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CatFangs806 on 16 January 2010
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TheRealMafoo said:
WilliamWatts said:
CatFangs806 said:
It's quite possibly all those netbooks with those cheap, single core "Atom" processors in them. I can't believe they are still making single core processors. Good for them, I guess. Cheap to make, sell them higher in the extreme price of netbooks for what you get, and they reap the rewards.

It can't be because that line of processors is actually bring their average margins DOWN and not up. I would suggest its the higher margins CULV, Quad Cores and Core 2s which are doing it.

My guess is whats doing it is slow CPU tech advancement. Most of the cost of a CPU, is R&D.

Let's say it takes me $100 million to design something, and it cost $20 to make. let's asume I am expecting to sell that thing at 50,000 a year for 5 year, and then replace it with the next thing that cost me $100 million to design.

I project then, that I will sell 250,000 of these things. The cost then, is $100 million across each ($400) + $20. It cost me $420 to make each one.

But, if in 5 years I can sell that thing for another year, the cost drops to 20 bucks each, and I still get to sell it for something close to what I used to sell it for.

This is the kind of thing that's happening. CPU's are no longer the slow part of computer system. People need a lot more ram or faster storage long before they run out of CPU.

I am writing this on a 4 year old Mac Book Pro, and if the CPU in this thing was 10x faster, I would not notice it. 

I think the biggest bottleneck in any machine these days is the GPU. Especially if it's integrated graphics. Mine works great, but I have to play Call Of Duty 4 in low settings. And I have a quad-core and 8 gigs of ram. I shouldn't have to play games in those settings. Oh well, it's more optimized for HD video editing, which is one of the main reasons I bought the computer. Can't complain.