6mo ago

PassMark sees the first yearly drop in average CPU performance in its 20 years of benchmark results

www.tomshardware.com

24 comments

I wonder if this has anything to do with Intel's big snafu with gen 13/14 processors. If the solution was to push a microcode update cuts the voltage to the CPUs, it's basically a "stealth" nerf. Their spin doctors have been working overtime to frame this as erroneously high voltages that were being "fixed".
I'd really like to see this graph divided between Intel and AMD.
- i used to put orange stealth nefs up my nose as a child
  
  Did that speed things up for you?
It could just be noisy data, it's comparing 365 days of 2024 with ~40 days of 2025
From their website:
The first few days or weeks of a new year are less accurate compared to the end of a year.
How can this even be possible? A drop in CPU performance on average?
- It’s not really the decrease that’s the news here because that decrease is within a margin of error due to other factors. What’s the real news is that the graph has been flat for two consecutive years which is mind boggling!*
  I rarely use exclamation marks, sorry about that.
  
  You are using an exclamation mark 1 week ago: https://kbin.melroy.org/m/games@sh.itjust.works/t/700166/I-Am-Disgusted-By-Elon-Musk-s-Gaming-Setup/comment/5890679#entry-comment-5890679
  
  Anyhow, you're right something is not going great. Although I upgraded to a great Threadripper platform now and we do have great AMD laptop processors. It could have multiple causes:
  Doing below 4nm, 3nm, and 2 nm will give more and more issues, we are basically hitting a wall. Since quantum effects are increasingly becoming an issue at these small scales. Especially with high NA.
  Monopoly of AMD in the CPU market, Intel is lacking behind. On the long term this could mean less innovation.
  Inflation; due to costs rising, people are less willing to invest that much money on their (new) computers and hardware. Since the article refers to "average results of all Windows PC tests across the globe every two weeks". It could be as simple as people having less purging power to all buy new chips. And most people are just "fine" with using 5, 10 or even 15 year old hardware as their daily driver.
  Disclaimer: I'm working in the Lithography sector at ASML.
It may have to do with spending more of the die on NPU and GPU features? Some of these new integrated processors have massive GPU cores on them.
Why is the graph not logarithmic? Urgh
- Because if it was logarithmic, it would look almost horizontal.
  
  What? No. Instead we would be able to see steady increases of say 10 % per year as a straight line instead of this, where it appears to be ever larger increases and the first ones essentially invisible.
Peak CPU?!? Hoping for some kind of graphene terahertz breakthrough.

24 comments