Are CPUs now "fast enough" for the vast majority of PC users?

For the vast majority of users, CPU's have been fast enough for 5 years now.

Hard to say. I browsed the Internet and did office work with windows 95 and a 75 mhz Pentium processor. For the most part it wasn't that much "slower" The dial-up did more to kill it as apposed to the processor. Hell, I connected to the Internet and used Netscape back in the windows 3.1 days (although 3.1 was less than ideal).

Web pages, browsers and office software continues to get more complex, more and more software seems to insist on installing and running persistent crap in the background. I suspect that Windows 7 will be bloated to the point that an upgrade to Core i7 will make sense when it gets affordable.

I doubt you we will see another advance as impressive as going from 1 core too 2. I found that, more than anything, significantly improved the overall responsiveness of my computer the most over the last 2 decades. While the original Nehalem is coming as a 4 core package I suspect that most people will not require more than 2 cores in the near future.

Only time will really tell. There was a time that many people didn't think we would ever need more than 640K of ram. I have 4 gigs installed now and my next machine will likely have at least 6.

Edit: Tried to clean it up as much as possible. My spelling and grammar have always been a bit suspect.

That is true for the most part. The thing is atm, mainstream CPUs are fast enough for most users.
Any X2,X3 or Q6600/E2xxx will do the trick. Im using a old 3700+ Clawhammer here at work, and although is enough, it still struggles a lot in heavy multi-tasking.

But yes, my guess is, for the exception of heavy users (frantic is more the word) or enthusiasts, CPUs are now enough. CPUs will evolve to do other branches as well. Thus ill keep my fingers crossed until Bulldozer. My 4800 X2 that i have at home is more than enough for now.

Hell, my mother that is a heavy multi-tasker (not at my pace, but still a multi-tasker) in Office, WEB and other aplications (she is a School teacher Coordinator, abotu 200 persons below her + she still teaches, so look at heavy Excel+Word+PDF ) and shes rocking a Athlon 1500+ with 1gb ram. No the fastest rig on earth, but suitable for her needs. With a Raid 0 of 2 old 80GB 7200 RPM drives. Now it is good to have a son in IT

So, i guess, looking at the persons around me, and their use of the computers, yes, the actual mainstream CPUs are more than enough. GPUs are another history though.

The only killer apps out there are games the Graphics cards can't handle.

The only killer app out there is the front end on the i-phone at the moment ...

Stick any dual core 2Ghz or higher cpu into a PC box and spend big on a graphics card to get the best bang for your buck I say.

Unless your running Vista ... then get a 3 Ghz CPU ... and 4Gig of RAM.

Vista ... the Killer er ... "App" Or virus possibly sounds more accurate.

Amiga500 your point is quite sound ... for a business / home PC.

Not for a gaming box tho ...

'Fast Enough' is more of a matter of perspective. If your going to watch movies, run anti-virus program do office base work, then all you need is an emachine, without the bloatware the comes with it.

But on this forum, obviously fast enough will never be enough. I thought it was insane to OC to 4ghz, but no... people push it even farther.

Seem as though Intel or AMD can't really go that much faster. I mean, rather then faster, we are seeing more cores per physical CPU.

And when you have a user wanting to build a new system, or even purchase a new system, fast enough really isn't going through their minds, but perhaps what is the fastest they can afford, so they won't have to upgrade sooner then they think they need to.

Rodney strikes again

The increase in hardware performance has spurred the development cycle (and vice/versa) ever since we got off the abacus. There's enough performance in the hardware now that bloated software can slip into mainstream platforms...which under the older systems just wasn't happening. If your code was cr@p, then nobody bought it because of performance.

The increase in performance has also allowed developers to run applets to do many things that weren't available before - some of which are useful. IM systems really can allow for better communications, telephony is MUCH better when the computer can help with message handling, and - as Rodney hinted at - the gaming environment is improved dramatically.

Of course, my home desktop is a quad core 3.4Ghz with 4G of ram and 512M graphics card just to play mmorpg's, so I'm into processor overkill anyway.

If I told you, you'd never have a chubby again... so I'm gonna do the merciful thing and not tell you.

My two cents worth. For average tasks, my four year old 939 socket 4400+ does everything that I need. In fact, its overkill for most things. At the same time, I run a lot of business apps that eat all the cores and power I can feed them. The big reason that I switched to quad core for my new machine, and the one that's presently being built, is because the dual core 4400+ was suffering slowdowns at times. I load all four cores on my quad with business apps, so there is an obvious need for the cores and performance in that situation.

But for the average user out there? Very few even need a dual core, much less a quad core. As Rodney alluded to, when the graphics power starts simulating reality, then more power will be needed. But even that probably won't affect the average user. Its the programmers that need to change. Stop the endless bloatware (M$, but a few others), including some websites that are ever changing their looks and features, while becoming ever harder to navigate and understand. Why is it that Lotus 1-2-3, which I used when writing my masters and later doctorate thesis was so much easier to use, understand, and faster than the latest, greatest thing from M$? Oh yes, because Lotus wasn't crammed with garbage that I never use and was easy to manage, format, etc. I miss Lotus 1-2-3.

Heh.. my P4 was adequate. My E4400 was umm... very adequate. My Q6600... Well, I had cash to burn, and Vista 64bit to mess with. So I wanted Blue Screen faster x4

Edit:

But now that I have everything fixed, no more blue screens...

Yes a CPU is "fast enough" you can get your work done in no time. However until my applications open up as soon as I click the shortcut, so long as I don't instantly connect to a wireless network, and as long as my computer doesn't turn on the instant I press the power button CPUs, and the PC as a whole has room for improvement. Then software can improve, that usually means higher hardware demands.

People don't like old stuff. Especially my generation but you would be surprised at the number of older folks that want a really fast computer to surf the Internet. You would be surprised at the number of older people willing to drop $1000 into a computer just because they want there computer to boot faster.

Having to wait 25 odd seconds for my PC to start up and messenger to log on and drivers to load isn't a huge hit to anyones productivity. However, people still want their computers faster. The only factor isn't the CPU but its is a big factor.

Well.. takes me less then 25 secs to get back on my desktop without having to ever see a POST screen.

Well everyone's assuming computer speed = cpu speed or even if they're not there's little mention of other factors.

There's a lot to gain from faster storage devices, faster network, optimized software and theses are things that "the majority of people" WILL actually notice. The CPU is important but beyond a rather lowly threshold (by our gaming standards) regular tasks are held back by other factors.

i did all that on my amd k6 500Mhz with 256MB ram and winXP. never complained.
k6 was out in 1999,i think........

......i only updated to play games......

+1 to whoever first said that software programmers need to start making the code a little "leaner".

These windows-based perating systems are getting out of hand. I long for the day where turning on my computer is no different than turning on my TV and I can start doing what I wanna do right away.

I was just kidding... my tastes are pretty tame. But let me be on the record as saying this... HAIRY WOMEN SCARE ME. *shudders*

I think you are going for a wild ride once your get married. Or live more permanently with a girl. Not that they are hairy, or something.....but lets say that intimacy is a dual edged blade.

I wish you a fun and prosperous life.

Me thinks the P4 3.0 would bottleneck an Nvidia GTX280 or ATI HD4870X2 (not to mention that my mobo is AGP). It wouldn't make much sense to use the fastest GPUs in that old system.

Well, many CPUs are "fast enough". (You're not doing this but,) I don't like it when the "fast enough" argument is brought into situation where benchmarks are being used.

I've got an old S939 Opteron 175 and it is fast enough for me, but I really want a quad-core. Every once-in-a-while I do some video encoding and it would be nice to drastically cut the wait, but is my dual core "fast enough" to do it? Yes. Is it "fast enough" to do it in a time that I find acceptable, no.

In terms of gaming, my processor does fine in any game I own, with Crysis being the lone exception.


But we're all enthusiasts, is anything ever fast enough!?

If Core2Quad had been around at the times of Windows 98 we would be flying.
All those security updates and service packs have slowed down all the potential modern hardware has. Also all those extra instructions were supposed to make it a whole lot faster.

If by 'a few', you mean hundreds of millions, yes. OK, that's mostly servers and embedded systems, but Linux is everywhere these days.

And for the desktop it's fine; even my girlfriend is now using Linux instead of Windows for web browsing and the like, and the Athlon 5000+ in the Linux machine spends most of its time underclocked to 1GHz because that's all the power it needs.

Games, video editing, 3D rendering and HD H.264 playback are among the few things that still need a fast PC; a P3-1GHz is plenty fast enough for most people who don't do that. While I'm planning to build a Nehalem system for video editing and games next year, my next PC will probably be a 1.6GHz Atom, for a low-power server; running Linux, obviously.

This is an interesting discussion. I think it's also good to keep in mind that we're not just looking for "fast enough," but also "cheap enough." PCs that can do everything the average person needs have been coming down in price, but there's still room for them to drop further. It's not such a big deal for middle class people, but there are still many out there who face the "digital divide" because it's really tough to pay for even a $500 PC when your credit is in the **** and the rent is due Tuesday.

I guess another thing to consider is that we're nowhere near unlocking the full potential of personal computing. Eventually I can see cores devoted to perfect (or almost) voice recognition, health scanning, or other things of such utility. Who knows, maybe one day we'll have powerful AI research assistants for everyone, but we're going to need more CPU power to get there.

Interesting point.

In the context, which seems to be rather broad, anything you could buy new today would be fast enough, even a Phenom, just kidding, even a sempron or celeron.

The big thing today is having at a minimum 1 gig of RAM, but I would recommed 2 gigs for most users, but RAM is so cheap it might as well be sold at the checkout next to the gum.

If you count anyone who interacts in some way with a system using that OS rather than the number of systems, then the the numbers for Linux would be in the billions. I very much doubt there are hundreds of millions of OS/2 systems in the world.

I've OCed my ATM.

Impossible is nothing, and ill refrain for further commentaries in this case.