End of Intel's "Tick / Tock" cycle...

[FileTrekker]

I think this is Intel finally admitting that they're not able to make quite so big a stride in processor technology as they have been in the past from generation to generation.

I guess this means Moore's law is dead, but one has to wonder if Intel can, or even really needs, to keep pushing the envelope as hard as they have done, now their only competition in the x86/x64 processor market is AMD, and they're king of that particular mountain.

So it seems like Intel will now make a new architecture, then have a revision one release, then a third revision release (and maybe more), before the next major generational change in CPU.

Honestly though, Intel need to focus more on improving their mobile offering, and this is perhaps a step towards that aswell.

 

[Albino Boo]

The big problem is that Intel can't go much smaller because of quantum effects coming into play. I'm not sure that is big issue when it comes to desktops but it is a problem when it comes to servers. The demand for data

is incressing above the ablity of the next gen of CPUs can handel. So the capital costs of streaming video are going to go up.

 

[flying_whimsy]

Maybe we'll get lucky and that means their prices will go down. It kind of irks me that I can build a pretty powerful amd machine for like half the cost of an intel box. I doubt it, though.

I was wondering when they would start running out of steam in the dev cycle. I guess now we just have to wait for quantum processors.

 

[Freyr]

I think that the main problem really is lack of competition. AMD is pretty much dead, and without AMD giving Intel a run for their money on performance there hasn't really had much of an incentive to throw lots of money at making very, very fast chippery.

If AMD came out with chips as fast as Intels latest tommorow morning and could AMD cpi;d afford a decent R&D budget then I suspect that all of a sudden there would be a huge R&D drive on the part of both companies towards much faster processors.