How CPU Speed Increases Over the Years

Processor speeds have been consistently increasing over the past few decades. According to Moore's law (a hypothesis formulated by Intel founder Gordon Moore in 1965), processor speed doubles every 18 months. However, over time, the speed increase has been more modest and multiprocessing is preferred over higher operating speed on individual processors.

Early Days

Earlier computer chips consisted of a single central processing unit (CPU). Improvements in system performance was achieved by increasing the frequency (or speed) of operation of the CPU. Until 2005, the processing speed increase followed Moore's Law closely, topping at around 3.8 gigahertz (GHz).

Current Trend

Since each generation of the CPU also comes with more transistors than the previous generation, increasing speed directly results in higher power consumption. Other issues such as routing the clock at such high speeds also limit speed increase. Therefore, systems use multiple CPUs, each of which operates at a lower speed and operate in parallel.

Summary

Over the years, due to the ability to pack more transistors on a single chip, it has become possible to trade speed for multiprocessing and achieve better system performance. For instance, while the Intel processor family speed increased consistently to about 3.8 GHz, the recent I-7 CPUs operate only at around 1.8 GHz.

Resources

• Intel Processors
• Moore's Law