not criticizing PCs as a platform, only saying that progress in this area went to a grinding near-halt. And trust me, for the average person in this country computers are everything but "bloody cheap", in fact they were perhaps more affordable in the late 90s as we weren't in the EU yet and there were many homegrown companies offering PCs built from generic parts.

I also agree many old gaming systems run even new games well. I played Fallout 3 on a system with a X1400 Radeon 128 MB (the CPU was a Core2Duo through, which is about right for Fallout 3) and it actually run really well on low detail, with a little fps slowdown in VATS (not that much of an issue as VATS is actually always shown in slow motion). I think the box said 256 MB video card strongly required or something like that.

The problem is, integrated graphics castrate even an i7 system, gaming wise. And most of these computers are not advertised as office machines, instead, they are advertised as those "computers for 1 Euro" by cell phone operators like Orange and T Mobile, even through they will make you sign so much stuff you'll end up paying more for the machine than for a decent rig.

Another necro warning but at least this thread is only a few months old.
And to make things even worse I continue the derailing from the topic 😀

I can't say that I think the cpu development during 2002 to 2008 was slow or even slower than before.
But now, after the first Core i7 release in late 2008 nothing has really happend.
If you bought an i7 920 late 2008 and clocked it to 4ghz what do you have to gain from upgradeing?
I think a s1366 i7 still will be fast enough in 2015 for most stuff even gaming. Perhaps it even will be good enough in 2018.
A system that works great for most tasks 10 years after it was built that would be unprecedented.

I think when AMD could not answer Intels i7 the development almost slowed to a standstill.
Intel can just keep selling new versions of the i7 with small improvements and still dominate. Why spend unnecessary money on research when the competition is far behind.
Better to just continue to improve the manufacturing process to increase profit.
The economic crisis is not helping either.

I agree, except I would say the "slowdown point" was in 2006. Most modern games, even stuff like Bioshock Infinite run very wel on a Core 2 Duo. Hell, you can find videos of modern games running on 9 year old Pentium 4 systems with 4 year old videocards and they still run quite OK, "poor" by "gamer" standards, but that is how most people I know play their games (through usually it is some cheap dualcore rather than a P4, but using an old videocard or an IGP). Look at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVpFcYbKeMs , http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrNW-_BVQ9M , http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3pERYTUbXM , http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4bumHaIELI .

Skyrim runs on a Pentium 4 system with a GTX 550Ti in the high-30s fps. Now try running GTA San Andreas on a Pentium Pro or a Celeron 300A, and you will see what I mean by development of CPUs grinding down to a halt.

As for a computer being usable for most things after 10 years, that is a common occurence in second world (post-communist, like the Slovakia I live in) and third world countries- My parents used a 386DX40 for business tasks until 2000 and my uncle used a Pentium 75 Mhz for work tasks and web browsing until 2004/2005 or so (that was before web has became to mean "Youtube" and "Facebook"). If you do not play games or view Youtube, a very old PC will suffice. My 10 year old Pentium 4 rig is being used right now as an office and database PC and it actually plays Youtube better than my fathers 2007 or so Celeron notebook.

m1so wrote:

... I would say the "slowdown point" was in 2006 ...

Yep.

http://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=2181798

The reason core 2 duos still are viable is that the new game console generation isnt out yet. Soon after the new consoles are released few new games will work well on anything less than a quad core.
But sure the core 2 quads will still be able to run new games satisfactory for a few more years.

But when talking about improvement in CPU architecture and capability the Core i7 was a huge leap almost equal to the leap from Netburst to Core architecture, the games just dosnt require the speed yet.
Some credit goes to AMD for leading the way and forcing Intel to make these improvements.
We could really benefit from some competition in the market for high end CPUs again.

This depends on your definition of "working well". Many people are terrified of 30 fps, but truth be said, 30 fps is good, it is the console 16-30 fps that is not good. Many modern games run in mid-20s fps for any moment of action and some dip as low as 16 fps on the consoles http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoun … s-row-the-third . Many modern games run at 20 fps for extended periods of time on consoles due to vsync. I'm fairly safe even after the new console generation comes out most games will run well on a dual-core with a good GPU. Well, at least better than consoles, if they go the "30 fps" (really 16-30 fps) route.

Core 2 Duo was simply amazing when it came out. I remember seeing it compared to AMD 64 and everyone was shocked just how much the AMD was holding things back.

The other thing that happened is core count. They added cores which means less transistors for a single core and less heat envelope. So I totally disagree with the "no progress" view, you just need to look at multi threaded benchmarks. Also performance per watt is the real measure of progress these days. Intel is so far ahead in this it's really depressing...

If you put it like that, it seems to be progressing. However the pace of progress is utterly pathetic compared to what was before 2006. Multi-threaded artificial benchmarks may have skyrocketed, but very few applications really use multithreading to any significant degree. Most people also focus on one task, and most people don't run 100 applications at once. I am talking real world progress. As I said, you can run Skyrim on a Pentium 4, decently even, but you cannot run GTA:SA on a Pentium Pro. There might be progress on paper, but not for the average user or even gamer.

things have slowed down since 2008 or so , that much I can see, whether its due to the mess AMD's CPUs were in or the dominance of consoles and the rise in tablet sales (ie, more money going towards the development of hardware for tablets than desktops) Im not sure.

its not 100% bad though , the fact that indeed its quite possible to run alot of newer games with hardware from 5+ years ago means one doesn't have to upgrade constantly , not a bad thing for the average person.

Putting the graphics core onto the CPU is also a factor. Intel could likely make a lot more powerful CPUs without that graphics core. But AMDs strategy forced their hand...

The weakest link however for me was storage. A SSD just unlocks all this hidden power. I do like the speed. I can't work on a Core 2 Duo anymore, even with SSD, it's just not snappy enough for my liking...

Reading this thread makes me feel that people are not thinking that things happened this way because it was inevitable.

- Are performance improvements slowing down?
Of course. It is impossible to just keep on increasing transistor count to make your CPU perform better, when in fact it could only make it slower due to x86 ISA limitations. There are even more reasons to this.

- Why 1 billion transistors on a quad core instead of a super powerful single core?
All of the above. x86 limitations, heat, yields, for a CPU that would be actually slower. Either a new ISA or multi-threading with improved SIMD, x64 etc...

-Graphics cores on the same CPU die?
This is not bad. It is the opposite actually. CPU is great for general computing but sucks at parallel workloads. There is so many stuff that can be done by GPU with massive acceleration.

- Intel could likely make a lot more powerful CPUs without that graphics core?
I disagree. The GPU is not making the biggest contribution for heat. If the idea is no GPU for increased clock speed window for CPU, forget it, there's not a huge gain there.

IMHO, x86 is old and it's showing it's age. The times where performance doubled when new micro-architectures came out are over a long time ago. Slightly increasing clock speed, better SIMD, heterogeneous architechture, micro-op fusion is the way to go, unless a new ISA is to come. Intel tried to establish a new ISA and failed. As of today hardware is very powerful. Software needs to be better optimized, which is not easy, due to several factors i mentioned above.

Personally i will not expect serious improvements until we have better semi-conductors with better performance, transistors that can clock much faster and leak a lot less.

The problem isn't x86. Even the processor architecture of the future, PowerPC, ran into similar brick walls despite being RISC and much newer. Its the reason Apple dumped it for x86. After 2006, Intel focused on reeling in the excessive power consumption and heat of their CPUs. Some smart engineering and revisiting old ideas (P6 arch.) made it possible.

The focus on cores is a way to sidestep the issues Intel ran into with NetBurst and increase performance. The problem is most applications are still single threaded and not optimized to take advantage of multiple cores. Doing so is HARD since programmers have to deal with concurrency issues.

Of course the other issue is that the PC lacks something that brings change and innovation. Namely a new "killer app", something that is so compelling that one would want to upgrade their hardware. This plateauing problem isn't limited to traditional computers. Smartphones and tablets will likely reach that point soon too. Its hard to tell if its already happening since the installed base is still growing. Once everyone has a smartphone or tablet, what is going to compel them to upgrade if there is no reason to? Right now they are plenty of folks who find their old iPhone 4/4S "good enough" when in the past they would upgrade when a new model came out.

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

Putting the graphics core onto the CPU is also a factor. Intel could likely make a lot more powerful CPUs without that graphics core. But AMDs strategy forced their hand...

The weakest link however for me was storage. A SSD just unlocks all this hidden power. I do like the speed. I can't work on a Core 2 Duo anymore, even with SSD, it's just not snappy enough for my liking...

its understandable why AMD is going after the APU market, I know someone who works at AMD, and they seem to be under the impression that AMD will never make a desktop CPU thats fast enough to compete with Intel , simply because they lack the R&D money.

obviously thats not exactly true given how the Athlon/XP series performed, but that is their mindset right now, so they figure they may as well try to go for the mobile and OEM markets.