[freedumb2003]

[Paladin2]

Software can easily bloat much faster than Hardware can be developed to try to contain same.

486 computers can do text processing in near real time.

[rbg81]

The best way to confirm this slowdown in progress of computing power is to try to run your current programs on a 6-year-old computer. You will likely have few problems since computers have not sped up greatly during the past 6 years.

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Not quite true, as a 6 year old computer might have a lot less RAM. 5 years ago, 4G was fine, but now 8-12G is the norm. But, processing wise, he is correct.

[ThunderSleeps]

CPU clock speeds haven't changed significantly in over a decade. Speeds have been around 2.5 GHz to 3.5 GHz (the typical range today) since around 2002, 2003. As speeds go up, so does parasitic loss, heat, clock skew problems, etc.

What has changed is feature size. As feature size shrinks, so does power consumption and heat (generally). Smaller gates mean more gates on the same size die. This means larger caches, more cores, etc. Most "real" speed up lately has come from doing multiple things at once.

Now I guess even that run is coming to an end. As feature size shrinks, quantum effects, random radiation effects, etc. become a problem. So, will 3D technology keep us increasing performance??? Just have to see...

[outofsalt]

It’s been said that there are only two types of computers;
those which waste your precious time and those which waste your precious time much faster.

[spel_grammer_an_punct_polise]

There are Physics limitations for everything. ;-)