[mactropolis]

According to the article at this link, Intel has canned *any* and *all* plans for a 4.0 GHz CPU anytime soon. Specifically:

"Cranking up the speed of its Pentium 4 chips to four gigahertz, or billions of cycles per second, has been an elusive goal for Intel. When the latest rendition of the Pentium 4 was introduced in February, Intel said it would reach the 4 gigahertz speed by the end of the year.

In July, citing concerns about having enough supply to meet customer demand, Intel delayed plans for four gigahertz until the end of March 2005. Thursday's announcement puts an end to the goal entirely, at least for the current generation of processors."

I'm thrilled Intel is effectively calling off the 4.0 GHz part for good (for now). It demonstrates that Intel just can't keep hiking up the clock speed and have indeed hit semi-permanent brick wall. I was concerned that Moto....errr.....IBM will be at 2.5 to 3.0 for some time while Intel might have been at 4.0, 4.5, or upto 5.0 GHz in years to come.

[Lancer409]

i disagree.. the more mhz intel pushes... the more pressure on ibm .. and the more they'll start to crank. if intel never passed the 1ghz barrier, do u think we would be running 2.5ghz g4's? ... maybe .... but seriously ... they keep pace. the faster intel gets, the harder ibm/moto work to get their numbers up

[effgee]

Originally posted by Lancer409:
i disagree.. the more mhz intel pushes... the more pressure on ibm .. and the more they'll start to crank. if intel never passed the 1ghz barrier, do u think we would be running 2.5ghz g4's? ... maybe .... but seriously ... they keep pace. the faster intel gets, the harder ibm/moto work to get their numbers up

2.5ghz G4's? Where? When? New Powerbook? Dual Core?

[Eriamjh]

A certain amount of competition is good for IBM and staying competitive. I think this should be seen as a chance for IBM to catch up on clock speed, not relax because they aren't falling further behind.

It depends on how important it is to them to compete on clock speed.

[Krusty]

I wonder if these developments had any part in M$ decision to scale back Longhorn to being little more than XP Plus™ ... I remember that the recommended specs for the real Longhorn was something like 4+ ghz. If Intel is halting 4ghz plans for a while, that might have meant that only the tip-top of the line, expensive machines would even have been capable of running Longhorn well at the time it was supposed to have come out. 4ghz needs to be solidly in the mainstream before M$ releases an OS that requires that much speed.

[MallyMal]

I agree that this is a perfect opportunity for Apple+IBM+Motorola to crank up their chip clock speeds. Hope they use the time wisely.

[GoGoReggieXPowars]

Clock speeds are meaningless, look a the Pentium M: low clock speed, more done per cycle, low power.

[olePigeon]

Originally posted by Lancer409:
i disagree.. the more mhz intel pushes... the more pressure on ibm .. and the more they'll start to crank. if intel never passed the 1ghz barrier, do u think we would be running 2.5ghz g4's? ... maybe .... but seriously ... they keep pace. the faster intel gets, the harder ibm/moto work to get their numbers up

Wrong. Intel is seeing that their slogan of "MHz = power" is no longer working with consumers who are increasingly buying AMD and PowerPC based computers. They also discovered that their architecture is very limited in terms of the MHz:speed ratio. They can crank out all the MHz they want, but with huge diminishing returns, so they're focusing all their marketing and research to other enhancements such as a 2MB onchip cache.

While a "4GHz" Pentium 4 would be a great marketing ploy, any real advantages over a 3.8GHz P4 or 3800+ AMD are miniscule. I'm talking about 1% or 2%, certainly no reason to buy a whole new computer rover.

[mactropolis]

I also disagree with Lancer409. If Intel never crossed 1Ghz or 2 Ghz or 3 GHz mark, it definitely wouldn't have caused the industry to stagnate. With the likes of AMD, IBM, and Sun Micro trying to de-crown Intel, they would have seized the opportunity to overtake Intel while it's down. Now that Intel has realized that 4.0 is even out of its own reach, it should provide the impetus for the IBM's and Sun Micro's to give everything their can to once and for all close the MegaHurts gap, or at least make it considerably smaller. True, consumers are just beginning to realize that megahertz aren't the end-all-be-all of chip performance, but just last weekend I had an almost impossible time explaining to my aunt that buying an AMD at 2.0 GHz was wiser than a P4 at 3.0 GHz. After brainwashing the world to think Megahertz rule, explaining that the 1,000 megahertz difference wasn't that much of a big deal can be tricky.

[phantomdragonz]

A lot of things will change with the new generations growing up, old people just DO NOT change their ways, they have lived this way all their lives and they will stay that way.

now, the same type of thing will happen to my (our) generations as we grow older, but thats just how things go...


But then again, I dont believe this is 100% true, there are always people who dont follow my theory

I think IBM will just keep on chugging at it's current rate, intels falling down is only one less turn in the road for them.

Zach<--- says the kid with a 400Mhz G4 (anyone want to give me their old 800mhz?)

[olePigeon]

Originally posted by phantomdragonz:
Zach<--- says the kid with a 400Mhz G4 (anyone want to give me their old 800mhz?)

Can I have your 400MHz G4? Certainly faster than my overclocked 300MHz G3.

[GoGoReggieXPowars]

Originally posted by phantomdragonz:
Zach<--- says the kid with a 400Mhz G4 (anyone want to give me their old 800mhz?)

$250 for a 900Mhz upgrade

[Lancer409]

ok .. i meant g5 .. twas a typo

as for causing it to stagnate .. nah .. but it wouldnt cause the mhz wars between intel and amd (and the rest of the industry)

when cpu's can push out more power, applications and games are written to take advantage of the power, and then more power to drive the games smoother etc. vicious cycle. i do believe that it does have an effect.

sorta like how camera's are packing laods of megapixels into small digital point and shoot cameras... there's no need (usually) to have 7 megapixels in a tiny point and shoot camera, and cramming all those megapixels into a small ccd means more noise/graininess in the pictures... lower quality images ... but people think more mp = better ...


shrug .. now i'm rambling ... cheers!

[Sealobo]

competition is good.

ibm needs to haul ass.

[mitchell_pgh]

Call me a jerk, but I'm more interested in price and features then raw speed.

I don't need a 3+ GHz Mac to use Word.

[Spliffdaddy]

4GHz isn't so elusive.

[Peder Rice]

DDR Frequency 266MHz

[Spliffdaddy]

The RAM was underclocked during those tests. Capable of 466MHz, tho.

FSB was over 1GHz.

If I could get Intel to buy a bunch of my circulating chillers and thermoelectric thingies - then any fool could be running at 4GHz. Even G5 owners.

[olePigeon]

Originally posted by mitchell_pgh:
Call me a jerk, but I'm more interested in price and features then raw speed.

I don't need a 3+ GHz Mac to use Word.

SSSSHHH!!!!

[macaddict0001]

Originally posted by Lancer409:
ok .. i meant g5 .. twas a typo

as for causing it to stagnate .. nah .. but it wouldnt cause the mhz wars between intel and amd (and the rest of the industry)

when cpu's can push out more power, applications and games are written to take advantage of the power, and then more power to drive the games smoother etc. vicious cycle. i do believe that it does have an effect.

sorta like how camera's are packing laods of megapixels into small digital point and shoot cameras... there's no need (usually) to have 7 megapixels in a tiny point and shoot camera, and cramming all those megapixels into a small ccd means more noise/graininess in the pictures... lower quality images ... but people think more mp = better ...


shrug .. now i'm rambling ... cheers!

exactly
any non pro does not need anything over 1 megapixel
unless they're stinking rich
I'm mostly comparing it to the res of tv's a sd tv has about 0.251 megapixels a hd tv has about 1.

[MindFad]

Originally posted by mitchell_pgh:
Call me a jerk, but I'm more interested in price and features then raw speed.

I don't need a 3+ GHz Mac to use Word.

So buy a PowerBook or iMac. Send me the dual 3+GHz G5 so that I can put it to some good rendering use!