Category: memory
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End-user Pentium and SIMM prices in the 1990s
People buy a computer today because they have a problem that needs to be solved today, or in the near future. If today’s computer is good enough to solve today’s problem, then any expectation of the next generation being substantially faster is irrelevant. If a cpu manufacturer (e.g., Intel) knows that the next generation, available…
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Advertised prices of desktop computers during the 1990s
The 1990s was a decade of dramatic improvements in desktop computer capacity and performance. The difference in performance between the newest and current systems was clearly visible from the rate at which compiler messages zipped up the screen. How did the price of these desktop systems change during this period? Magazine adverts are sometimes the…
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CPU frequency not relevant to SPEC benchmark performance
Despite the end of Dennard scaling around 2005-7 computer performance, as measured by the SPEC cpu benchmarks, continues to improve. What is driving this ongoing increase in performance, given that cpu clock rates have stopped increasing? The plot below shows 9,161 results from the SPEC CPU integer benchmark, plus the fitted regression line (code+data): There…
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Memory bandwidth: 1991-2009
The Stream benchmark is a measure of sustained memory bandwidth; the target systems are high performance computers. Sustained in the sense of distance running, rather than a short sprint (the term for this is peak memory bandwidth and occurs when the requested data is in cache), and bandwidth in the sense of bytes of memory…
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The 2024 update to my desktop system
I have just upgraded my desktop system. As you can see from the picture below, it is a bespoke system; the third system built using the same chassis. The 11 drive bays on the right are configured for six 5.25-inch and five 3.5-inch disks/CD/DVD/tape drives, there is a drive cage that fits above the power…