But single core performance has been stagnant for ages!
Considering ‘Geekbench 6’ scores, at least.
So if it’s not a task massively benefiting from parallelization, buying used is still the best value for money.
But single core performance has been stagnant for ages!
Considering ‘Geekbench 6’ scores, at least.
So if it’s not a task massively benefiting from parallelization, buying used is still the best value for money.
Single core performance has not been stagnant. We're about double where we were in 2015 for a range of workloads. Branch prediction, OoO execution, SIMD, etc. make a huge difference.
The clock speed of a core is important and we are hitting physical limits there, but we're also getting more done with each clock cycle than ever before.
Doubling single-core performance in 10 years amounts to a less than 10% improvement year-over-year. That will feel like "stagnant" if you're on non-vintage hardware. Of course there are improvements elsewhere that partially offset this, but there's no need to upgrade all that often.
> less than 10% improvement year-over-year. That will feel like "stagnant"...
Especially when, in that same time frame, your code editor / mail client / instant messaging / conference call / container management / source code control / password manager software all migrate to Electron...
It’s actually just 7% improvements year over year!
Single core performance has tripled in the last 10 years
This. I just did a comparison between my MacBook Pro Early 2015 to MacBook Air M4 Early 2025.
*Intel Core i5-5287U*: - *Single-Core Maximum Wattage*: ~7-12W - *Process Node*: 14nm - *GB6 Single Core *: ~950
- *Apple M4*: - *Single-Core Maximum Wattage*: ~4-6W - *Process Node*: 3nm - *GB6 Single Core *: ~3600
Intel 14nm = TSMC 10nm > 7nm > 5nm > 3nm
In 10 years, we got ~3.5x Single Core performance at ~50% Wattage. i.e 7x Performance per Watt with 3 Node Generation improvements.
In terms of Multi Core we got 20x Performance per Watt.
I guess that is not too bad depending on how you look at it. Had we compared it to x86 Intel or AMD it would have been worst. I hope M5 have something new.
That’s 13% per year.
I certainly will not die on this hill: my comment was motivated by recently comparing single core scores on Geekbench6 from 10 years apart CPUs.
Care to provide some data?
I don’t think that’s true. AMD’s ****X3D chips are evidence that’s not true, with lots of benchmarks supporting this.