Question Historically when did CPUs become fast enough for the average user?

[lakedude]

Of course some people need/want all the CPU horsepower they can have but I suspect that for the average user the CPU has been fast enough for a while now. For example the i5-750 from years ago is more than fast enough for Office, surfing, Netflix etc. When do you think CPUs became fast enough for an average user?

Hardware acceleration of modern video codecs might enter into this.

The second part of the question is: Do you think a modern flagship phone is in the fast enough category?

I"m going to say that the Core-2-Duo was about the time CPUs got "fast enough" and that yes a modern phone is fast enough.

 

[Rifter]

At the time(late 80's) a Commodore 64 was fast enough, my grandmother used one for her real estate business to keep databases and do basic accounting. So i guess they always have been.

 

[Markfw]

It would seem that as CPU's get faster, more need for them arises, so its always "being behind". But I will say I do upgrades for a lot of friends, and those requests have slowed down a LOT in the last 3-5 years.

 

[VirtualLarry]

As soon as SSDs hit the scene, and people were actually able to USE the performance that their CPUs gave them.

 

[SPBHM]

a Pentium 4 was fast enough for a good number of years,

for now I still think a good Core 2 (e8400, or core 2 quads) might still be fast enough for the average person, but we are not far from that no longer being the case.

 

[lakedude]

I really enjoyed a Cel 300A back in the day but you couldn't give me one now.

To really test this out old CPUs would need the benefit of the SSD. Clearly the spinner has been the cause of much waiting.

What do you think about the speed of phones?

A few years ago we switched to laptops as primary devices, recently we switched again to phones as our primary devices.

 

[Topweasel]

Of course some people need/want all the CPU horsepower they can have but I suspect that for the average user the CPU has been fast enough for a while now. For example the i5-750 from years ago is more than fast enough for Office, surfing, Netflix etc. When do you think CPUs became fast enough for an average user?

Hardware acceleration of modern video codecs might enter into this.

The second part of the question is: Do you think a modern flagship phone is in the fast enough category?

I"m going to say that the Core-2-Duo was about the time CPUs got "fast enough" and that yes a modern phone is fast enough.

I am going to say around the time of the core 2 quad and Phenom II.

My reasoning is this. For the most part enthusiasts here like to pretend normal computing and specially games happen in a vacuum. You have a completely clean computer and you run a task as a benchmark and the results are the results and whomever wins that wins period. This has lead to feelings like the above saying a P IV was fast enough. Or users can get away with an i3.

To that end they aren't wrong. Conroe is about the time performance requirements started slimming and not getting more and more bloated. If All I was doing was browsing the web, or working on web document, or playing a game, and only if all my drivers and antivirus and firewall were all working perfectly. All I needed at the time was a C2D or a really late PD/A64X2 and all was right in the world.

But at that time all was not right in the world. Drivers specially video drivers were buggy. Antivirus programs were terribad. And most people started getting out of the conditioning of only running what they could. Just like the days of windows 95/98 we were back into the world of one task and our CPU's were locked up. Antivirus's would go crazy. XP had terrible thread management, vista was barely responsive.

It wasn't till 4 Thread CPU's however you got them that an intensive task, or one screwed up process didn't cause your system to become unresponsive. It was on 4C CPU's that you could get away with having one task like Handbreak and a game going without dragging one or the other to a stop. It might have continued like that afterwards because Intel locked the general users into 4c8t CPU's at max for so long, or it might have been that Intel realized as well and knew they could make better margins understanding that users would be hard pressed to need more. But I do think it's a disservice to people to recommend anything less than a 4 thread CPU.

That said the biggest watershed moment for making computers feel like we felt they should always have felt was when 128GB SSD's started going for sub $300.

 

[VirtualLarry]

But I do think it's a disservice to people to recommend anything less than a 4 thread CPU.

Or, for anything above a budget system, a 6C/12T Ryzen CPU. Rumor has it that the 3000-series Ryzen CPUs, are going to have a 6C/12T entry-level part for $100 MSRP. That will be PHENOMINAL value, for people that have been locked into the Intel quad-core ecosystem for oh so long.

I bought several Ryzen R5 1600 CPUs myself, two years ago. They were mostly the most expensive CPUs that I had ever purchased. But OH, how they were WORTH IT. I paid $220 for mine. Now, I've seen them as low as $130 for the 1600. And the better 2600, has been as low as $150-160.

Even budget Skylake / Kaby Lake Celerons are touching $100 nowadays. It's worth the extra for a 6C/12T, IMHO. The 16MB of L3 cache is icing on the top.

Or if you can't afford that, and a dGPU (remember, Ryzen CPUs don''t have an IGP), then go for a Ryzen APU, a 2200G for $99, overclockable in a B350 or better board, just peachy for "Norms". Mostly more than they need, and it decodes 4K VP9 (4K YouTube) flawlessly at 60FPS. Not bad for under $100.

 

[Indus]

It would seem that as CPU's get faster, more need for them arises, so its always "being behind". But I will say I do upgrades for a lot of friends, and those requests have slowed down a LOT in the last 3-5 years.

Yes it slowed down considerably after quad cores became the norm.. but the upgrade cycle peaked just before dual cores came out.

But I havent seen a lot of people upgrade quad cores to better.

 

[whm1974]

Yeah my Quad core i5-4670 will be good enough for two to three more years at least if not longer. Of course having 16GB of memory and two 1TB SSDs help as well.

 

[Insert_Nickname]

That said the biggest watershed moment for making computers feel like we felt they should always have felt was when 128GB SSD's started going for sub $300.

Seconded.

And to think these are essentially pocket change today. That's progress.

 

[maddogmcgee]

I think the Sandy era was when it happened. Any 4 core Sandy is still fine today for average use and will likely stay that way for a few years. IPC and MHz really slowed down at this point. The dramatic recent change has been the recent AMD releases with a bunch more cores but more cores really doesn't matter for checking Facebook and watching 1080p Youtube videos. For the average person a two core Sandy is probably ok and a 4 core means you are A OK. A+ if you have a SSD.

I have a 2 core, slow clocked mobile Sandy Bridge laptop that is still fine for internet use, work stuff etc.

 

[Spartak]

I'd say with the arrival of the Core2Duo in 2006. I think you can still use a C2D E6600 with an SSD and it would be fine for 90% of the people (excluding gamers and content creators)

 

[Sonikku]

i5 2500k

 

[mopardude87]

For a short bit of time i was using a Q6600 tower last year,held up for browsing and general usage.Even was able to play WOT on it but at low of course but still a constant 55+ fps was possible.It did have the tape mod though setting it to 3Ghz.Of course with a ssd its gonna feel like plenty too.

 

[WelshBloke]

Plus one on the Q6600 and SSD.

 

[Saylick]

I'd say with the arrival of the Core2Duo in 2006. I think you can still use a C2D E6600 with an SSD and it would be fine for 90% of the people (excluding gamers and content creators)

This. I'm still rocking an i5-750 with a 160 GB SSD circa 2009. For basic browsing, which is 99% of what I use this computer for, I have no intention of upgrading my rig for the foreseeable future.

 

[Indus]

This. I'm still rocking an i5-750 with a 160 GB SSD circa 2009. For basic browsing, which is 99% of what I use this computer for, I have no intention of upgrading my rig for the foreseeable future.

Yeah I gave my dad a core 2 duo e6550 system but it stutters on video playback of netflix hd streams but my i5 ivybridge never does. So I'm thinking of replacing his.

I think over 3 ghz and quad cores guarantees 1080p streaming and usability.

4k is much more difficult though.. my ivybridge stutters but my Ryzen has no problems.

 

[scannall]

Yeah I gave my dad a core 2 duo e6550 system but it stutters on video playback of netflix hd streams but my i5 ivybridge never does. So I'm thinking of replacing his.

I think over 3 ghz and quad cores guarantees 1080p streaming and usability.

4k is much more difficult though.. my ivybridge stutters but my Ryzen has no problems.

The Ryzen 2200G will stream Netflix 4k without a hitch. And at $99 or lower it's a steal.

 

[chrisjames61]

Of course some people need/want all the CPU horsepower they can have but I suspect that for the average user the CPU has been fast enough for a while now. For example the i5-750 from years ago is more than fast enough for Office, surfing, Netflix etc. When do you think CPUs became fast enough for an average user?

Hardware acceleration of modern video codecs might enter into this.

The second part of the question is: Do you think a modern flagship phone is in the fast enough category?

I"m going to say that the Core-2-Duo was about the time CPUs got "fast enough" and that yes a modern phone is fast enough.

My Mac IIfx with a 40 Hz 68030 processor with a 1 gig scsi drive and 64 Megabytes of ram was smoking hot in 1990.

 

[lakedude]

So are we needing faster CPUs for 4k video or do the newer processors (or video cards) have hardware support for the latest codecs?

 

[scannall]

So are we needing faster CPUs for 4k video or do the newer processors (or video cards) have hardware support for the latest codecs?

Codecs in the processor.

 

[mikk]

Hardware decoding is GPU related, it requires a processor with integrated graphics. Or a dedicated GPU.

 

[StinkyPinky]

We have some Dell Optiplex 9020s at work which have i5 haswell cpus and they feel slow as heck. Why? Because they have 7200rpm hard disks. We also have some of the same with ssd's and they feel so much faster it's not even comparable. So, as pointed out already, a lot of the slowness was due to the HDD rather than the CPU itself.

 

[DigDog]

2500k