Ricardo B (ricardo.b.delete@this.xxxxxx.xx) on May 19, 2013 7:20 am wrote:
>
> It mostly depends on where in the single threaded power/performance curve the design is aiming for.

No, I think it's bullshit today, and it was bullshit five years ago.

The reason Atom started out in-order wasn't because that was a particularly energy-efficient design, it was because it was a quick-and-dirty "let's get something small running, and two guys in this small team worked on the P54 and can whip up a prototype in three days".

Then the "prototype in three days" ended up being six months to actually get something that works, but by golly, it actually did, so when they sold this concept of Atom to management, you had a quick hack that you needed to make excuses for.

And the excuse was "OoO is too power-hungry".

And people lapped it up like it was Moses bringing down the tablets from the mountain.

The real disgrace is how it then took Intel five years to decide to do it right. Even though I guarantee that anybody with an IQ over room temperature knew that the original Atom sucked the moment they got to play with it.

Linus