Have CPU's got to a point where they don't have to be upgraded?

[remixedcat]

glad to hear both of you are fine with SSD drives.

and open minded what is the exact drive you got?

[Open Minded]

and open minded what is the exact drive you got?

The Patriot Pyro 60 gig. The old firmware had a problem if you had the drive set to sleep in Windows when not active. At least, that's what I noticed when it would BSOD.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820220602

[Another Canuck]

Nope.

There's more to CPUs than just speed. Power efficiency is huge these days. Both Intel and AMD have been putting a lot more focus on the mobile market these days, and rightfully so.

While an older CPU might still be able to run programs just as well as it always has, it is under more load and chugging a lot more power than a modern day CPU. While this isn't as big a deal for desktops, this is huge for mobile where everyone is fighting to have the longest battery life.

[remixedcat]

The Patriot Pyro 60 gig. The old firmware had a problem if you had the drive set to sleep in Windows when not active. At least, that's what I noticed when it would BSOD.

http://www.newegg.co...N82E16820220602

thanks much ;-)

[yowanvista]

Still using an old 2009 system with a Q8200 @3.08Ghz, 8gigs at 1066Mhz with the only new component being a GTX460. Runs everything thrown at it including modern games at max settings but the only bottleneck is the HDD but from what I've noticed SSDs don't last that long.

[libertas83]

Yeah precisely because I know what a bottleneck means I can tell you that since the conception of PCs all the storage mediums have been "a bottleneck", it was that much that actually they were never relied for constant operations in them, instead ram loaded all the contents for work and the processor did work with them. Descent 2 comes to mind in this, it used some kind of "virtual memory" that actually relied on the HDD for loading textures, one was able to see how textures were loaded quite slow with this method. SSD is an improvement, nevertheless it will never be used for "ram operations" and stills a big bottleneck overall, hence ram stills working in cooperation with the processor for "no bottleneck" operation, that's why is an storage medium.

A bottleneck occurs when a series of operations need to take place but one piece has to wait on the other before it can do its part. This means that in a perfect system, speed of all operations are equal to each other and in sync so that data smoothly flows from end to to the other. When that does not happen, then a component somewhere is bottlenecking the system.

RAM is often a bottleneck for the CPU and the CPU is often a bottleneck of a GPU. While huge improvements have happened in RAM, CPU, and GPU speeds to reduce bottlenecks, the one constant has been the absolute slowest component in the system, the HDD. So to state otherwise is very wrong.

You also make false assumptions. You assume applications cache all data to RAM at somepoint so that its magically faster with no bottleneck. Games still have to load into RAM and levels still have to load. Efficent applications do not load everything into RAM and load it only when needed and using caching to reduce the effects of HDD speeds.

Does this mean that HDD speeds are devasting for application performance no? No, and no one is arguing that. Does it mean that if I don't have enough RAM or I have too many applications open that I will see applications take longer to load and respond when multi-tasking? Yes.

Either way, the HDD is still the bottleneck as it is one of the first operations that occurs and the slowest.

[Freelancer1111]

I think we are at a point (espicially true for Gaming), where the other components of a PC (Ram, HDD, GPU) can't reach the CPU's power. For example, when I play Battlefield 3, my Graphics Card is at full power, while the CPU sits at 35~50 %.

[~Johnny]

also seems like they stoppped (stock speeds) at 3.93ghz, and just said MORE CORES!!! what would it be like if they had decided to release a 10ghz CPU?

From what I'm aware of I think that's because that's close to the physical limit silicon can reasonably handle with standard cooling. To go faster you'd need to be pushing more electricity through the chip per second, which causes more heat - and once you start going past 4-5Ghz the only reasonably way to stop that heat from actually melting or damaging the processors is some serious liquid or nitrogen cooling, which is obviously really expensive.

I could be wrong though :p

[metallithrax]

I built my current PC in March 2006 and it does me fine. I don't play modern games, with the exception of TrackMania 2, and that runs fine. My system is:

AMD Athlon64 3500 Venice

Corsair Value Select 1GB (1x1GB) DDR PC-3200C3 400MHz Single Channel Memory Module

ASRock 939 Dual SATA2

Windows XP

NVidia GeForce 9500GT 512MB

Will only be upgrading when I have enough money, which is not likely in the near future.

[seta-san]

Yep, HDD's are definitely a bottleneck these days. SSD's are so much better. The access times of SSD's are amazing, not to mention, it's just a win for speed, power usage, temperature, etc. The price is really the only negative aspect of it.

the harddrive might be slow on the load screen... but after all the textures and models, etc have been loaded to the video card there is not much more the harddrive has to do.

[Mando]

You seem to lack quite a bit of knowledge in regards to how a PC operates and how people use them. And you've clearly never used a SSD. For one, a SSD will theoretically last longer than a mechanical HDD. I've had a few HDD failures over the years, but have yet to have a single SSD die since the first Vertex generation. Obviously that story is different for everybody, but common sense would say: moving parts < no moving parts.

I can't think of a single situation where an HDD would even compare to the shear speed of a SSD. Even in a RAID config, the SSD will still run circles around it. I still fail to see what you're getting at...

hes right about the R/W speeds between a single SSD and a raid SATA container, my SSD runs rings round my paired 320Gb RAID0 data drives. Read speeds are soo much higher with SSD.

[patseguin Global Moderator]

Computers will never settle for me. I always have to have the latest and greatest. My Gulftown upgrade was huge but SSD in RAID0 was my hugest upgrade of the decade.

[Jimmy0]

My 4 year old PC which has a Q6600 and 4GB of RAM still feels quick enough for day to day use. I am not a power user, I surf the web, listen to music and do a bit of programming. That's it. I don't need to spend a grand on a new computer as I do not feel I would truly gain that much.

The only thing I am tempted to do is get a SSD, however money is tight at the moment and I couldn't justify spending a large amount on it.

I think perhaps another reason I feel I won't be upgrading for a while is because I have also never personally used a a better, higher spec PC than my current one. I am almost certain that if I did use a current top of the line machine with all the bells and whistles, I would go back to mine and want to punch myself in the face at how slow it is, but until the day comes... I will not be upgrading.

At work however, the computers we use could most definitely do with an upgrade. Most around the office are running Pentium 3/4s with 2GB of RAM (if you are lucky, some only have 1GB). All with a single 17" monitor. To develop on these machines is almost an insult.

The company really needs to invest in some new gear, but apparently there is no budget to do so. I feel that they would most certainly see a rise in productivity if we were given higher spec'd PCs. But hey, what do I know, I am merely a placement student there... ;)

[Tekkerson]

NEVAR ENOUGH POWAHS!

[Mouettus]

I use Photoshop (print/web graphics), watch movies, browsers open, IDE open, etc. I don't game on it, do any 3D modeling or rendering nor motion video graphics.

I am running a 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo from 2008. I recently upgraded to an i7. For what I do, the i7 upgrade yielded very little.

You know what actually made a difference? Getting an SSD.

So if you don't game or use programs that eat a contant high amount of CPU, then yes, they really don't have to be upgraded until the software wants us to.

Exact same thing here. Photoshop, HD movies, music, internet.

I'm a tech geek in every kind of way (except gaming) and I'm still running that E6600 stock from 2006!!!!!!, and I'll still use it for a couple more years. I keep my PC clean and tidy and it still feels quite fast.

The only thing I'd like a new CPU for is that now the GPU is integrated, which eliminates the need for me for a GFX card, which would allow me to reduce heat, noise and to be able to put it in a smaller case.

[onionjuice]

NO!!! That's like the world stopping. We need more and more powerful processors to minimize the time it takes to get tasks done. The average Joe won't need the latest i7's but as software is also growing to maximize the hardware resources, the hardware needs to be upgraded also. Say a video editor... i'm sure they'd like to cut down on hours of rendering time.

BUT ME. MY i5-2410m is going to last me ATLEAST till graduation (3 years) LOOK AT THE SIG!.

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[BetaAddict]

On the CPU front, I would concur that getting an i5 or i7 is easily enough to last you a long time simply because there are not that many programs that can utilize four cores, except hardcore games. But, that won't be enough to keep an average user from upgrading because of the improvements in GPU, SSD, battery life, screen resolution, and other features.

[hagjohn]

I want to upgrade my motherboard with one with a UEFI bios, Sata 6 and USB3, but that's about it. I'm happy with everything else I have.

[+Fahim S. MVC]

I also voted yes. Not so long back, rocking a 5 year old PC would be a horrible experience. Hardware just doesn't seem to age quite that badly any more.

I currently have a Core 2 Duo E6400 (Conroe) based system, with 4GB RAM and a 128GB Crucial M4 SSD (admittedly running on a SATA II port). The system was bought in 2007 and the SSD added in 2011.

Would a Sandy Bridge based system be better? I would hope so, and would I like one? definitely. But could I justify one? my system flies well enough for my needs and with Microsoft even trying to optimise the OS to run better on lower power hardware, I can't see a need to upgrade any time soon, unless drivers become an issue or some motherboard hardware component becomes truly obsolete and unsupported (such as BIOS). Any thing else that becomes obsolete can just be swapped out.

[pack34]

A lot of work right now in processors is in regards to power and heat. These are the two main obstacles to pushing the circuit faster. A few innovations recently in regards to this is to have intelligent cores. Uneeded portions of the circuit are switched off on demand. This helps reduce the static power consumed. Also, to improve heat management and to increase on-board cache we're beginning to look at moving towards 3D ICs. This isn't a new concept but it's being looked at again to alternate cache and active portions of the circuit. You'll have the cache sitting directly on top of where it's needed, decreasing the distance the data has to travel exponentially and to also, potentially, reducing the amount of metal layers needed in the circuit.

There's a lot of stuff going on right now in the world of processors but it's not necessarily focused directly on how powerful it is. People don't need it as much anymore. Software isn't pushing the limit like it used to. So we're seeing a lot of work making them sip power more and driving the circuits down to smaller devices (such as smartphones, tablets, and ultrabooks).

[Open Minded]

thanks much ;-)

You're welcome. :)

The reason I went with that drive is because it was the fastest they had at Fry's with over 500 megs/sec transfer and 80,000 IOPS. I had extra cash in my pocket (bad idea at Fry's) and was tired of waiting as Patriot wouldn't have been my first choice given more options.

[The_Observer]

i have i5 760 and for i do, i have no plans to upgrade. Apart from SSD and Memory i dont need to do anything more.

[Aergan]

I think the i7 range helps. Once you get to that threshold it's goes great with anything else and serves as the backbone for anything you throw at it.

Back in the day I had an overclocked AMD 2500XP-M that lasted me a good 3 years.

[Nihilus]

One reason people may not feel their PCs are being particularly stretched in the last 5 years or so is due to the nature of modern games. Most games now are designed around consoles, and as a result run pretty well on old hardware. Wait until the next generation of consoles come out and hopefully we'll start seeing the latest games push our aging computers past their limits.

[remixedcat]

You're welcome. :)

The reason I went with that drive is because it was the fastest they had at Fry's with over 500 megs/sec transfer and 80,000 IOPS. I had extra cash in my pocket (bad idea at Fry's) and was tired of waiting as Patriot wouldn't have been my first choice given more options.

I know what you mean there.... I hate having to order all my components online the nearest shop with computer components is about 3.5hrs away from my house. ;-( The wait kills me.... LOL.