Author: Robert Hyatt
Date: 07:45:41 01/11/02
Go up one level in this thread
On January 10, 2002 at 05:07:37, Tom Kerrigan wrote: >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. Do you remember the 486 DX4 and the like? Even a triple-clocked ALU was done years ago. :) > >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
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