Learn Croatian: Današnji su procesori daleko moćniji nego prvi strojevi. - Today's processors are far more powerful than the first machines.

Croatian clitics like su naturally gravitate to the second position in a sentence. While you could place it after the entire subject phrase (Današnji procesori su...), splitting the adjective and the noun (Današnji su procesori...) is extremely common in native speech and writing. It strictly places the clitic as the second word, which flows very naturally in Croatian.

How does daleko work with moćniji in this sentence, and could I use znatno instead?

Daleko literally means "far," and here it functions as an advanced amplifier for the comparative adjective moćniji (more powerful), translating to "far more powerful." You can absolutely swap it with znatno (significantly) or kudikamo (way/far more) without changing the surrounding grammar. They all simply sit right before the comparative word.

How is the word današnji (today's) formed?

It is formed by taking the time adverb danas (today) and adding the suffix -šnji, which turns time words into adjectives. You will see this same helpful pattern in words like jučerašnji (yesterday's) from jučer, and sutrašnji (tomorrow's) from sutra.

Could I say od prvih strojeva instead of nego prvi strojevi at the end of the sentence?