[gregoryrueda]

Haven't we reached the point of diminishing returns regarding processor speed? I believe this to be true for the consumer market.

[2muchcoffeeman]

Why would that be the case? If we could run CPUs at 50Ghz with no problems why wouldn't we?

Edit: I probably exaggerate. I just mean that higher clock speed still have benefits.

[Zombieball]

I think this "conveyor example" from Intel is a good explanation as to why: https://software.intel.com/en-us/blogs/2014/02/19/why-has-cp...

I think that you would cease to see any acceleration from increased clock speed unless you also sped up other parts of the processor / computer.

I think your sentiment is correct. If we can take advantage of higher clock speeds, then why not do it?

[krylon]

Reminds me of something Seymour Cray (allegedly) once said: "Anyone can build a fast processor - the trick is to build a fast computer around it". Given the performance boost an SSD gives, I imagine there's some room left for improving overall system architecture without increasing the clock speed of the CPU or replacing the CPU at all.

(Caveat lector: Quoting from memory here)

[cft]

Part of it is the balance of value between hardware and software companies. When hardware stagnates, software has to become increasingly complex, and software companies dominate.

[jfindley]

If you only use your computer for web browsing, then sure.

But the consumer market is more than just this. Several popular "consumer" applications, such as gaming and photo/video editing, continue to see benefit from increases in CPU performance, and single-core performance (what most people actually want when they ask for higher clock speeds), continues to be very relevant to this day. Not all workloads are easily parallelizable.

[chriswarbo]

Work grows to fill the available time. "IT" style tasks, like reading/writing documents, spreadsheets, emails, etc. don't require anything like the resources they currently use, or those they used in 2000. They use(d) those resources since there was no reason not to.

Lots of (most?) software development typically charges ahead without much regard to resource usage, until performance becomes a problem; then things are optimised until performance is no longer a problem, and the charge resumes. This results in software with performance which is just about acceptable, regardless of what resources are available. It was the case in 2000, it is the case now, and it would be the case if we had 50GHz machines.

This is the case for tasks where the main bottleneck is 'has anybody bothered to implement this yet?'; I'd say your examples of gaming and video editing are tasks where performance is a major part of the bottleneck. Arguably, Trello didn't exist in the 90s because nobody had bothered to make it yet; Skyrim didn't exist in the 90s because the machines weren't up to it.

[kayoone]

For Desktop computing of normal people ? Maybe, but there are a lot of people and businesses that can always use more CPU power. High end CPUs will also eventually trickle down to lower powered devices and i still think modern Ultrabooks could be faster than they are.