Is it true that some CPU from 2012 is 3 times faster than CPU from 2008?

[nec207]

Some was saying to me in e-mail that some CPU from 2012 is 3 times faster than CPU from 2008?

Is that true ? I know there are some people here into engineering and really into hardware who may explain this better.

 

[sviato]

My CPU is from 2006, must be slow as ****!

 

[basesloaded190]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore's_law

 

[lewis82]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore's_law

If you had actually read the article (well, the intro) then you would know that it states that the number of transistors doubles every 12/18/24 months.

Now the thing is, most of the transistors on a modern CPU are used to build the cache, which requires 6 transistors per bit. And even if I ignore that, there is the fact that adding more cores does not scale performance linearly (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/ea/AmdahlsLaw.svg/1000px-AmdahlsLaw.svg.png).

 

[wywern209]

OP, clock speed doesnt matter anymore. Each major series of processor is built using different architectures. this can make them faster and consume less power as well. Even if you have a 5ghz single core processor, a 2 ghz quad core from 2012, will much much faster because of its more recent architecture with more innovations. having more cores means the tasks for a program can be spread across the cores. if we use the analogy of chefs in a kitchen. what is faster, a fast chef who can prepare and serve a dish in 1 hr or 4 medium speed chefs who do different parts at the same time( prep work, side dishes, sauce etc) and serve the dish in 30 minutes. different architectures sort of translates to different chefs. I hope this improved your understanding of processors. there is obviously more to it. just google.

 

[Dviper27]

Wouldn't Surprise Me

Wouldn't Surprise Me.

 

[Nioxic]

i don't think its comparable like that. cpus get more advanced..

intel said their ivy bridge is / was 10-20% faster than their sandy bridge..

thats not double..

the amount of transistors increase a lot but the other parts of the cpu changes too

that being said, i know nothing about transistors and the stuff inside a cpu