While chip processing power continues to grow steadily, it has become less noticeable in terms of boosting performance in most of today’s common computing tasks.  Increased CPU performance recently associated with 3-GHz clock speeds, for example, have not offered many noticeable differences in everyday office applications compared to the differences in performance between a 2-GHz and a 1-GHz or slower device.

Intel has announced plans for a new desktop chip that promises a 40 percent boost in performance over its best existing designs.  But will it matter and will a higher price tag stop consumers from spening money on new systems? 

With new CPU hungry software on the horizion we think the extra power will be needed soon enough.