By: anon (anon.delete@this.anon.com), August 6, 2014 7:57 pm
Room: Moderated Discussions
anon (anon.delete@this.anon.com) on August 6, 2014 7:54 pm wrote:
> juanrga (nospam.delete@this.juanrga.com) on August 6, 2014 11:55 am wrote:
> > Alberto (git.delete@this.git.it) on August 6, 2014 3:51 am wrote:
> > > Yuhong Bao (yuhongbao_386.delete@this.hotmail.com) on August 3, 2014 2:24 pm wrote:
> > > > http://www.mondaynote.com/2014/08/03/macintel-the-end-is-nigh
> > >
> > > http://www.extremetech.com/computing/187513-why-apple-wont-dump-intel-x86-for-its-own-arm-chips-in-macbooks-and-the-mac-pro
> > >
> >
> > I liked the part when they appeal to "independent research" and then mention the same crap paper
> > that every Intel fanboy mentions. I still recall the first time that I did read the paper by
> > Blem, Menon, and Sankaralingam. After my initial perplexity on how almost any decision they took
> > (from hardware to compiler version) seemed orientated to favor x86 over ARM, I did search further
> > info about the senior author and found that one of the coworkers of his research team is an Intel
> > lab guy, that several students in his group are awarded Intel grants... LOL
>
> Yes, the answer is not a "strong" one at all.
>
> That paper was discussed here when it came out, and numerous issues were pointed out with
> it. Not to mention that it absolutely does *not* show that ISA does not make a difference.
> The most it really attempts to show is that when looking at devices ranging from A8 to i7,
> microarchitecture perf/power/cost target is the first order effect. Which it is. What it does
> not show is whether the ISA made, say, 10% difference when holding all else equal.
>
> Then we have this
>
> "Intel's then-mobile chief Mike Bell clearly stated that the concept of an 'x86 tax' simply isn't true."
>
> Which is obviously something a marketing/executive person would say, but it's also completely false. The
> *concept* of an x86 tax is absolutely true. And not just the concept, but even in implementation, we can
> take a really simple example which is the instruction decoding complexity, and point to that.[*]
[*] Before anybody starts ranting about how "it's not that bad", and "it has small code footprint", let me just cut you off there: it's crap, and a much simpler encoding with even smaller code footprint could be developed if that was the important thing. End of debate.
> juanrga (nospam.delete@this.juanrga.com) on August 6, 2014 11:55 am wrote:
> > Alberto (git.delete@this.git.it) on August 6, 2014 3:51 am wrote:
> > > Yuhong Bao (yuhongbao_386.delete@this.hotmail.com) on August 3, 2014 2:24 pm wrote:
> > > > http://www.mondaynote.com/2014/08/03/macintel-the-end-is-nigh
> > >
> > > http://www.extremetech.com/computing/187513-why-apple-wont-dump-intel-x86-for-its-own-arm-chips-in-macbooks-and-the-mac-pro
> > >
> >
> > I liked the part when they appeal to "independent research" and then mention the same crap paper
> > that every Intel fanboy mentions. I still recall the first time that I did read the paper by
> > Blem, Menon, and Sankaralingam. After my initial perplexity on how almost any decision they took
> > (from hardware to compiler version) seemed orientated to favor x86 over ARM, I did search further
> > info about the senior author and found that one of the coworkers of his research team is an Intel
> > lab guy, that several students in his group are awarded Intel grants... LOL
>
> Yes, the answer is not a "strong" one at all.
>
> That paper was discussed here when it came out, and numerous issues were pointed out with
> it. Not to mention that it absolutely does *not* show that ISA does not make a difference.
> The most it really attempts to show is that when looking at devices ranging from A8 to i7,
> microarchitecture perf/power/cost target is the first order effect. Which it is. What it does
> not show is whether the ISA made, say, 10% difference when holding all else equal.
>
> Then we have this
>
> "Intel's then-mobile chief Mike Bell clearly stated that the concept of an 'x86 tax' simply isn't true."
>
> Which is obviously something a marketing/executive person would say, but it's also completely false. The
> *concept* of an x86 tax is absolutely true. And not just the concept, but even in implementation, we can
> take a really simple example which is the instruction decoding complexity, and point to that.[*]
[*] Before anybody starts ranting about how "it's not that bad", and "it has small code footprint", let me just cut you off there: it's crap, and a much simpler encoding with even smaller code footprint could be developed if that was the important thing. End of debate.
