That's not enough. I say computer will have peaked when they are capable of simulating the entire universe with everything in it, life and high level intelligences; like the matrix but on an universal scale.

Then the computer would need to simulate itself?

I wait for the computer that can give me the answer of 42.

slaapliedje

According to various articles I've read:

1. Intel et al went after horsepower, damned be the heat dissipation!
2. While this was going on, ARM quietly went after the low power segment. A processor from the other guys will do more per cycle but will expend exponentially more energy to do it.
3. MIPS and maybe a 2 or 3 other companies tried to make different processors for both...and we see (or rather don't) where they are these days.

Intel is trying to play catch-up with the Atom line, but they have a long way to go, even now. Also, ARM doesn't make chips: they've always been a fabless house. They also went for integration when it was just an afterthought of everyone else (or not thought of at all): hence why we see them everywhere in the mobile field now whereas everyone else has been left in the dust. There's some stuff from both Intel and AMD on the horizon, but whether it'll compete with current and near-future offerings from ARM and those they've been working with remains to be seen.

Also, don't forget the hidden (not normally seen by the user) advantages like an instruction set that can't execute x86-based viruses and trojans like winblows.

The down side, sometimes seen by users, is that nothing is "standard", not even the boot sequence: thus the fragmentation of Android isn't just in the OS but even at the hardware level. If Intel and AMD play their cards right, they can capitalize on this big time when they start catching up in the critical areas (mips/flops per watt, TDP, etc).

Oh, and one more thing: remember, you need to calculate total power dissipation for EVERYTHING on board: on the N900's OMAP3430, that is not just the ARM but also the PowerVR GPU AND the cell phone modem DSP *ALL ON ONE DIE*. Thus, if you overclock (or the heat sink connection fails) and you kill that chip, you have killed everything!

Mike

P.S. Note most of the people on TMO know all this, but since this is a n00b thread, I thought making it clear would help.