Thread: Intel discontinuing the i7 920

Originally Posted by digital

Question, why the hell do we not have any 5 or 6 ghz processors?

Can't past the 4ghz limit so were going 2 and 4 core processors to make up for it?

There are a lot of other focuses that go in to processor design other than just speed and number of cores...

Also, the 930 and 920 were fairly similarly priced since release. The 930 was pretty much meant to just replace the 920.

Originally Posted by draco7891

Originally Posted by digital

Question, why the hell do we not have any 5 or 6 ghz processors?

Can't past the 4ghz limit so were going 2 and 4 core processors to make up for it?

Because at the amperages required to compute that fast, electrons have a tendency to jump the boundaries between traces in the CPU, wreaking havoc with the logic in the chip and/or burning it out. Different formulas of silicon doping and trace design have helped contain the problem to this point, but now the technology is largely up against the wall of what the material is capable of delivering. Special techniques can help push speeds further (see: cooling the chip with liquid nitrogen until it becomes a superconductor), but are not feasible for widespread usage.

4GHz is about as fast as silicon chips will ever go, barring some miraculous discovery.

Draco

HMmmm...you may have just given me an idea to work on for my senior thesis!

The fastest clock speed of any production x86 CPU was the Pentium 4 670 and 672, both stock clocked at 3.8 Ghz.
I will guarantee you that that a Core i7 920 at 2.66 Ghz is faster at every single application than the 3.8 Ghz P4.

It ain't all about clock speed.

I know they are putting both diamond and optical processors into development. Don't ask me how it will work...

Originally Posted by Gumby

It ain't all about clock speed.

This.

There is so much more inside a single die now in comparison to a few years ago... It's absolutely mind blowing. The scale at which the work is done is also completely unbelievable...

32nm transistors (which is larger than what Intel currently work on), for example, can squeeze together over 3,000 transistors in the same width as a single human hair... how insane is that?!...