> Ultimately, we must ask how much processing power a typical user really needs. Barring the most graphics-heavy computer games...

Well that is part of the problem, isn't it? GPUs are far from photorealistic, and as the latest generation of NVIDIA cards show the only solution so far is more power, more heat, and more cooling to support it.

And if anybody truly cracks quantum computing, some of the limits we've grown accustomed to with traditional CPUs would suddenly disappear, and open up whole new frontiers in AI (supposedly).

I dunno...as long as things get hotter, heavier, and consume more power it would be nice to figure out how to cram more into the same physical and energy constraints.