Computer technology through the ages
How the very heart of our systems has evolved over the past few years
1 October, 2020 by
Computer technology through the ages
manaTec GmbH, Mathias Thieme
 

End users in particular are often not even aware of how powerful their current computers and smartphones actually are. Therefore, this article will mainly deal with the exponential development of hardware components and their performance comparison to today's hardware.

In the last 20 years, a lot has happened in the field of hardware development of processors and RAM for desktop, servers as well as especially cell phones. The impact on our everyday lives and general work with office, image editing software or 3D programs and the possibilities they offer us compared to earlier systems is outstanding.

Home users

The following comparison seems more like a David vs. Goliath comparison. In the diagrams below, we have put together a brief overview of how much hardware has advanced by leaps and bounds in the last few years.

Intel brought the desktop processor Pentium 4, with a base clock of 2 GHz, to the consumer in 2001. The price of the CPU was in the higher price segment at $562. Based on the Northwood architecture, the CPU was manufactured in 130 nm and was anything but efficient with a power dissipation of 75.3 watts for a single-core processor.

Intel released the new i-series CPU generation in 2009, which was not only more powerful, but also a lot more efficient compared to the Core2Duo and Core2Quad processors. Almost 10 years later, in the 2nd quarter of 2020, Intel released the i7 10700k at a lower price of around $400 compared to the Pentium 4.

Comparison: Intel Pentium 4 (Northwood) and Intel Core i7 - 10700K.
Comparison: Intel Pentium 4 (Northwood) and Intel Core i7 - 10700K.

Not only has the size of the chip itself grown, but the manufacturing process has also changed, because the denser the manufacturing process, the more components can be accommodated on the chip's surface. Back then, microprocessors usually consisted of one processor core, whereas today's desktop systems are equipped with 4, 6 or more cores, have clock rates of 4 to 5 GHz, support hyperthreading and can thus work even faster and more efficiently. Thus, it is possible that computer systems can take over several tasks at the same time.

Performance comparison: Pentium 4 2.0 GHz and i7- 10700K.
Performance comparison: Pentium 4 2.0 GHz and i7- 10700K.

A lot has also happened in the memory area. With the Pentium 4 based on Northwood, compatible motherboards support individual RAM modules up to a maximum of 1 gigabyte per bar. Compared to today's systems, which support up to 64 GB per module with DDR4 and Microsoft Windows 10 with 64 bit requires at least 2 GB of RAM, this is unthinkable by today's standards. But not only the capacity, but also the read or write speeds have increased enormously. DDR1 only delivers a fraction of what is possible with DDR4 with a 2 to 3 gigabyte per second read or write speed.

DDR4 memory modules can achieve a connection of 19 - 25 GB/s per RAM module in single channel, up to 50 GB/s in dual channel operation and even 80 GB/s and more in quad channel operation. This means that data can be cached and made available again more quickly. This particularly applies to applications such as Internet browsers, image editing programs, operating system virtualization software and other memory-intensive programs that benefit from fast RAM. Thus, a large number of programs can be used simultaneously and an efficient work process can be guaranteed.

Performance comparison: DDR1 and DDR4.
Performance comparison: DDR1 and DDR4.

Mobile phones

Nokia launched the 3310 in the 4th quarter of 2000 for DM 199 at the time. The Nokia 3310 is probably one of the most famous cell phones ever. The available internal memory of one megabyte was intended for the operating system and the monotonous ringtones, as the maximum of 100 contacts that could be created were stored on the sim card. The display of the Nokia 3310 has a resolution of 84x48 pixels with a pixel density of 64 ppi and a battery capacity of a proud 900 mAh. A camera in a cell phone and mobile data for Internet applications were not even thought of at that time.

Let's now take a mid-range smartphone for comparison. The Samsung Galaxy A30S is roughly in the price range of the Nokia 3310. With the internal memory of 64 GB, the Samsung smartphone has 64000 times as much storage capacity compared to the 3310. Not only the pixel density of 268 ppi, but also the HD resolution of 1560x720 pixels within a Super AMOLED display are an innovative development.

Comparison: Samsung Galaxy A30S and Nokia 3310.
Comparison: Samsung Galaxy A30S and Nokia 3310.

Today's smartphones are developing by such leaps and bounds that 8 to 12 GB of RAM and 512 GB - 1 TB of internal storage are represented in today's luxury class and will be the "standard" in a few years.

Business users in particular benefit from growing hardware resources in smartphones, because applications for mobile devices offer more and more possibilities that previously required a high-performance notebook or workstation.

Servers in medium-sized companies

Servers in particular benefit greatly from new hardware generations. Systems at that time could be equipped with multiple processors, but were limited by the architectures themselves and relatively expensive. If we take the then platform of Intel's Socket 603 as an example, then the performance compared to today's systems is more than sobering. With two physical processors with one processor core each and 6 GB of working memory, today's entry-level smartphones are much more powerful.

Gigabyte GA-8IPXDR.
Gigabyte GA-8IPXDR.

Current Intel Xeon and AMD Epyc systems offer numerous application possibilities with several physical cores (up to 64 cores per CPU) and twice as many logical cores (up to 128 threads per CPU). In contrast to Socket 603 with DDR1 and 1 GB memory capacity per module, new platforms deliver 8 and more RAM slots and thus up to 512 GB possible RAM at 64 GB per module.

Intel S2600WFT.
Intel S2600WFT.

With the Intel S2600WFT, a total of 1536 gigabytes of RAM could be implemented with two Xeon processors and 24 RAM banks of 64 gigabytes each.

More available hardware resources simultaneously mean more tasks that a physical server can take over for companies simultaneously. Various virtualization systems, such as Docker, Proxmox, Hyper V, VMware or other platforms, can be used to set up high-performance structures and implement a large number of virtual servers and services running on them.

With this, we can say that with the changing times of our technologies and the new developments in the hardware sector, not only end users for various scenarios benefit, but above all business users who want to perform multiple tasks on their smartphone or other mobile devices. Especially for companies that rely on high-performance server landscapes, there is a high potential benefit from exponentially growing technologies.


Sources: www.wikipedia.org, www.intel.com, www.cbo-do.de, www.pcgameshardware.de, www.anandtech.com

 
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