What drives processor development?

[brennan77]

I had a conversation with my friend, who has a masters in history and has a good world view. Anyway, I commented that gaming and enthusiasts drive computer development. But he says that at the most fundamental level, it is the military of the United States that does so.

So my question is, what do you all think drives CPU development and computer hardware development in general? Does the military have super fast, prototype CPU's, or even CPU's developed specifically for their use? This seems unlikely considering the costs for such a thing. Or does the military simply use the latest and greatest that the consumer market offers or is about to offer?

[Deathknight]

IMHO software drives hardware development. Every version of windows is more of a resource hog than the last, with all kinds of fancy menu animations etc etc. Then crafty marketing convinces you that you need to own this software hence the upgrades.

[bulk88]

The military barly uses x86 or other consumer platforms (mac). What drives proceesor development is market growth. When there is a big market (late 1990s), the cpu companies see there is a point for R&D. When there isn't they just don't release anything faster, sticking with what they have. You don't see AMD and Intel trying to outspeed each other. But in the late 1990s with the .com revolution there was more free money and more people bought computers, also that means that gamers and performance addicts have more money to spend on newer computers. Currently somehow Intel and AMD agreed never to outspeed themselves like they did to 1 ghz. Also the cpu companies are like, what's the point? No one is upgrading their computers, only new users are coming, and new users don't care about performance.

[Steven4563]

Deathknight is spot on :)

[snvpa]

The military used to drive the production but they've now since been bypassed by the software developers and computer enthusiasts.

[shiyan]

I agree with Deathknight and Steven4563.

[ninthebin]

I am more inclined to go with bulk88 on this one, money drives this...if there was no money in it - no matter what the software requirements I doubt it would happen

[Deathknight]

Originally posted by ninthebin
I am more inclined to go with bulk88 on this one, money drives this...if there was no money in it - no matter what the software requirements I doubt it would happen

As it happens right now there isn't a whole lot of money in it but they are still cranking out the new chips hehe.

When times get tough slashing expenses and expanding market share are the 2 key things. There is only so many times you can make cutbacks to keep yourself in the black. The market has been so bad for so long there is just no way that these companies can suddenly find more ways to cut cost so fighting for more market share is key. Regardless of if they will make a profit they need to fight for their very survival. Heck look at how long amazon.com existed before it made a profit. They kept improving and improving (pouring more and more money in).

[madcow235]

the military uses very very old computers for almost everything. Hell NORAD probably has less processing power then some of the weakest super computers.