I’m not sure what point you’re trying to get me to concede. I’ve already stated that I’m on the RISC side of the debate. If your point is that it’s difficult to keep doing this with x86, I won’t argue with you. But that said, the x86 teams have kept up remarkably well so far. How far can they keep going? I don’t know. They’re already a lot further than everyone predicted they’d be a couple decades ago. Nearly free transistors, even if not fully free, are quite useful, it turns out.
We'll see. Free transistors are over. Cost per transistor has been stagnant or slightly increasing since 28nm.
https://www.semiconductor-digest.com/moores-law-indeed-stopp...
Sure, they’re getting less free and they were never completely free in any case. But that’s a straw man that nobody was trying to argue. So (again), what’s your point?