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| Computers and the internet nearing the speed limit ? |
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Page 1 of 2 If you have used computers and/or the internet for more than a couple years, you have no doubt noticed that in general, things are just faster these days. I often find myself wondering, just how fast could things be, and at what point is pure speed no longer that beneficial. Well, I think we are just about to find out.
Back when I was younger I used to love the drag races. I remember one I went to had a couple of the cutting edge jet engine dragsters. WOW these things are FAST !.. but hey, why not strap on 2 or 3 jet engines and go even faster ? Well, in short, the dragster would be impossible to control and would never get up to speed in the tiny quarter mile allotted to it. I think we may see something similar in computers soon, unless the underlying technology drastically changes.  Light speed computing in your lifetime? Today's computers are based on silicone and transistor technology. Transistors are just switches, that can also amplify an electrical signal. Basically cramming as many tiny transistors as possible onto a silicone wafer. The more you can get into the chip, the more operations per second the chip can typically perform. To increase that number, the chip has to be bigger, or the transistor need to be smaller...
Well, they are just about as small s possible now. With the circutry inside the typical CPU getting as small as 13 microns wide , it's getting to the point that the electrons that make up all those lovely ones and zeroes need to line up single file in order to traverse through it. A tight fit means friction, and basic physics teaches us, friction causes heat.
GHz stands for giga-Herts, or a billion times per second. What this tells you is the speed of the clock driving the computer's processor. Today's computer uses a timing clock, actually a crystal like the ones found in quartz watches, to drive them. This clock or crystal has high and low voltage states, that change at a precise and predictable frequency. Each time the clock changes, the computer's processor processes some part of an instruction. So, a computer that has a 500MHz clock is doing something 500 million times per second. Now in comparing two computers, it gets a little tricky. If the two computers have the same type of processor, for example they are both Pentium computers, you can take the numbers and compare them directly, and you will get the difference in processing speed of the computers. Other things can affect the speed as well, but the clock speed will give you the difference in total speed of the processors. Ok.. so for the most part, you can roughly compare an Intel 3.2 GHz to an AMD 3.2GHz in terms of pure processing speed. BUT ! before I get flamed, or worse summoned, yes I know they don't perform at precisely the same speeds due to differences in their architecture, but for layman's sake, lets just round the numbers, shall we? Thank you.
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