The Falling Cost of Computing
Ravi Kochhar
Dept. of Physiology
Univ. of Wisconsin - Madison
Aug. 18, 1997
Rev. 8/1/2000
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The Falling Cost of Computing |
Programming Note # 19 Ravi Kochhar Dept. of Physiology Univ. of Wisconsin - Madison Aug. 18, 1997 Rev. 8/1/2000 |
It should come as no surprise that computing costs have been falling steadily for the last several years. This report attempts to quantify that decline.
A rough measure of CPU speeds may be obtained by running the same program on different computers. The Basement Benchmark (BBENCH.EXE) is such a program that we have been running on different popular computers since the mid-1970's.
It consists of two separate benchmarks, (B2) a 10-point linear regression and (B6) a 1024-point FFT. Each is repeatedly run many thousands of times in a loop, and the time this takes can be used to compare CPU speeds. Note that both benchmarks use only single precision floating point arithmetic, along with some integer arithmetic. No double-precision is used, and no I/O (disk or graphics) is done.
The figures below are both derived from the first (B2) benchmark alone.
You can download the benchmark program by clicking here. If you run the benchmark on a computer not listed here, please send me the results at kochhar@physiology.wisc.edu and I will include it in a future update.
The figure below summarizes the results. Click on the appropriate link
to see a
larger version.
GIF version (26kB)
PDF version (9kB)
Summary: CPU cost (since 1980) has been declining by a
factor of 2 every year for the last 19 years! (not even accounting
for inflation).
The next figure shows how CPU speeds have been increasing over the
last few years. Click on the appropriate link
to see a
larger version.
GIF version (25kB)
PDF version (9kB)
Summary: CPU speed is increasing each year by a factor 1.8
compared to the previous year, for the last 19 years approx.
The following table provides more details on the data used to make the above plots (sorted by CPU speed, fastest at the top):
| CPU Description | When | Benchmark Time (secs for 1M reps) | Rel. Speed (microVaxII=1.00) | Cost (US$) |
| Dell 1000 Mhz Pent/III | 7/2000 | 0.2758 | 1180 | $3000 |
| Dell 850 Mhz Pent/III | 4/2000 | 0.3230 | 1008 | $2500 |
| Dell 800 Mhz Pent/III | 3/2000 | 0.3462 | 941 | $2100 |
| Dell 750 Mhz Pent/III | 2/2000 | 0.3697 | 881 | $2500 |
| Dell 700 Mhz Pent/III | 3/2000 | 0.3926 | 830 | $2100 |
| Dell 600 Mhz Pent/III | 8/1999 | 0.4605 | 707 | $1900 |
| Dell 550 Mhz Pent/III | 7/1999 | 0.5047 | 645 | $2500 |
| Gateway 500 Mhz Pent/III | 5/1999 | 0.5496 | 593 | $2300 |
| Gateway 450 Mhz Pent/II | 12/1998 | 0.5853 | 555 | $2200 |
| DEC Alphastn 4/233Mhz | 5/1995 | 0.640 | 508 | $10000 |
| Gateway 400 Mhz Celeron | 2/1999 | 0.703 | 463 | $1500 |
| AMD K6-II/450 | 5/1999 | 1.097 | 297 | $1400 |
| Dell 266 Mhz Pent/II | 8/1997 | 1.10 | 296 | $3000 |
| Dell 233 Mhz Pent/II | 11/1997 | 1.24 | 263 | $2500 |
| AMD K6-II/400 | 4/1999 | 1.388 | 234 | $1000 |
| Gateway 200 Mhz Pent-Pro | 3/1997 | 1.40 | 232 | $2500 |
| DEC 300 model 300L-AXP | 8/1993 | 1.82 | 179 | $10000 |
| DEC Alphastn 4/100Mhz | 2/1997 | 1.92 | 169 | $5000 |
| Gateway 133 Mhz Pentium | 2/1997 | 2.65 | 123 | $3000 |
| DEC VAXstn model 4000/90 | 8/1993 | 5.46 | 60 | ? |
| Gateway 90 Mhz Pentium | 2/1995 | 8.00 | 41 | ? |
| Gateway 60 Mhz Pentium | 2/1994 | 11.00 | 30 | $3500 |
| Intel 486DX2 66 Mhz | 1993 | 20.00 | 16 | $3500 |
| DEC VAXstn model 4000/60 | 1992 | 22.8 | 14 | $12000 |
| DEC VAXstn model 4000/VLC | 8/1993 | 42.84 | 7.6 | $5000 |
| DEC VAXstn model 3100/38 | 1990 | 62.1 | 5.23 | $8000 |
| DEC VAXstn model 3200 | 1990 | 89.54 | 3.63 | ? |
| DEC VAXstn model 3100/30 | 1990 | 92.05 | 3.61 | ? |
| Gateway 486DX 25 Mhz | 1992 | 120.0 | 2.71 | ? |
| DEC VAX 11/750 | 1985 | 292.2 | 1.11 | $50000 |
| DEC MicroVAX-II | 1986 | 325.7 | 1.00 | $20000 |
| SUN 3/160 | 1986 | 414.9 | 0.80 | $25000 |
| Intel 286/12 Mhz | 1987? | 2600 | 0.125 | $4000? |
| Harris 6024/5 | 1975 | 3090 | 0.11 | $50000 |
| Intel 386SX 16 Mhz | 1990 | 3600 | 0.09 | ? |
| DEC PDP 11/23 | 1982 | 6155 | 0.053 | $20000 |
| IBM AT/6 Mhz w/CoProc | 1985 | 6210 | 0.052 | ? |
| Amiga | ? | 7240 | 0.045 | ? |
| IBM AT/6 Mhz w/o CoProc | 1985 | 10000 | 0.0325 | ? |
| Leading Edge Model-D | 1985 | 21200 | 0.0153 | $1500 |
| IBM PC/XT w/o CoProc | 1983 | 72500 | 0.0045 | $3000 |
| Zenith Z-150 PC clone | 1983 | 75000 | 0.0043 | ? |
If you have any questions or comments about this report, please
send them by e-mail to
kochhar@physiology.wisc.edu
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This page last modified on : Dec. 8, 2000