What will CPUs be like in 10, 20, 30 years time?

Question

Will we ever see 10GHz+ Desktop CPUs in the home?
Have the CPU manufacturers permanently given up on producing major increases clock speed or only put it on the backburner for now?
Will we still have similar clock speeds to now in 30 years, but have hundreds of cores?
I have read people saying that having more than 16 cores is pointless.

If clock speeds cannot increase and increasing the number of cores is pointless how will CPUs develop?

I know people say today's computers are powerful enough, but i'm not so convinced.  Transcoding videos can still take hours even on modern hardware and with more computationally expensive codecs such as HEVC on the horizon transcoding will require more processing power than ever.

Besides, like the way that car manufacturers produce cars that have top speeds well in excess of the speed limit, we know that if it is possible and economically viable to manufacture something more powerful it will become available even if that power is superflous.

The Mighty Keyboard Warrior · Accepted Answer

There are a number of possibilities out there.

Copper is a limiting factor. So CPUs based primarily on light may be a next step.

There are also people working on computers that utilize quantum physics and transcend much of the current ways computers operate (e.g. binary)

This is all still pretty far away though.

John · Answer

Clock speed isn't everything. After Intel expanded into the 3ghz+ range cooling became a serious matter, they started exploring different ways to improve performance and went in the direction of hyperthreading then multi-cores. Also lower power consumption.

More cores is good for multitasking and excellent for gaming if the games take advantage of the technology. Clock speed is less relevant with more cores. Say 10 threads are produced for processing, a single core does one at a time and clock speed is vital. A CPU at same clock speed as previous example with say 10 cores (for examples sake) could process those same 10 threads simultaneously. Effectively making the multi-core CPU 10X faster than the single core. The catch is developers taking advantage of modern hardware to utilize it to its full potential.

I use the i7 3930k and it is a beast, I can't imagine maxing out its usage currently but I find it's more because games only utilize a limited number of cores/threads. I have read about people successfully running the 3930k in excess of 5ghz stable but requires a full fledged liquid cooling system to accomplish.

With current technology expect more cores and smaller dies. New technologies may start showing up in a few years. Light/fiber optic connections may be a possibility.

? · Answer

Here's my understanding of it all, could be wrong if so sorry but this is what I know about it all.
Intel and AMD had a race for clock speeds, and they got up to about the 3GHz's and couldn't get further/ found it hard or something. That's when the idea of multiple cores came up and that helped to improve the technology. I can't imagine the clock speeds getting much higher. Have you noticed that as Intel has released Sandy and Ivy bridge clock speed is less important? Clock speed is not the same as performance.
Anyway, I think die shrinks are gonna be big for the next decade or so, until we get so small that we can't go much further. That will help to improve battery life in our ever increasing mobile life and keep devices small.

As said before, so if I have some bits wrong and anyone else feel free to correct me :)

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What will CPUs be like in 10, 20, 30 years time?

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