Intel and Google join hands on Android development

Post by microarchitect » Sat, Sep 17, 2011, 12:14 AM UTC

hga wrote: post #9

microarchitect wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

not, you know, making low powered chips that work well. I used to work for AMD, and I can sort of see the decision making that causes (allows?) this to happen. There were a lot of folks who were opposed to AMD entering the mobile phone, tablet and even netbook markets because margins in those segments are way lower than for the regular x86 chips. Then, there are all the technical challenges in reworking fabs, design…

I don't think the Itanium is a good counterexample for it ran 32 bit x86 software poorly and as I understand it it never met its general preformance promises. E.g. on the fly out-of-order execution engines (e.g. the Pentium Pro and on) beat VLIW and the best compilers for it to date (with some domains being exceptions, although by now probably not in price preformance). At least here we're talking about low(er) power…

Post by microarchitect » Tue, Sep 20, 2011, 1:29 AM UTC

hga wrote: post #12

microarchitect wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The assumption you're making is that if Intel designed a new chip from scratch it would "meet it's general performance promises". I don't think this is as easy it sounds.

Given how much simulation they do ahead of time, especially if the chip is lower in CPU power (less expensive to simulate) I would actually expect them to be able to hit their targets/promises.