Do Powerful CPUs Reduce the Need for Efficient Code?

Empirical study examining whether improvements in modern CPU performance reduce the practical importance of efficient algorithms.Two experiments were conducted:Algorithmic efficiency: comparing Bubble Sort with C++ std::sort to analyze runtime scaling behavior.Cache locality: measuring the performance impact of row-major vs column-major matrix traversal.Benchmarks were implemented in C++ and executed repeatedly to obtain stable runtime measurements. The project includes reproducible code, generated datasets, analysis scripts, and the full paper.Originally written as an acceptance essay for the Master's program in Data Engineering and Analytics at the Technical University of Munich (TUM).