Just takes backwards steps from time to time with major architectural innovations that deliver better performance at significantly lower clock speeds. Intel's last backwards step was from Pentium 4 to Core all the way back in ~2005. AMD's last backwards step was from Bulldozer (and friends) to Zen in 2017.
7GHz is ridiculous and probably just a false rumour, but IMO; Intel and AMD are probably due for another backwards step, they are exceeding the peek speeds from the P4/Bulldozer eras. And Apple has proved that you can get better performance at lower clock speeds.
And IBM were planning for the PS3's cell processor to run at like 6ghz, with later versions scaling further. Though, it's not like Sony were planning to ship the PS3 clocked that high, they were just expecting their 3-4ghz cpu to run much cooler than it did.
You can really see where the industry hit the wall with Dennard scaling.
Just takes backwards steps from time to time with major architectural innovations that deliver better performance at significantly lower clock speeds. Intel's last backwards step was from Pentium 4 to Core all the way back in ~2005. AMD's last backwards step was from Bulldozer (and friends) to Zen in 2017.
7GHz is ridiculous and probably just a false rumour, but IMO; Intel and AMD are probably due for another backwards step, they are exceeding the peek speeds from the P4/Bulldozer eras. And Apple has proved that you can get better performance at lower clock speeds.