Falling Behind Moore

It appears that Moore’s Law isn’t holding up to well lately. The common Moore’s Law is processor speed will double every 18 months, though now I’ve been seeing a more conservative 24 months for it doubling, chip companies trying to re-write the law so they can keep up.

Let’s look at my Apple Powerbook I bought in early 2001. It was a top-of-the-line Powerbook Titantium 500mhz G4. So using Moore’s Law, I should be able to buy a new Powerbook at 4.0ghz, but the high end Powerbook is only at 1.67ghz which is less than half the amount and according to The Law will take 18 months to catch up to where it should be now.

Here’s a handy form to calculate your own Moore’s Law

So you think it’s only PPC, let’s look at Intel processors. The Pentium 4 was available as a 1.5 ghz processor in March 2001. So that would mean that we should now see a 12ghz processor. I don’t think anything is even at 4.0ghz right now, which is up to 300% behind.

And yes, yes, yes… I know raw processor speed isn’t everything. And there are more dual-core, dual processor systems now. But that just makes up for the lack off doubling speed which is what Moore’s Law is all about.

I’m just thinking about buying a new laptop and disappointed that I won’t be getting a bigger speed boost than I expect.