I wouldn't take it for granted that it's 10-15% better than last year.
Up until a few years ago, for instance, you could count on this year's CPUs being much better than last year's CPUs. After Intel came out with Nehalehm, the pace has slowed down. The really interesting developments are in details like virtualization support, SIMD instruction, and things like AMD's Fusion. And it took me plenty of talking with people to really understand that Fusion is nowhere near as exciting as I thought it was at first, since you can't get high-end (or even medium) GPU performance out of RAM designed for CPU's.
The things I build today could be at their market peak three years in the future so understanding the hardware on the market and where its going can be the difference between making somethign that's commercially viable and something that isnt.
Up until a few years ago, for instance, you could count on this year's CPUs being much better than last year's CPUs. After Intel came out with Nehalehm, the pace has slowed down. The really interesting developments are in details like virtualization support, SIMD instruction, and things like AMD's Fusion. And it took me plenty of talking with people to really understand that Fusion is nowhere near as exciting as I thought it was at first, since you can't get high-end (or even medium) GPU performance out of RAM designed for CPU's.
The things I build today could be at their market peak three years in the future so understanding the hardware on the market and where its going can be the difference between making somethign that's commercially viable and something that isnt.