When will we hit 4.0 Ghz?

[Zwhaler]

It has been some time since the Pentium 4's were the top of the line, and as I am sure many of you remember, Intel's fastest P4 was 3.8 Ghz. Although it was very inefficent, you have to admit that it was clocked very high. When do you think we will see non high-end consumer chips that reach 4Ghz? I realize that Intel redesigned their chips to be way more efficient when they moved to the Core archetecture, but also lowered their Ghz numbers by quite a lot (even though they were faster than their higher gigahert counterparts using the older technology). Thoughts?

edit: 2014, we now have a 4.0GHz option in the new iMac!

 

[Fearless Leader]

I don't think we will for a long time, if ever. You start running into issues of how time, electricity, and the universe work.

 

[Zwhaler]

I don't think we will for a long time, if ever. You start running into issues of how time, electricity, and the universe work.

You do have a point. I have seen YouTube Videos where people overclock their P4s to ranges of even 5Ghz, and they literally have massive tanks of CO2 that are permantly keeping the processers cooled. Unless we get new revolutionary cooling systems, it might not happen for awhile.

 

[Eric5h5]

4GHz? Pfft. IBM did 500 GHz last year. Of course, that was by cooling it down to nearly absolute zero. So get out your air conditioners. (But even at room temperature, I believe it was still operating at around 350GHz.)

--Eric

 

[johnee]

The IBM Power6 processor is running at 5+ GHz. Although you said consumer...

The power-frequency-work curves show CMOS technology doesn't have very long till it hits its peak. A processors is constantly being throttled up/down due to inability to keep them from evaporating.

Not until new manufacturing technologies are mainstream will we see increased performance.

CARBON NANOTUBES WILL SAVE THE WORLD! (but there are some other technologies that will be mainstream before cnt.)

 

[noaccess]

4GHz? Pfft. IBM did 500 GHz last year. Of course, that was by cooling it down to nearly absolute zero. So get out your air conditioners. (But even at room temperature, I believe it was still operating at around 350GHz.)
--Eric

the technology is 250 times faster than chips in today's cellphones, which operate at 2 gigahertz

Today's cellphones have chips with 2GHz clock speeds?
*Looks at LG Chocolate on the desk*
*Looks at iBook running at 1.42 GHz*

Huh?

 

[johnee]

Today's cellphones have chips with 2GHz clock speeds?
*Looks at LG Chocolate on the desk*
*Looks at iBook running at 1.42 GHz*

Huh?

I wonder it it's referring to the output frequency of the cell phone?

EDIT : nope, cell phones use ~800 MHz to talk to the cell tower. The reporter was just stupid.

 

[Eric5h5]

I wonder it it's referring to the output frequency of the cell phone?

Yes. Read the note at the very bottom.

--Eric

 

[sycho]

4GHz? Pfft. IBM did 500 GHz last year. Of course, that was by cooling it down to nearly absolute zero. So get out your air conditioners. (But even at room temperature, I believe it was still operating at around 350GHz.)

--Eric

That 500GHz was just a transistor, not a processor.

 

[GFLPraxis]

Not for a while if multicore keeps taking off. It seems the more cores added, the lower the clock speed increase. We're going to get quad 3.5 GHz machines before we get single-4 GHz.

A 4 GHz single-core Conroe is probably aleady possible (or Penryn in the future), but nobody cares because they'd rather have dual-3 GHz or quad-2.66.

 

[johnee]

Not for a while if multicore keeps taking off. It seems the more cores added, the lower the clock speed increase. We're going to get quad 3.5 GHz machines before we get single-4 GHz.

A 4 GHz single-core Conroe is probably aleady possible (or Penryn in the future), but nobody cares because they'd rather have dual-3 GHz or quad-2.66.

You're right. Intel is working on an 80 (?) core design, I think they have it working in the lab, right?

 

[noaccess]

Yes. Read the note at the very bottom.

--Eric

The reporter was just stupid.

Or maybe it's both. The reporter was stupid and it was referring to output frequencies, which don't exceed 1,900 MHz in the US and 1,800 MHz in Europe and other places.

At first I didn't want to doubt the reputable NY Times, but that didn't really go well.

 

[TheBobcat]

Computers will hit 4.0 when they stop drinking all night and actually study once and a while. It's all about how much work you put in.

 

[johnee]

Computers will hit 4.0 when they stop drinking all night and actually study once and a while. It's all about how much work you put in.

lol

 

[Willis]

I dont think we will see it. Its all about energy efficiency yet more power per watt.

I think the megahertz race is nearly done. Its the core race now

 

[72930]

I dont think we will see it. Its all about energy efficiency yet more power per watt.

I think the megahertz race is nearly done. Its the core race now

As heat-lowering technology kicks off with new innovations, I think that we could well see 4.0Ghz machines

 

[verticalforce]

Damn, who cares about 4 ghz when the future is 100 cores all running at 2 ghz, doing 100 things at once...

*drools*

 

[Fearless Leader]

Today's cellphones have chips with 2GHz clock speeds?
*Looks at LG Chocolate on the desk*
*Looks at iBook running at 1.42 GHz*

Huh?

He was obviously referring to the iphone, he has information we don't. Lets get him. Macrumors Members unite.

 

[Aranince]

Instead of upping the system speed...since thats bound to hit the limits anyway(more cores actually starts to cause slowdowns) Why not work on making the software faster and make it so it actually uses the hardware to its absolute top performance? And to be able to do that, you would have to only support one type of hardware.

 

[Bobdude161]

Instead of upping the system speed...since thats bound to hit the limits anyway(more cores actually starts to cause slowdowns) Why not work on making the software faster and make it so it actually uses the hardware to its absolute top performance? And to be able to do that, you would have to only support one type of hardware.

In a Windows world, most ppl are not going to see this...

 

[The General]

I hit 4.2Ghz with my PC on my E6600 Core 2 Duo.

Big deal.

 

[sam10685]

Unless we get new revolutionary cooling systems

That probably will happen.

 

[yg17]

Computers will hit 4.0 when they stop drinking all night and actually study once and a while. It's all about how much work you put in.

Unless we're talking about a 4.0 blood alcohol content

 

[synth3tik]

Don't hold your breath. Semiconductor companies have hit a wall at the current clock speeds. Thats why we are seeing all the 2 and 4 core machines.

 

[jdechko]

Not for a while if multicore keeps taking off. It seems the more cores added, the lower the clock speed increase. We're going to get quad 3.5 GHz machines before we get single-4 GHz.

A 4 GHz single-core Conroe is probably aleady possible (or Penryn in the future), but nobody cares because they'd rather have dual-3 GHz or quad-2.66.

True, But before we can take advantage of the additional cores, the software developers are gonna have to rewrite their code. Most important apps still use a single core. So even though there are 24 total GHz of power available on the new 8-core macs, few apps can use it all. It comes down to what you need, a faster single proc. or multiple lower-clocked processors. I think it will be a combination of both (rewrite code, faster cores).