Analysis: x86 Vs PPC

Gentu writes "Nicholas Blachford (engineer of the PPC-based PEGASOS Platform) wrote a long and detailed article, comparing the PPC and the x86 architectures on a number of levels: performance, Vector processing and Power Consumption differences, architectural differences, RISC Vs CISC and more. The article is up-to-date and so it takes the G5 into account too."

Comments

These arguments are so tired

[uradu]

This isn't the '80s anymore where performance is the most critical issue and we jump platforms every time a faster architecture comes out, since we don't have a large software base anyway. Nowaways software IS the more important aspect, and only relatively few well-heeled, game-addicted geeks are going to jump on the PPC just because it's a fews ticks faster this week, and Jobs winked at them with that very special smile. Given the way this industry goes, IBM/Motorola will sit back again, wipe the sweat off their foreheads and take a breather, and before you know it, Intel/AMD will have a faster processor again.

If you have x-platform software that will compile painlessly on either architecture, go for it, switch with each faster chip. But for most others, I doubt performance rants like these will make much of a difference. After all, how many Mac users switch to the PC just for the performance during those stretches when the PC has the upper hand?

Truly suprising colnclusion, OR NOT!

[pbox]

Nicholas Blachford (engineer of the PPC-based PEGASOS Platform) says that the PPC is better than x86.

What an unbiased opinion. Maybe we should really hear the other side too. I like the article for the wealth of info, and we all know the shortcomings of the x86 platform, but the conclusion seems to be biased.

Or is it just me?

[Q] Small & Expensive = CISCRISC?

[4of12]

When Microprocessors such as x86 were first developed during the 1970s memories were very low capacity and highly expensive. Consequently keeping the size of software down was important and the instruction sets in CPUs at the time reflected this.

So I'm puzzled. Perhaps someone can enlighten me on this.

If CISC is particularly appropriate for memory that is

1. low capacity, and
2. highly expensive

why doesn't the same argument apply to CPU's with no main memory per se, but just a good sized L3 cache?

Modern cache memories are, guess what,

1. low capacity, and
2. highly expensive

so it would seem to follow that higher performance could be got by using a CISC model.

Since main memory latency and BW are pretty limiting, I half expect that there's good argument to make very high performance systems live completely inside a large cache.