Date: Thu, 21 May 1998 10:05:30 +0300 (IDT) From: Nadav Eiron <nadav@cs.technion.ac.il> To: Chuck Robey <chuckr@glue.umd.edu> Cc: Soren Kristensen <soekris@alameda.net>, chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Original PC and talk Message-ID: <Pine.GSO.3.95-heb-2.07.980521100251.23212A-100000@csd> In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSF.3.96.980520233946.312a-100000@localhost>
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(moved to chat) On Wed, 20 May 1998, Chuck Robey wrote: > On Wed, 20 May 1998, Soren Kristensen wrote: > > > Lets get it clear why IBM choose the 8088: > > [snip] > > Actually, as just about any modern text shows, the X86 architecture is > the slowest one out there. Take a look at one of the recent Hennesey & > Patterson texts, you'll see. > > even with its limited number of > > registers. And who writes code in assembler anymore ? > > Which is precisely why you don't want a processor that makes life easy > on assembly language writers, the compilers are the only ones spewing > assembly anymore, you want a processor to execute instructions FAST. > Intel's X86 architecture is miserable for real optimization, although > one must admit that Intel has done just about everything they could do > to make a horrible instruction set go quickly. All the tricks they use, > the RISC processors use, but the RISC processors are designed to make > best use of those tricks, and the X86 architecture isn't. > > All those tricks (the same ones) are why processors like theDEC Alpha > are so hot. Things like register renaming don't give you much > improvement if you're talking about such a tiny humber of registers to > begin with (referring to the X86 here). And the Alpha (except for the coming 21264) doesn't even do register renaming, or out of order execution. All it does is execute its instruction set _FAST_, and have enough memory bandwidth to feed the core. > > > > > And with todays chips sizes the underlying processor architecture dosn't > > matter so much anyway, it's more a matter of cache sizes and memory > > bandwidth. > > There was actually a short time where the new Pentium Pro-200 was the > > fastest processor in the world, measured in specint95 and specfp95.... > > > > > > > > Best Regards, > > > > > > Soren Kristensen > > > > ----------------------------+----------------------------------------------- > Chuck Robey | Interests include any kind of voice or data > chuckr@glue.umd.edu | communications topic, C programming, and Unix. > 213 Lakeside Drive Apt T-1 | > Greenbelt, MD 20770 | I run Journey2 and picnic (FreeBSD-current) > (301) 220-2114 | and jaunt (NetBSD). > ----------------------------+----------------------------------------------- > Nadav To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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