computerworld.com — For 30 years, the PC industry has treated Moore's Law with religious reverence. Its immutable commandment -- thou shalt double the transistors on circuits every 18 months -- created an enviable business model with consumers spurred to buy new, more powerful PCs every few years.
Apr 5, 2009 View in Crawl 4
culytApr 6, 2009
Still kind of stupid, from the sound of it we are basically using a RISC instruction set, only to have it decoded into a CISC one.I wish the x86_64 extensions were CISC, or had a CISC subset or something, that way we could have ditched RISC when we change over to 64bit OSes.I guess it would be a lot harder to port software from RISC to a different RISC, and RISC to CISC than it is from CISC to CISC, chip manufacturers want to maintain their vendor lock in. Otherwise Windows could ship with some kind of an instruction set conversion layer and support multiple CPUs (although they could probably do this today with things like LLVM running bytecode at native speeds).
Closed AccountApr 6, 2009
most modern, graphic intensive games recommend dual cores.
ilgazApr 6, 2009
I better add one more thing, Q)"If RISC is so good, why we use i386 (CISC) and even Apple switched to Intel?"A) Because Intel and AMD has invested huge amounts in R&D which even IBM gave up racing with them on Desktop except server scene (POWER).It is more like a 100 year old gasoline technology running BMW will beat the hell out of a "Tesla" electric car. Does it make gasoline tech a better thing? Of course not.
honoredmuleApr 6, 2009
iTanium? Is iNtel an iPod-toting iFanboy now too?If Intel were to push their own new instruction set, it would have to be a GOOD one. For that, we already have ARM. Why introduce inferior competing standards? Ultimately, they will probably have to move into competing products built on the already inudstry-wide and proven standard ARM provides.
honoredmuleApr 6, 2009
You've got it backwards. CISC (complex instruction set) is what's used by x86 and x86_64, by Intel and AMD. RISC (reduced instruction set) is what's used by ARM and is THEORETICALLY more efficient.On top of what stufflebean said, consider the potential benefits of the kind of LIVE translation into RISC that a CISC processor can do, such as optimize instruction order/branch prediction at a higher level. This means CISC has additional opportunities to optimize execution based on current-usage profiling information, something precompiled RISC instructions can never fully emulate.ARM is currently way a ahead of x86 for performance efficiency in the low-power compact/embedded device market. But that has far more to do with the decades spent exclusively developing ARM technology for exactly that than with any true technical merits or demerits. Much like with electric cars vs gasoline ones, you cannot accurately deem a technology inferior or unsuitable for a task without taking into consideration relative maturity and the possibility that the incumbent could catch up with the more established and developed one.Between the muscle that Intel is currently putting behind embedded x86 and the technological head-start ARM has, combined with a new market where /neither/ is established, this is still truly anyone's game. I wouldn't be surprised to see either Intel dominating with x86 or ultimately admitting defeat and having to compete by developing better ARM-based chips.
elranzerApr 6, 2009
They also seem to forget that ARM doresn't necesarily compete with Intel. Intel makes ARM procrssoers. Ever heard of Xscale?But seriously, ARM would only be good for portables. For desktop replacements? IBM PowerPC would be most likely. Of course, Apple would be too proud to switch back.
asrrin29Apr 6, 2009
Yeah, seriously, some of us need the mobility of a laptop and the power of a desktop. I'm a college student on the move, and I don't need bleeding edge, but I need power. I found a nice budget gaming laptop that can play all the latest games on high settings or better and it's portable enough for me.
pocodiablo1Apr 10, 2009
Moore's law does apply. The smaller and more precise the mechanism is; the more efficient and cooler it becomes.