[HN Gopher] The first yearly drop in average CPU performance in ...
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       The first yearly drop in average CPU performance in its 20 years of
       benchmarks
        
       Author : LorenDB
       Score  : 35 points
       Date   : 2025-02-11 20:00 UTC (3 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.tomshardware.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.tomshardware.com)
        
       | epicureanideal wrote:
       | I wonder if we need an inflation adjusted measure? Maybe this is
       | CPU shrinkflation?
        
       | johnklos wrote:
       | So other than Windows constantly and actively slowing down
       | machines, we have dust collecting which then causes CPUs to
       | throttle sooner... I'd be interested to see what the trend in
       | average scores looks like for machines that don't otherwise
       | change over time, although I can't imagine anyone would run
       | Passmark every day or every week for a few years.
        
         | nicce wrote:
         | Not only Windows but all the software that counters hardware-
         | level vulnerabilities. I bet those tests don't disable them.
        
       | crazygringo wrote:
       | By this point, it feels like we ought to be benchmarking CPU+GPU.
       | The same way it already seems to be measuring multi-core.
       | 
       | Maybe the drop is some kind of artifact. But it would also be
       | interesting if it started making more sense to invest more in
       | improving GPU's, even at the cost of CPU's, for a large part of
       | the market.
        
       | lerp-io wrote:
       | it's cuz developing countries are using more computers
        
       | mtreis86 wrote:
       | Performance per watt continues to increase tho
        
       | sonofhans wrote:
       | I don't believe these numbers mean what they think. Their sample
       | size has dropped dramatically since the previous year, from 100k
       | to 25k for laptops and from 186k to 48k for desktops. Given that
       | all the data comes from people choosing to run the benchmark, I
       | wonder what population has suddenly left the data, and if that is
       | significant.
       | 
       | Also consider that the CPU is only one component of this
       | benchmark. The article itself says that Windows 11 performance is
       | worse than Windows 10. This might be another instance of "What
       | Andy [Grove] giveth, Bill [Gates] taketh away."
        
         | crazygringo wrote:
         | > _Their sample size has dropped dramatically since the
         | previous year, from 100k to 25k for laptops and from 186k to
         | 48k for desktops._
         | 
         | I suspect that's just an effect of 2025 data being limited to
         | just ~January, rather than a full 12 months.
         | 
         | If people run a benchmark only once every 4 months on average,
         | that would certainly explain the sample size.
        
       | Pannoniae wrote:
       | Could be several things, ranging from mundane to very concerning.
       | 
       | - People are downgrading their computers.
       | 
       | - Windows 11 is more bloated and slower, decreasing the test
       | scores.
       | 
       | - All the security mitigations are making everything slower but
       | they've been masked by hardware improvements in the past. Now
       | there isn't much in terms of that so we start the slow descent to
       | death.
        
         | citrin_ru wrote:
         | It could also mean that consumer are buying more budget models
         | and less pro- ones. Given cost of living crisis (at least in
         | Europe) it would not be surprising.
        
         | taneq wrote:
         | - People buying new high end computers are no longer
         | benchmarking them (at least with PassMark) while people buying
         | lower end or second hand computers still do so
         | 
         | I know I haven't bothered on my last two computers, partly
         | because CPU performance is so far past what I need for most
         | workloads, and partly because for the rest, I care about actual
         | workload rather than synthetic benchmarks.
        
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       (page generated 2025-02-11 23:00 UTC)