By: Ungo (a.delete@this.b.c.d.e), August 12, 2014 4:37 pm
Room: Moderated Discussions
juanrga (nospam.delete@this.juanrga.com) on August 11, 2014 7:48 pm wrote:
> Yes, he mentioned that the ARM64 ISA is more high performance than x86-64 because of three-operand,
> larger number of registers, and other stuff. He also mentioned the intrinsic efficiency of the
> ARM ISA, which allows the engineer to spend more transistors to get performance (whereas in x86
> those transistor have to deal with legacy stuff and inefficiencies of the x86 ISA) and finally
> he mentioned that his new ARM core will have a bigger engine that the sister x86 core.
These arguments are identical to early 1990s marketing claims promoting the idea that PowerPC was fated to crush x86. And I really do mean identical, I've seen all of them before. Actually believed them, 20 years ago.
If anything it was a more compelling idea back then. The i386 ISA looked significantly worse relative to 32-register RISC ISAs like PowerPC. PPC had IBM on its side, at a time when IBM was still a force in the PC market. It also enjoyed a built-in guaranteed market in the form of Apple. It even had Microsoft's cooperation, in the form of allowing Motorola to port Windows NT to PowerPC.
> Yes, he mentioned that the ARM64 ISA is more high performance than x86-64 because of three-operand,
> larger number of registers, and other stuff. He also mentioned the intrinsic efficiency of the
> ARM ISA, which allows the engineer to spend more transistors to get performance (whereas in x86
> those transistor have to deal with legacy stuff and inefficiencies of the x86 ISA) and finally
> he mentioned that his new ARM core will have a bigger engine that the sister x86 core.
These arguments are identical to early 1990s marketing claims promoting the idea that PowerPC was fated to crush x86. And I really do mean identical, I've seen all of them before. Actually believed them, 20 years ago.
If anything it was a more compelling idea back then. The i386 ISA looked significantly worse relative to 32-register RISC ISAs like PowerPC. PPC had IBM on its side, at a time when IBM was still a force in the PC market. It also enjoyed a built-in guaranteed market in the form of Apple. It even had Microsoft's cooperation, in the form of allowing Motorola to port Windows NT to PowerPC.
