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.

 

[sandorski]

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.

This. Back then such simple(when Computerized) tasks were like playing the next highly anticipated blockbuster game for the very first time, minus the Adrenalin. The Software's capability allowed by the performance of the Hardware was beneficial enough to the User. Imagine taking an iPhone back to the 1980s and showing it to some people. They would be stunned by what it could do, some capabilities wouldn't even make sense, others perfect sense. Regardless, after you left and they turn around at their $2-4k PC, I suspect they'd feel somewhat let down...

The one Class I remember most from school was a Computer class I only got to attend for 4 weeks(family moved mid trimester) in Grade 7, IIRC 1979. I was blown away by it, especially with Programming. "Hello World" and a few other standards were all I got to do in that time, but it was enough time to make me an enthusiast for Life.

 

[lakedude]

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

So would a C2D or a 6600 be able to play 4k video if equipped with a modern GPU?

 

[lakedude]

My Galaxy S8 phone seems to be able to play 4k, maybe? I mean the sample video plays but I think the DeX Station limits the output res to 1080p.

 

[lakedude]

I don't seem to have a method of displaying higher than 1440p on or off the phone. What is that, 3K?

 

[SPBHM]

So would a C2D or a 6600 be able to play 4k video if equipped with a modern GPU?

if GPU decoding is doing the heavy work I don't see why not.

 

[whm1974]

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.

Speaking of SSDs, I need to buy one for my laptop, and maybe get one for my dad as a late Xmas gift. They have gotten cheap enough. That should speed up his Haswell Pentium and make it more usable.

 

[happy medium]

Q9550 / ssd/ 8gb ram from 2006 can still satisfy 90% of everyday computer users.

I threw a gtx960 in that system and my parents use it to this day.

 

[lakedude]

HEVC/H265 hardware support is something that gives more modern chips a big advantage.

My S8 phone evidently has such support:

Video Capture: Up to 4K Ultra HD video capture @ 30FPS

Video Playback: Up to 4K Ultra HD video playback @ 60 fps

Codec Support: H.265 (HEVC), H.264 (AVC), VP9

I claim that my phone is in the fast enough category, which is amazing for such a small energy sipping device. The progress electronics has made is fantastic.

 

[Insert_Nickname]

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.

Good </deity>. What on earth do you need all that storage, and 'uuuge amount of RAM for...?

...only half kidding...

 

[cbn]

I"m going to say that the Core-2-Duo was about the time CPUs got "fast enough"

Agreed.

 

[naukkis]

CPU's became fast enough about 2008, so Intel bring Atom to get people to have something that's slow enough to keep them upgrading laptops regularly.

 

[mikeymikec]

nvm

 

[yuri69]

Core 2 for BFUs

Nehalem or Sandy for Power Users

 

[OTG]

My 2009 macbook has a Core2Duo, and (with 8gb RAM and SSD) is still perfectly usable, even with 40 open tabs in Chrome.
It's less responsive than my desktop (r5 1600) and the battery life sucks, but I havent found a need to upgrade yet.

 

[chrisjames61]

They have always been "fast enough" whatever the timeframe. Operating systems, games, applications etc... were a lot less demanding at whatever time period the cpu's were available at the time.

 

[PPB]

Problem is that "good enough" became totally dependant of the software at the time.

For recent history, i think core 2 duo is what made vista less sufferable at the time (ddr2 letting you slam 2gb without breaking the bank helped too) and in the end with w7-8-10, is "good enough", even up to now.

Goldmount plus more or less verifies this as the performance is really similar clock for clock and the latter is now swarming most x86 sub 10w devices.

 

[deathBOB]

Core 2 Duo.

That’s about when I stopped noticing whatever processor was in my office computer and tasks became more about waiting on the hard drive than the processor.

 

[lakedude]

They have always been "fast enough" whatever the timeframe. Operating systems, games, applications etc... were a lot less demanding at whatever time period the cpu's were available at the time.

Yes but what I mean is fast enough for current day usage. Especially the ability to play HD video smoothly, which evidently is more of a GPU thing.

I ask in part because I'm about to get rid of some old desktops that have just been sitting around and also because I've switched from the desktop to the laptop and now to the phone as my daily driver.

 

[Borealis7]

another vote for Sandy Bridge era

 

[Lovec1990]

well CPU were always good for average user, but as more demanding programs come so did better CPUs. Average user can keep CPU for more than 5 years and his CPU can still be good.

 

[Genx87]

I felt around the K7\P3 1Ghz days the CPU has been fast enough for avg users. Now 20 years later those CPUs would struggle due to all the stuff our browsers run because of their single core nature.

Be kind of an interesting test to build a P3\K7 machine with 4GBs of ram and see how they perform today.

 

[whm1974]

I felt around the K7\P3 1Ghz days the CPU has been fast enough for avg users. Now 20 years later those CPUs would struggle due to all the stuff our browsers run because of their single core nature.

Be kind of an interesting test to build a P3\K7 machine with 4GBs of ram and see how they perform today.

With Win10 and modern software? Not very well unless you using a lightweight OS with lightweight applications. Even then you may have some issues.

 

[scannall]

Its always been a moving target. As CPU's get more powerful, software either through bloat and laziness or through increased capabilities is written to take advantage of it. Software hasn't really gone anywhere for a while, since CPU development has been pretty stagnant since Sandy. Thankfully that is changing finally.

 

[moonbogg]

I think the 2c4t core i3 established a long lasting era of "good enough" computer performance for almost every normal person. It's cheap, yet I can't think of a single every day task that a 4 thread modern CPU can't slaughter.

 

[IronWing]

My desktop is running a i7 860 circa 2010 and my laptop is running a Sandy Bridge i5? circa 2011. Photo stacking is probably the only thing I do that is really CPU limited.

The first time I experienced "good enough" was probably in the late 90s. I used to run finite difference models for a living and in the 486 days this meant starting a model run before leaving for the day and coming back in the morning and seeing if it finished. With the Pentiums (II or III), the models would run in a few seconds and I could do other things while they ran. Since then, it has been a race between bloat and speed.