Processors

[vpro]

Why are they telling people about Broadwell already?

What is the purpose of telling consumers that there are advancements coming later on which are just tiny improvements on the last generation processors or just 2X faster or what ever it is. Are they just getting people's hopes up? Or just being transparent that they are working on things?

The way I see it, battery technology is still not really all that great right, so most of the CPU improvements are just to take advantage of bad battery technology, just the same things year after year just packaged cleverly the next product release time, right?

Someone inform me please. I am very confused. Feels like they are just optimizing so much just to cater to the lack of technological advancements, innovating on existing technology but they dare to charge an arm and a leg for it and packaging it in fancier form factors etc etc etc...

 

[mcarling]

Intel must necessarily give computer manufacturers advance information about the CPUs that will be coming next year, so that the computer manufacturers can plan and engineer future computers. That information leaks and we hear about it.

 

[PDFierro]

This happens every year. Really, the only big advancements is when it is a new architecture completely. Like, Sandy Bridge and Haswell.

And most of the people buying laptops have no idea what exactly all this means.

 

[laurihoefs]

Someone inform me please. I am very confused. Feels like they are just optimizing so much just to cater to the lack of technological advancements, innovating on existing technology but they dare to charge an arm and a leg for it and packaging it in fancier form factors etc etc etc...

Things very rarely change in giant leaps. Most of technological progress is very gradual, call it just optimization if you will. This progress takes a lot of research and development, and that is transferred to the products price.

If you think that current computers cost an arm and a leg, because someone dares to charge you for their work, then might I suggest you buy a $25 pocket calculator. Thirty years ago a device with similar computational power might have cost you $25,000, and without that gradual progress it still would.

 

[leman]

Thirty years ago a device with similar computational power might have cost you $25,000, and without that gradual progress it still would.

$25000? I think you are underestimating it a bit Thirty years ago (1983), the fastest computer in the world was Cray X-MP, offering peak theoretical performance of 400 MFLOPS and 16MB of RAM. It costed over $10 million. For comparison, actual benchmarks of iPhone5 CPU are around 50% better

P.S. One of those beauties can be found in the lower floor of a Technical University (ETH) building in Zurich. I often go there for lunch and always visit it

 

[laurihoefs]

$25000? I think you are underestimating it a bit Thirty years ago (1983), the fastest computer in the world was Cray X-MP, offering peak theoretical performance of 400 MFLOPS and 16MB of RAM. It costed over $10 million. For comparison, actual benchmarks of iPhone5 CPU are around 50% better

P.S. One of those beauties can be found in the lower floor of a Technical University (ETH) building in Zurich. I often go there for lunch and always visit it

Yeah, but iPhone 5 is also a beast compared to a $25 pocket calculator.

I saw a Cray-1 in Deutches Museum, wish I had asked someone to snap a photo of me next to it

Edit: With the $25K figure I was thinking along the lines of early SUN or SGI workstations, but even those were actually $30K or more, and in 1983 dollars...

 

[sofianito]

Intel is like Nicolas Cage in "The Weather Man" movie. Watch it and you'll understand what I am talking about...

 

[vpro]

Things very rarely change in giant leaps. Most of technological progress is very gradual, call it just optimization if you will. This progress takes a lot of research and development, and that is transferred to the products price.

If you think that current computers cost an arm and a leg, because someone dares to charge you for their work, then might I suggest you buy a $25 pocket calculator. Thirty years ago a device with similar computational power might have cost you $25,000, and without that gradual progress it still would.

If you are gonna bring that up, I mean people used to have better standard of living, worked less and earned way more. So economics is the brainwash excuse they want you to consider. Expensive is expensive no matter how you look at it. But thank you for reminding me about the research and work side of it. I would gladly buy direct and not go through a company.

I buy custom built hackintoshes online from various people for my after school and summer camp kids. I buy custom instruments from the luthiers themselves and get exactly what I want, but sometimes they need more time to research certain materials and techniques, so I wait but I don't mind to pay an arm and leg for those products.

So maybe it is safe to say that the prices have always been the same, but the circumstances have changed. People are earning way less now than two generations before us. My nieces and nephew's generation are going to have a less quality of life than my grand parents who own a lot of land, etc. Old money VS new money too...

Anyways.

 

[sofianito]

if you are gonna bring that up, i mean people used to have better standard of living, worked less and earned way more. So economics is the brainwash excuse they want you to consider. Expensive is expensive no matter how you look at it. But thank you for reminding me about the research and work side of it. I would gladly buy direct and not go through a company.

I buy custom built hackintoshes online from various people for my after school and summer camp kids. I buy custom instruments from the luthiers themselves and get exactly what i want, but sometimes they need more time to research certain materials and techniques, so i wait but i don't mind to pay an arm and leg for those products.

So maybe it is safe to say that the prices have always been the same, but the circumstances have changed. People are earning way less now than two generations before us. My nieces and nephew's generation are going to have a less quality of life than my grand parents who own a lot of land, etc. Old money vs new money too...

Anyways.

+1

 

[laurihoefs]

So maybe it is safe to say that the prices have always been the same, but the circumstances have changed. People are earning way less now than two generations before us. My nieces and nephew's generation are going to have a less quality of life than my grand parents who own a lot of land, etc. Old money VS new money too...

May I point you to this: Average Income in the United States (1913-2006)

Those figures reflect the economical development of a large part of the western world. And before you ask: yes, the changing dollar value is compensated in the statistics.

The following is a gross simplification: Generally people aren't earning less, they are spending more. Having a huge mortgage and two car loans etc. was only starting to become common a couple of generations ago. A lot of the "quality of life" you mention was built on debt, and was never sustainable. Wealth disparity has grown from a couple of generations ago though, which is going to become a huge problem.

But yeah, you had a good point: expensive is expensive. There is always the option of not buying something expensive, but a cheaper alternative instead. Just like you do with your hackintoshes.

 

[vpro]

Thank you!

May I point you to this: Average Income in the United States (1913-2006)

Those figures reflect the economical development of a large part of the western world. And before you ask: yes, the changing dollar value is compensated in the statistics.

The following is a gross simplification: Generally people aren't earning less, they are spending more. Having a huge mortgage and two car loans etc. was only starting to become common a couple of generations ago. A lot of the "quality of life" you mention was built on debt, and was never sustainable. Wealth disparity has grown from a couple of generations ago though, which is going to become a huge problem.

But yeah, you had a good point: expensive is expensive. There is always the option of not buying something expensive, but a cheaper alternative instead. Just like you do with your hackintoshes.

Thank you for this information, much appreciated - I'm happy to have allies and opportunities to learn more. Indeed more people have much more personal debt now.