Instructions per cycle has been getting somewhat better, and it is that number multiplied by the clock speed that is a better indicator of actual performance <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instructions_per_cycle" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instructions_per_cycle</a><p>Everything else needs to keep up to - it is pointless having a fast processor if it has to keep waiting on memory, storage and the network. Those are very slowly catching up and also lead to overall improved performance.<p>I've been hoping that asynchronous implementations would take over. In theory parts of the chip can run at whatever speeds are best for them at that time, and not have to be synchronised with other parts. And when not in use they easily power down. There were some async ARM chips made, but no progress since 2000 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMULET_microprocessor" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMULET_microprocessor</a>
Clock speed is an unfortunate marketing gimmick anymore. I dare compare it to peak horsepower. A 3ghz chip from today will run circles around a chip from 2002, and with less power to boot. AMD is ahead in the clock speed race, but gets beat handily by "slower" Intel processors, while using twice the power.
The focus going forward is going to be on power efficiency and using more cores, not clock speed.
The problem is physics. We can't get to higher clock speeds with current materials, due to heat. It's kind of like how fighter jets haven't got any faster (top speed anyway) since the 60's...
Cool. Back then there still were articles about a new faster desktop CPU! Today, whenever there's news about a CPU, it's about some other low power mobile whatever thing that is not faster. Yawn.
If we can't make the clock speed faster what about massively increasing the size of the on chip cache? I think they call them like l2 and l3 or something. If I had 1gb of cache then maybe my whole program could run without doing much main memory access. That would be fast right?
We've made <i>some</i> progress with GHz :).
<a href="http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9239098/Desktop_chips_zip_past_4GHz_next_stop_5GHz_" rel="nofollow">http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9239098/Desktop_chips...</a>