The end of Intel - Why are processors slowing down?

Intel has suffered a lot in the last few days with the recent information security flaws, and caused a great uproar that also affected AMD, and other technology companies, opening loopholes and software with fixes that shut down computers, slow them down, among others.

Intel itself said not to install its own patch due to computer failures that were crashing with the patch, and Microsoft released a version that stopped Windows from running on AMD processors.

A real turmoil is happening in the area of ​​processors, and this is happening now.

Intel Corporation, a multinational company that mainly manufactures the world's most popular processors, was founded by Robert Noyce, a physicist and inventor, along with Gordon Earle Moore, on July 18, 1968, and was a manufacturer of RAM modules.

Only in 1971 did it start producing the first processor, the Intel 4004 at 740 kHz speed for use in calculators, but processors were not yet the company's main business until 1980.

As time went on, new processors were developed, and became the main processor company in the 1990s, it was that personal computing became accessible.

Intel 8008 processor, with speed from 200 kHz to 800 kHz.

In addition to processors, Intel was a protagonist in the development of architectural standards, such as the x86 instructions themselves, and structures for personal computers such as the PCI bus, PCI express (PCIe) and even USB.

The first processor to have speed in MHz, were the 8080 processors in 1974, which varied between 2 MHz and 3.125 Mhz.

The first computer processor came into existence only in 1978, the 8086, which was the first of a complete generation of processors and instruction base for current processors (2018).

In 1965, Gordon E. Moore, made a kind of statistic saying that every 18 months, a processor would double its capacity at the same cost of production and development.

And it became so true that it became Moore's Law, well, until mid-2008, where the processor say it stagnated on a limit of silicon, the raw material in the production of processors, and then Intel started working in other techniques to improve processors.

But the great reality is that there was no significant advance after this, and a 2010 processor, such as the Core 2 Quad Q9550 is still useful today, with recent operating systems, together with good graphics cards, being useful even for current heaviest games; Of course, this depends a lot on the video card, and on SSD drives to make it useful in the same way.

This is because after that, Intel only improved algorithms and tried to reduce the size of the transistors as much as possible, but we no longer see the great advance of technology as it used to be.

Before it was noticeable the difference of a 50 MHz 486 DX2 processor with a Pentium MMX 233 Mhz, the first being unable to even reproduce an MP3 media because it is too slow to decode the music, and the other, which appeared around 2 3 years later, he was able to play several streams of music at the same time, in addition to recording audio, and opened a range for computer games for the first time.

It was also noticeable the difference and fluidity of the first 3 GHz speed machines, compared to the old Pentium MMX, which appeared a few years later.

Today we have processors from 10 years ago, which are useful even for coin mining, for controlling mining rigs, in conjunction with only good video cards that even make functions of the processors today.

The speed of the processors was also stagnant, and of the first 3 GHz processors, the idea of ​​the manufacturers was only to double the cores, maintaining the same speed, focusing on parallel and multi-task programming, even if it is virtual, like the first processors. Pentium 4 with HT technology, which did not let a single process consume the entire CPU, simply by simulating having 2 processors on the computer.

When we have 2 or more processors, a single process as an application, its execution line is locked to a single processor; that is, if you have 2 processors, you can run 2 applications without compromising performance, but never a single application consuming the full computational power of the 2 processors.

The processor is based on an instruction processing pipeline, and when they enter to process the data, they enter a tunnel and are serial until they leave this tunnel.

So the process from Intel (and other manufacturers as well), was focused on just reducing the size of the transistors as much as possible, to place more processing cores inside the same chip (or silicon die).

But did these processors really increase their processing power, even though they did not have higher speeds?

As a comparison, we will use the information obtained from the website cpubenchmark.net, which I consider essential in the search for processors with the best performances.

As a base, we will use processors with a good volume of tests, from 10 years ago, since on the website, there is no reference base for older processors, and, using the processing power of the oldest, the Intel Pentium 4 3.06 GHz , with a score of 490 with only one core (and an emulation of 2 processors), dropping to 245 points per virtual core.

Processor	Year	CPU Benchmark	Cores	Virutal Cores (Threads)	CPU Benckmark per Thread	CPU Benchmark per core
Intel Pentium 4 3.60 GHz	2007	490	1	2	245	490
Intel Xeon 3.06 GHz	2008	491	1	2	245,5	491
Intel Core2 Duo T5250 1.5 GHz	2008	831	2	2	415,5	415,5

Between Intel Pentium 4 and Core2 Duo, there was a platform change, processor socket change, and there was a real performance increase, and each Core 2 core was rated with 415 points, which is the same score as the processor previous platform.

Here is an even greater relationship:

Processor	Year	CPU Benchmark	Cores	Threads	CPU Benckmark per Thread	CPU Benchmark per core	TDP
Intel Pentium 4 3.60 GHz	2007	490	1	2	245	490
Intel Xeon 3.06 GHz	2008	491	1	2	245,5	491
Intel Core2 Duo T5250 1.5 GHz	2008	831	2	2	415,5	415,5
Intel Core2 Duo E4300 @ 1.80GHz	2008	1047	2	2	523,5	523,5	65
Intel Core2 Duo E6400 @ 2.13 GHz	2008	1295	2	2	647,5	647,5	65
Intel Core2 Duo E8400 @ 3.00GHz	2008	2157	2	2	1078,5	1078,5	65
Intel Core2 Quad Q9550 @ 2.83 GHz	2008	3987	4	4	996,75	996,75	95
ntel Core2 Quad Q9650 @ 3.00GHz	2008	4190	4	4	1047,5	1047,5	95
Intel Core2 Extreme X9650 @ 3.00GHz	2008	4193	4	4	1048,25	1048,25	130

Now explain the evolution that occurs below:

Processor	Year	CPU Benchmark	Cores	Threads	CPU Benckmark per Thread	CPU Benchmark per core	TDP
Intel Core2 Quad Q9550 @ 2.83 GHz	2008	3987	4	4	996,75	996,75	95
Intel Core2 Quad Q9650 @ 3.00GHz	2008	4190	4	4	1047,5	1047,5	95
Intel Core2 Extreme X9650 @ 3.00GHz	2008	4193	4	4	1048,25	1048,25	130
Intel Core i5 750S @ 2.40GHz	2012	2197	4	4	549,25	549,25	82
Intel Core i7-610 @ 2.53GHz	2011	1969	2	4	492,25	984,5	35
Intel Core i3-530 @ 2.93GHz	2010	2580	2	4	645	1290	73
Intel Core i3-540 @ 3.07GHz	2010	2690	2	4	672,5	1345	73
Intel Core i3-550 @ 3.20GHz	2010	2830	2	4	707,5	1415	73
Intel Core i3-2125 @ 3.30GHz	2011	3996	2	4	999	1998	65
Intel Core i5-760 @ 2.80GHz	2011	3896	4	4	974	974	95
Intel Core i5-2500T @ 2.30GHz	2011	4680	4	4	1170	1170	45
Intel Core i3-2140 @ 3.50GHz	2011	4325	2	4	1081,25	2162,5	65
Intel Core i3-3245 @ 3.40GHz	2013	4439	2	4	1109,75	2219,5	55
Intel Core i3-3250 @ 3.50GHz	2013	4435	2	4	1108,75	2217,5	55
Intel Core i3-4130 @ 3.40GHz	2013	4794	2	4	1198,5	2397	54
Intel Core i3-4150 @ 3.50GHz	2014	4892	2	4	1223	2446	54

Here we have processors that passed from the generation of the platform 775, passed to the Core i3, i5 and i7 of the first, second, third and fourth generation, and, only in the fourth generation did you get a processor of power equal to the best of 2008!

And in all cases, the processing power per core has been completely paralyzed, from 2008 to 2014! In other words, 6 years of stagnation in the evolution of processors.

Of course, there have been some changes regarding electrical consumption, and new instructions, but through the software on this site, it tests the hardware in general for the daily use of an end user, and the experience of these processors is practically the same.

That is, if you have a computer with a fourth generation i3 processor, you have a processor equal to the 2008 Intel Core 2 Quad, which costs much less.

Now let's compare the same list idea, with the latest and fastest processors on the market:

Processor	Year	CPU Benchmark	Cores	Virutal Cores (Threads)	CPU Benckmark per Thread	CPU Benchmark per core	TDP
Intel Core i3-8100 @ 3.60GHz	2017	8122	4	4	2030,5	2030,5	65
Intel Core i3-8350K @ 4.00GHz	2017	9201	4	4	2300,25	2300,25	91
Intel Core i5-8400 @ 2.80GHz	2017	11729	6	6	1954,833333	1954,833333	65
AMD Ryzen 5 1600	2017	12309	6	12	1025,75	2051,5	65
Intel Core i5-8600K @ 3.60GHz	2017	12802	6	6	2133,666667	2133,666667	95
Intel Core i7-7700 @ 3.60GHz	2016	10799	4	8	1349,875	2699,75	65
Intel Core i7-7700K @ 4.20GHz	2016	12082	4	8	1510,25	3020,5	95
Intel Core i7-7740X @ 4.30GHz	2017	12209	4	8	1526,125	3052,25	112
AMD Ryzen 5 1600	2017	12309	6	12	1025,75	2051,5	65
Intel Core i7-8700 @ 3.20GHz	2017	15356	6	12	1279,666667	2559,333333	65
AMD Ryzen 7 1700X	2017	14620	8	16	913,75	1827,5	95
AMD Ryzen Threadripper 1900X	2017	15361	8	16	960,0625	1920,125	180
AMD Ryzen 7 1800X	2017	15378	8	16	961,125	1922,25	95
Intel Core i7-8700K @ 3.70GHz	2017	16212	6	12	1351	2702	95
AMD EPYC 7551	2017	19003	64	64	296,921875	296,921875	180
Intel Core i7-6950X @ 3.00GHz	2016	19999	10	20	999,95	1999,9	140
AMD Ryzen Threadripper 1950X	2017	22020	16	32	688,125	1376,25	180
Intel Core i9-7900X @ 3.30GHz	2017	22571	10	20	1128,55	2257,1	140
Intel Core i9-7920X @ 2.90GHz	2017	23419	12	24	975,7916667	1951,583333	140
Intel Core i9-7940X @ 3.10GHz	2017	25217	14	28	900,6071429	1801,214286	165
Intel Core i9-7960X @ 2.80GHz	2017	26447	16	32	826,46875	1652,9375	165
Intel Core i9-7980XE @ 2.60GHz	2017	27885	18	36	774,5833333	1549,166667	165

According to Moore's ideology, the processing power would double every 18 months, that is, every 1 year and 6 months, the processing power should be doubled.

The only thing they did was add more and more processors on a single chip, and even the most powerful processors today, are nothing more than a cluster of Core 2 Duo processors, with no really effective core changes.

The list includes AMD Ryzen processors, due to the attack that the company made, such as the first Ryzen 5, and Intel until then had only weak processors.

Note that the list is ordered from the weakest to the strongest by the benchmark in general, but by core, this is inversely proportional, that is, the fastest processors, by core are almost like a Core 2 Duo.

Benchmark graph of each processor core, from the oldest to the most current.

The more recent, the slower per core the processor is, inversely proportional to Moore's Law.

In other words, the solution that manufacturers are currently doing is just joining processors, and there is an effective drop in processing per core.

Will we see more and more processors resembling GPUs, which work on the concept of 3000 micro processors that together are capable of processing much more than one CPU or will we have in the future processors that actually work as processors?

The future of processors, in the main of Intel, are in check, since apparently these 6 years of stagnation, served for AMD to go head to head, with processors that reach the same level of performance at extremely lower costs.

And with the recent processor failures discovered, is this really Intel's future? The company's stock has recently risen despite security breaches, based only on the company's growing profits from last year, which still do not reflect the company's big problem today.