The other side of the coin of Moore’s Law is that the cost of computing is getting cheaper and cheaper. Mr. Machrone came up with his own law based on Moore's Law.

"Gordon Moore just plain got it right…I should mention that Moore’s Law has also given rise to Machrone’s Law, which was true for many years, which is that the machine you want always costs $5,000."
-Bill Machrone

In 1988, the cost of a powerful 386 PC was $5,000 and had 275,000 transistors in the microprocessor. In 1997, the cost of a super powerful Pentium II PC was still $5,000 and had 7.5 million transistors. Compare the cost of computing in terms of dollars per transistor for the 386 PCs and the Pentium II PCs.

386 PC: cost per transistor is

$5,000 / 275,000 = $0.02 per transistor

Pentium II PC: cost per transistor is

$5,000 / 7.5 million = $0.001 per transistor

How many times cheaper is the cost of computing of a Pentium II PC than that of a 386 PC?

Estimate the answer:

Less than 20 times
Between 20 and 30 times
Over 30 times