Looking ahead, we're at a 14nm process node right now. Not so long ago, some folks said 7nm was the minimum. My guess has been 3nm for quite a while now. Seems like 5nm is "just around the corner".

Quote
TSMC 5nm risk production ready for 2019

Although it is still a long way off into the future, TSMC said that it is on track to start risk production of 5nm chips in the first half of 2019.

Company co-CEO Mark Liu told the outfit's annual supply chain management shindig that TSMC's 7nm process will be ready for risk production later in the first quarter of 2017, with [7nm] volume production scheduled for 2018...


Rumors I've read indicate AMD to skip 10nm for CPUs and jump down to 7nm. By skipping 10nm, AMD may pass Intel -- because Intel will spend time at the 10nm node (it is rumored).

I think the 10nm, 7nm, 5nm nodes will mostly affect power consumption -- clock speed will only see a small improvement. However, lower heat will allow more cores in the package -- and, long term, its cores not clocks (I speculate).

Ryzen was designed to allow easy adding of more cores. I've read Windows can handle over 200 threads. I'm guessing 16cores/32threads as being useful (eventually, not real soon) in a gamer's desktop PC. I assume there is a practical useful-limit, however.


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