what is the best computer architecture?

[billdotson]

there's your x86 architecture, your SPARC, your Power-PC, your MacIntel, and probably others I do not know about. In technical terms which architecture is the best? I have heard the the SPARC architecture can run on MUCH less RAM than a x86 architecture.. like if an x86 needed 512MB a SPARC would only need 128MB.

Random side-note:
for some reason I like Sun Microsystems.. I don't really have a legitimate reason but they just seem cool.

[TheRingmaster]

I would say that the x86 platform is the best because everyone started building on it when it came out. This platform is so popular even mac uses it now.

[mips]

x86 is the most popular or widely used.

I would not say x86 is the best though. It has a lot of baggage just like windows form all the years of having to be backwards compatible. Last time I heard the x86 CISC instruction set was emulated in a RISC core on the AMD chips, dunno about Intel.

We would all be better of if we scrapped all legacy hardware/os/software and started with a clean slate. Wont be easy but it would be a fresh start.

[gus sett]

Yes, x86 is the defacto/QWERTY, if you will, standard. I had a professor
who bucked most others to insist on teaching with the Motorola 68000
microprocessor, specifically because it had evolved with less luggage and
had a cleaner instruction set. Those genes had the best chance of joining
with RISC into the PwrPC. 8-[

x86 is the most popular or widely used.

I would not say x86 is the best though. It has a lot of baggage just like windows form all the years of having to be backwards compatible. Last time I heard the x86 CISC instruction set was emulated in a RISC core on the AMD chips, dunno about Intel.

We would all be better of if we scrapped all legacy hardware/os/software and started with a clean slate. Wont be easy but it would be a fresh start.

[mcduck]

I find Cell being the most interesting one, and I'm just waiting to see what it's going to be like after couple of years. x86 is definitely the most boring one. :)

I'd also love to have some RISC machine, some old SGI Octane2 perhaps. Not that it would be very useful but I'd still want to have one of those :D

[Mathiasdm]

I would say that the x86 platform is the best because everyone started building on it when it came out. This platform is so popular even mac uses it now.

The x86 architecture is a pretty ugly one, because they've added lots of things (and had to maintain backwards compatibility). The MMX instruction set, for example (mainly created for multimedia), is the same set as the floating point registers. There's a switch so one can use either MMX or floating point, but not both at the same time (pretty annoying).

Now, with sse, sse2, sse3 and such being added, things have gotten even more complex (though they do add some useful commands).
However, I can't really comment on those latest additions (I only know the basics).

Alpha is nice, and so is Itanium (though both are pretty much dead right now).

[karellen]

it's like asking what is the best car?...:confused: best car for what? speed, rough terrain, luxury, environment friendly, fuel consumption?...so: best computer architecture for what purpose? ;)

[Quillz]

I think x86_64 is the best.

[billdotson]

best architecture technically speaking. Efficiency w/ hardware, scalability, technical capabilities, etc. I know the x86 is out there but seeing as it is the standard that almost ALL normal computer users use I was wondering if there is a better, more efficient architecture out there that only the real nerds/geeks/techies bother with. Mainly I ask because I have been seeing alot about Ultra SPARC and the Cell Processor and I was just curious.

Will x86 ever NOT be the de facto? or will it eventually just be x86_64 when 64bit support that being apps and OSes is going full steam. Btw what exactly does 64bit have over 32bit?? The only thing I know is that 32bit can only support 2^32 amount of RAM which is 4GB whereas 64 bit can do 2^64.. being a ridiculously high amount of RAM.. I don't feel like calculating as of now.
Is the new MacIntel architecture 64bit? and why has Windows been sticking to 32bit for so long? They are just now having 64bit versions of Vista and XP but there really isn't any software available.

I also have another question. My Asus motherboard that runs an Intel Core 2 Duo says it has a capacity of 8GB (4 RAM slots).. is 8GB even possible.. I thought 4GB RAM was the limit for 32bit systems?

[LookTJ]

I think 64bit(AMD, etc.) architecture is the best and most reliable.

[Lord Illidan]

I doubt that you can call something "the best" because it is the most popular...otherwise we'd be all using Windows right now because it would be the "best".

I use x86 but I hear good things about RISC architectures.

[karellen]

64-bit architecture means that the cpu has 64-bit registers, has additional features (registers)...some of the characteristics:
64-bit flat virtual address space
64-bit pointers
64-bit wide general purpose registers
64-bit integer support

[Trebuchet]

I also have another question. My Asus motherboard that runs an Intel Core 2 Duo says it has a capacity of 8GB (4 RAM slots).. is 8GB even possible.. I thought 4GB RAM was the limit for 32bit systems?Yes, but you could also run a 64 bit OS on it because Core 2 Duo supports 64 bit instructions. IIRC 64 bit systems can address 16 GB of RAM. Be a while before most home users get there...

[billdotson]

technically I heard that 64bit could have a maximum RAM of like 1 terabyte or something because it is 2^64 instead of 2^32 (which 2^32 is 4GB).. but that will be a LONG time.

So.. my PC is technically 32bit but I could run a 64bit OS on it? Would there be any advantages to running a 64bit OS as opposed to a 32bit?? If I were to use the 64bit version of Ubuntu (there is one isn't there?) would I notice anything different.. like a performance boost or something? I have heard that 64bit lacks alot of applications and driver support on current 64 bit OSes though..

So technically speaking my hardware is 32bit but I can use 64bit OSes.. or w/ the Core 2 Duo I have a 64bit system where I can have 8GB of RAM?

If it were technically 64bit that would be pretty cool as 64bit sounds like it is much better.

karellen: I did not understand a word you said! haha. Could you please explain? I would consider myself a Windows power-user who started using Ubuntu so I am a novice in technical computer terms. Although since starting using Ubuntu my focus has shifted from PC games to wanting to learn more and more stuff.. like right now I am reading intro to programming on wikiversity and am starting to learn the python language. I have always liked computers and now that I have started using Linux I have decided that I want to get a BS in computer science.. so right now I am on a "mission" if you will to learn as much stuff about computers as I can.. not just to get my BS but just because knowing all the technical stuff w/ computers is incredibly interesting to me and I will probably keep trying to learn new things even after I get my BS in CS and get a job in the computer field because those things just interest me.

If you look around you can probably find a bunch of threads I have started that probably seem novice-like questions about the technical workings of computers and such.

[hardyn]

So.. my PC is technically 32bit but I could run a 64bit OS on it? Would there be any advantages to running a 64bit OS as opposed to a 32bit??


Wha?
Technically 32bit?...

No, you have to have 64bit hardware... thats why they make two versions of linux 32 and 64.

the advantage is more memory / hardware addressing. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/64-bit#Pros_and_cons

[billdotson]

so what technically does that pro mean?? Should I start using Ubuntu 64bit then?

[Tuna-Fish]

Also, there is some speedup because the 64-bit architecture has more registers and uses sse2 as default for FP.

To the original question: The question which architecture is best is, to put it bluntly, not important. x86 is not the most efficient, but it is efficient enough for a hardware abstraction layer. You see, no processor has really been x86 in at least a decade. The processors use a form of RISC, micro-ops, to which they translate x86 commands. Would they be better if they didn't do the translation? Probably. But would there be good enough difference that losing backwards compability can be justified? Very likely not. People in the industry currently say that the loss in performance because of the translation is less than 5%. Some say that the translation actually gives more performance, if not now, then in the long term. Why? Isn't it backwards that adding more complexity gives more performance? There is a very good point in having abstraction layers, and that is you cannot know now what kind of instruction set would be good decade from now. Having an abstraction layer means that when people in the processor business find a new, better way to do things, they can do it, and then just change the abstraction, and all old software still works. This seriously increases performance after enough time compared to figuring out a good way to do things now and doing it on bare metal and keeping doing it for foreseeable future,

If there ever will be another dominant instruction set, it will very likely be quite abstract, and designed from the ground up to be a high-performance VM, not an instruction set for a processor.

[hardyn]

so what technically does that pro mean?? Should I start using Ubuntu 64bit then?

You cant unless you have a 64bit architecture machine, which i assume by saying that your machine is 'technically 32bit' would exclude you from the 64bit option.

if you had a 64 bit machine you would have the option of running 32 or 64bit software, due to the built-in backwards compatibility.

[Quillz]

so what technically does that pro mean?? Should I start using Ubuntu 64bit then?
If you have a 64-bit processor (such as the Intel Core 2 Duo,) then yes, go ahead and use the 64-bit version. Although it's not mainstream yet, 64-bit computing is far superior. Once more applications support it, you'll really see how much better it is.

[kimara]

I like powerpc most but I don't have powerpc comp...

[3rdalbum]

I believe PowerPC to be the best architecture. (by the way, "Macintel" is not an architecture - the architectures that those machines use are x86 and EMT64).

The reason why PowerPC is the best is because there's very little "legacy" about it, so it's easier to build new features on top of it. PowerPC has Altivec, which is much more powerful than MMX. PowerPC has supported 64-bit for longer than x86, as far as I know. And with new developments like Cell, I think IBM have solved the problem of paravirtualisation on PPC.

Do you want to know why Microsoft chose PowerPC for the Xbox 360? It's because, with the original Xbox's Intel processor, there was a legacy feature of the processor which helped hackers to crack the Xbox's security. The crazy thing is, this legacy feature was originally designed for backward compatibility with PRE-x86 processors! As if anyone in the year 2000 needed backward compatibility with a 20-year-old obselete chip!

[glotz]

I likes the beige architecture with big moniters!

[gus sett]

Indeed. [-o< similarly, while qwerty abounds on smart phone keypads, note
the growing droves of standard cell phone pads with guess-the-next-word texting ability :-k

I doubt that you can call something "the best" because it is the most popular...otherwise we'd be all using Windows right now because it would be the "best".

I use x86 but I hear good things about RISC architectures.

[mips]

Also, there is some speedup because the 64-bit architecture has more registers and uses sse2 as default for FP.

Speedup you only notice if the OS & Applications take advantage of it. I think it would be safe to say that most current apps don't really take advantage of 64bit.

[mips]

I'd also love to have some RISC machine, some old SGI Octane2 perhaps. Not that it would be very useful but I'd still want to have one of those :D

That would be the MIPS architecture/cpu.

[mips]

I had a professor
who bucked most others to insist on teaching with the Motorola 68000
microprocessor, specifically because it had evolved with less luggage and
had a cleaner instruction set. Those genes had the best chance of joining
with RISC into the PwrPC. 8-[

Be glad you got the 680x0 series from your prof. I was unlucky enought to get the 8086/8088. The 680x0 was a breath of fresh air, instruction set could be considered a bit on the complex side though but stil a nice cpu. They eventually ran out of steam as well and then motorola went and sold their entire cpu business...

[diskotek]

for live music i think powerpc architecture is nice

[insane_alien]

for live music i think powerpc architecture is nice

umm, CPUs are fast enough so that it really wouldn't matter what architecture you used to play music. it would sound the same.

sounds are usually handled by a soundcard anyway. and again arcitecture doesn't come into it. its all in the wave reconstruction algorithms and quality of the audio file.

[mips]

for live music i think powerpc architecture is nice

Huh, care to explain a bit more ?

[gus sett]

I hear that, Salani. Our instructor was very respectful of x86, kept us posted of
notable differences, but you could feel the enthusiasm of the leeway he had etc.
those engineers "sold over" rolled into the PwrPC joint venture though.


Be glad you got the 680x0 series from your prof. I was unlucky enought to get the 8086/8088. The 680x0 was a breath of fresh air, instruction set could be considered a bit on the complex side though but stil a nice cpu. They eventually ran out of steam as well and then motorola went and sold their entire cpu business...