Peak Silicon?

The source code for SPICE (old versions that I recall) doesn't really need parallelism. There are multiprocessor variants, though, like Xyce, and for the right problem, it might be worth exploring in a multicore environment.

A Mac Pro was just announced, with up to 28 cores; multiprocessing seems to be in a growth spurt.

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use the browsers are so slow. Also there are video playback issues that so metimes suck up available CPU resources and freeze my cursor. Perhaps that is an issue with Netflix, but a faster CPU would resolve it I expect.

filter design files that recalculate very slowly when anything is changed.

I doubt they'll ever be fast enough for all purposes. But they're fast enou gh for the great majority of users, and that removes the most of urgency to upgrade.

NT

I think that's very much a way forward, though utilising them well remains a challenge. I think there's room for growth there. Amdahl was certainly right but I think is often overly pessimistically interepreted.

NT

It wasn't any more true then than it is now.

Bullshit. THe main use of silicon is still beaches. (just as relevant as the above crap)

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cause the browsers are so slow. Also there are video playback issues that sometimes suck up available CPU resources and freeze my cursor. Perhaps th at is an issue with Netflix, but a faster CPU would resolve it I expect.

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ough for the great majority of users, and that removes the most of urgency to upgrade.

They've been fast enough for most purposes for the last 10 years and yet pe ople don't keep a PC for even 4 years very often. If nothing else the "urg ency" to upgrade comes from the increased demands of advancing software inc luding simple memory growth. I won't have a PC without 32 GB of RAM now. I'm waiting for the industry to catch up with me and offer 32 GB standard o n a $1000 machine with decent, non-shrunk keys and a 17 inch display.

My present machine is ok, but it is heavy and hot. That's another feature that is getting more popular as CPUs advance, lower power. So there will a lways be reasons to get a new PC as process technology advances.

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because the browsers are so slow. Also there are video playback issues tha t sometimes suck up available CPU resources and freeze my cursor. Perhaps that is an issue with Netflix, but a faster CPU would resolve it I expect.

y of filter design files that recalculate very slowly when anything is chan ged.

enough for the great majority of users, and that removes the most of urgenc y to upgrade.

people don't keep a PC for even 4 years very often. If nothing else the "u rgency" to upgrade comes from the increased demands of advancing software i ncluding simple memory growth. I won't have a PC without 32 GB of RAM now. I'm waiting for the industry to catch up with me and offer 32 GB standard on a $1000 machine with decent, non-shrunk keys and a 17 inch display.

e that is getting more popular as CPUs advance, lower power. So there will always be reasons to get a new PC as process technology advances.

Of course there will, but no urgency for most people, since existing machin es already do most jobs.

NT

Trump hasn't noticed that destroying other people's economies doesn't do an ything good for your own. If there were US sources for the good on which he is raising tariff's, the US might get more domestic turnover, but it is fo r more expensive articles than the US used to import, so even the US loses.

In reality, the goods just come from a different country where wages are al most as cheap, at a slightly higher price.

If you want a quick and dirty answer then a spreadsheet is great for a quick model mock up but if you want production code then like any other way of doing things it has to be optimised for the chosen platform.

A word of warning the random number generator in Excel is NOT as documented and some of their more esoteric statistical functions and numerical algorithms have dubious stability.

You should learn to use the tool that you have chosen to attack the problem with rather than demanding that it must run quicker to cope with your slow running implementation.

PCs are perhaps less used at home now but tablets and phones are also fast enough for the sorts of things they are likely to get used for.

Gaming is the main driver for ever faster CPU/graphics rendering now.

Oh? Is this Martin's law? I think you don't get to make rules. I can and will buy any PC I wish.

The graphics for sure. I suppose a faster CPU is also good. I don't know how many "gamers" there are out there, but since they mark up prices by 50% when selling nearly identical PCs with the only observable difference bein g the multicolored lights on the keyboard and the full size cursor keys I w ould say that indicates there is a significant market for "gaming" PCs.

That's actually what I plan to buy once they include 32 GBs of RAM and the price comes down to $1,000. I've seen the $1,000 price point a number of t imes, but with 16GB of RAM. That seems to be the current max RAM on machin es off the shelf unless they are insanely expensive. I guess we will need to wait for the next generation of RAM chips so they get 16GB on a single m odule as most laptops only have two slots.

Which, come to think of it, is sort-of sad.

Jeroen Belleman

Yup. But it does mean they pay for a lot of the tech development for us.

NT

Your problem will be finding a suitably good parallel implementation of Spice that works well on your simulations for a large number of threads.

BTW have you tried restricting the number of permitted threads in Spice to around 75% of those nominally available. On hard chess programs I have found that going beyond that point results in more heat but not more speed (and sometimes a slight slowdown as it band limits memory).

On this we are pretty much agreed. I could do with a bit more than the poxy rural ADSL 5Mbps I can get but I can live within my means and use a

Hammers haven't changed all that much with time. Since the 1990's CPU performance has on average tripled every 5 years. Clock speed is pretty much now maxed out and feature size is hitting very tough limits too.

Power per MIP is the new must have feature as voltages get lowered.

I first played with a friends HP35 but I preferred the TI SR59 myself. I got away with using a slide rule and mental arithmetic until I ran into crystallography where answers to 3 sig fig were not acceptable.

GPU development is now also getting a significant boost from the machine learning market. Any developer who actually wants to be serious about it will drop $10K on their workstation GPU, and that's just for development, the server clusters are f'ing huge.