Author: Tom Kerrigan
Date: 02:07:37 01/10/02
Go up one level in this thread
On January 10, 2002 at 03:06:23, Gian-Carlo Pascutto wrote: >On January 09, 2002 at 17:12:11, Tom Kerrigan wrote: > >>>It's faster only because of the clockspeed. Granted, that is made >>>possible by the silly design, but it doesn't make it any nicer, >>>especially compared vs the Athlons. >> >>To rearrange your wording, the P4's design allows it to reach higher >clockspeeds which results in faster performance. Again, how is this "silly"? > >It's silly because they have to make it this way. It's faster >solely by means of clockspeed. > >>Do you want a chip that performs well or one that clocks slow? Seems like >you're asking for the latter. > >It's possible to make well-performing chips that clock slower :) > >I would just like to see a new chip and an innovative design with >real new features. The trend now is to make stupider chips that >run at a higher clockspeed. I would have found it more interesting >to see a slower clocked but smarter (and thus faster) chip. I can't believe you think the P4's design isn't innovative. It's the first x86 chip to have a trace cache. Its branch predictor is probably the best ever made by anybody. It's the first chip that I know of that has a double clocked ALU. It has SMT logic (although not enabled currently). The list goes on. Basically, there's hardly anything about the P4 that _isn't_ innovative. How do you know that a "smarter" chip would outperform a faster clocked chip? I think the POWER3, R12000, and SuperSPARC clearly prove that theory wrong, to name a few chips. Besides, how do you know it's even possible to make a smarter chip than the P3? The Athlon has more (and more capable) execution units than the P3 but doesn't have better IPC. This tells me that the ILP in today's x86 code has pretty much been tapped, and the _only_ way to make better performing chips is to clock them higher, even if it means sacrifices to IPC. -Tom
This page took 0.01 seconds to execute
Last modified: Thu, 15 Apr 21 08:11:13 -0700
Current Computer Chess Club Forums at Talkchess. This site by Sean Mintz.