Table 1: What You Might Expect on Your Desktop for $1,000-$1,200, 1997 through 2012:
| Mo./ Year | CPU MHz/Type | Speed MIPS | RAM MB | HD GB | Accel, Gigs | CD, GB | Comm, MBaud | Video-camera, Removable Disk? |
| 4/97 | 133/Pent | 160 | 32 | 3 | 1-2 | 0.6 | 0.033 | |
| 4/98 | 266/Pentium II | 320 | 64 | 5 | 2-3 | 0.6 | 0.056 | |
| 4/99 | 400/Deschutes | 800 | 128 | 8 | 5 | 4.3 | 0.112 | |
| 4/00 | 600/Katmai | 1,200 | 128 | 12 | 8 | 7.6 | 0.256 | 640X480 Vidcam, Zip 100 |
| 4/01 | 900/Willamette | 2,700 | 256 | 20 | 18 | 15.0 | 0.256 | 800X600 Vidcam,RW CD |
| 4/02 | 1,200/Merced II | 5,000 | 512 | 35 | 32 | 15.0 | 0.400 | 1,024X758Vidcam,RW CD |
| 4/03 | 1,600/Merced II | 7,000 | 1,024 | 60 | 45 | 15.0 | 0.4 | 1,280 X 960 Vidcam, RW |
| 4/04 | 2,200/P8 | 10,000 | 1,024 | 100 | 65 | 60.0 | 1.0 | 1,920X1,080 Vidcam, RW |
| 4/05 | 3,000/P8 | 12,500 | 2,048 | 200 | 80 | 180.0 | 1.5 | System on a chip? DVD? |
| 4/06 | 4,000/P8 II | 16,000 | 4,096 | 400 | 100 | 180.0 | 1.5 | System on a chip? DVD? |
| 4/07 | 5,000/P9? | 25,000 | 4,096 | 700 | 160 | 300.0 | 6.0 | System on a chip? DVD? |
| 4/08 | 6,500/P9 II?ium | 40,000 | 8,192 | 1,000 | 250 | 500.0 | 6.0 | System on a chip? DVD? |
| 4/09 | 8,000/P9 II? | 50,000 | 16,384 | 1,500 | 320 | 750.0 | 12.0 | System on a chip? DVD? |
| 4/10 | 9,500/P10? | 80,000 | 16,384 | 2,000 | 450 | 1,000.0 | 12.0 | System on a chip? DVD? |
| 4/11 | 11,000/P10 | 100,000 | 32,768 | 2,500 | 650 | 1,000.0 | 12.0 | |
| 4/12 | 13,000/P10 | 120,000 | 32,768 | 3,000 | 800 | 1,500 | 12.0 |
Notes for interpreting Table 1: (Column 2):Multiprocessing (use of multiple computers) is moving into the mainstream, with the future possibility of placing more than one microprocessor on a chip or of paying somewhat more for multiprocessor boards (which would sell more chips). This can provide an alternative method of achieving higher speeds for certain classes of partition-able, computationally demanding calculations. Also, the long-term role of Intel’s IA-64 (P7) architecture on the desktop is far from clear to me. Designations like Merced, P8, P9, and P10 are meant to be suggestive rather than prophetic. (Column 3): Computer speeds have become much more difficult to quantify with the introduction of super-scalar, super-pipelined, out-of-sequence processing, as well as MMx. Add to that changes in benchmarking from Megops to MIPS to SPECInt92s toSPECInt95s and it becomes hard to know where you are. Integer applications that are conducive to MMx may run several times faster than shown in Column 3. (Column 4) RAM (Random Access Memory) may move from EDO RAM in ’97 to SDRAM in ’98 and ’99 to Rambus in 2000. Access to memory has become the principal bottleneck to faster computing, and new techniques are appearing to facilitate faster and faster memory access. (Column 5): Hard drive capacities are complicated by the fact that:
"Systems on a chip" are forecast for the early years of the 21st century, in the interests of both speed and economy.
(a) hard drive capacities have begun to double every year rather than every 2.25 years, and
3.5" disk capacities are expected to top out at a theoretical limit of 500-to-1,000 Gigabytes.
I’m assuming that won’t happen. (Seagate has just announced a new laser-optical registration approach currently used for "flopticals" that is touted to economically increase hard drive capacities by 10-to-20-fold, permitting, by 2012, 20-terabyte drives at, perhaps, $40-$50 a terabyte.)
(Column 6) Multimedia accelerators may be absorbed into "system-on-a-chip" processors, first for low-end systems by 1998-99, and later, for high-end computers. However, MMx2 should permit digital signal processing applications to run 6 or 7 times as fast as the main computer.
Column 7) 160-GB CD drives are in the works for 2005, with 1,000-GB CD drives forecast for 2010.
(Column 8) Communications bandwidths are a bit of a wild card, depending as they do upon information-utility politics and upon upgrading of Internet servers, lines, and hubs. Modems are switching to software implementations. Sound cards will probably follow.
(Column 9) Video cameras are expected to drop as low as $30 by 12/98. Some sort of successor to the floppy disk is essential. Rewritable CDs may be the cheapest way to go.
Looking Ahead: What You Might Expect to Buy for $1,000 to $1,200
April, 1997:
April, 1997:
- AGP-Equipped 266 MHz Slot 1 Pentium II or 266 MHz K6.
- 32 MB SDRAM
- 4.3 GB Hard Drive
- Matrox Mystique 220 4 MB, 3-D, AGP Graphics Accelerator
- 24X CD Drive
- 56k Fax Modem
- 16-bit Sound Card, Speakers, Microphone
- 400 MHz Deschutes Pentium II or K6 with 100 MHz Bus. Might have AGP2, Firewire, and/or Slot 2..
- 64 MB SDRAM
- 8.2 GB Hard Drive
- Matrox Millenium II, 4 MB, 3-D Graphics Accelerator
- 32X CD? DVD?
- 56k Fax Modem
- Awe 64 Value Sound Card, Speakers, Microphone
- 600 MHz Katmai Pentium II (with 133 MHz Bus?), MMx2, AGP 2, Slot 2, or 600 MHz K7
- 128 MB SDRAM
- 12 GB Hard Drive
- 3-D Graphics Acceleration (Software?)
- 4.7/7.6 GB DVD
- 56 k/112k Fax Modem (Software?) Cable Modem?
- Dolby 2-Speaker, 3-D Surround Sound (Software?), Speakers, Microphone
- Video Camera(?), Zip or Jaz drive
- 1,000 MHz Willamette Pentium II or K7. 133 MHz bus?
- 128 MB RDRAM
- 20 GB Hard Drive
- 3-D Graphics Acceleration
- 7-15 GB DVD - Rewritable(?)
- Wide-Band (256 Kb or greater) Cable Modem? ADL?
- Dolby 2-Speaker, 3-D Surround Sound, Speakers, Stereo Microphones
- Video Camera
- I would be willing to pay $40 to $45 a month for 64-kilobaud-or-faster Internet service but there’s no way of knowing when that will become available to me. (I’m guessing 2001 but that’s just a guess. ZD Anchor Desk thinks it will happen in 1999.) In prior predictions, I have been much too optimistic about how soon we’ll have low-cost, wide-band access.
- I don’t know how soon DVDs will go mainstream or how rapidly their capacities will expand.
- Rewritable DVDs seem like the most logical backup device to me, but they may not be.
- The role of 64-bit processors such as the K7 and the P7 probably depends upon what kind of competition Intel gets from Cyrix and Advanced Micro Devices.
- Video cameras may not be common until wider-band communications appear.
- Computer memory access has become a major bottleneck to increased computer speeds and it’s hard to know what innovations will appear to circumvent memory-speed shortfalls.
- As computer speeds increase, it may be feasible to perform audio, video, graphics and modem functions largely in software on the central CPU. Alternatively, it may be that these functions will be performed by special circuitry on the central CPU. A first step in this direction may be Motorola’s software-based modem and its consolidation into an audio card. Of course, speakers, a microphone and power amplifiers will still be needed for audio output. Also, if modems are replaced by cable or DSL modems running at much higher speeds,
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