probably never, with electron based hard disks in R&D and quantum computers becoming a reality there is really no end. The thing is that PC hardware will just slow down to minor increases in performance for a few years till improvements in manufacturing and hardware balance with cost again.

they will never cap, that is one tech that defines all the rest

everything have a limit.

true. but imo our civilization (and possibly even the universe) will end before we find a limit so fundamental there is no way around it. (remember, this is my opinion)

When they can't put MORE transistors into the die, they'll just spend much more time trying to use what they have more efficiently anyway. Theres probably conservatively about a 200% performance boost available on the current process just from using the best design possible not just a multipurpose design filled with legacy stuff.

I remember when someone told me tha I should get a Pentium 1, 100mhz, as it was all the CPU power a computer would ever, ever need.

Times change, no?

Computers will stop advancing when civilization stops so as long as we dont nuke ourselves to hell we will be ok.

It may not look the same in 100 years... say a gaming computers able to hold 1 yottabytes of data that can run the most intense games we have yet to see in a chasis the size of a grain of rice won as a toy in a cracker jack box... but otherwise its does the same thing.

what did Bill Gates say... like 256mbs is all anyone would ever need or some amount of space less then that.