Re: Is Intel exceptionally unsuccessful as an architecture designer?

On Mon, 23 Sep 2024 20:59:42 +0000
mitchalsup@aol.com (MitchAlsup1) wrote:

On Mon, 23 Sep 2024 7:53:36 +0000, Michael S wrote:
 

On Mon, 23 Sep 2024 01:34:55 +0000
mitchalsup@aol.com (MitchAlsup1) wrote:
 

On Mon, 23 Sep 2024 0:53:35 +0000, jseigh wrote:
 

On 9/22/2024 5:39 PM, MitchAlsup1 wrote: 

 

Speaking of memory models, remember when x86 didn't have
a formal memory model.  They didn't put one in until
after itanium.  Before that it was a sort of processor
consistency type 2 which was a real impedance mismatch
with what most concurrent software used a a memory model. 

>
When only 1 x86 would fit on a die, it really did not mater
much. I was at AMD when they were designing their memory
model.
 

Joe Seigh 

>
>
Why # of CPU cores on die is of particular importance? 

 
Prior to multi-CPUs on a die; 99% of all x86 systems were
mono-CPU systems, and the necessity of having a well known
memory model was more vague.
Although there were servers
with multiple CPUs in them they represented "an afternoon
in the FAB" compared to the PC oriented x86s.
>

Even if 99% is correct, there were still 6-7 figures worth of
dual-processor x86 systems sold each year and starting from 1997 at
least tens of thousands of quads.
Absence of ordering definitions should have been a problem for a lot of
people. But somehow, it was not.

That is "we did not see the problem until it hit us in
the face." Once it did, we understood what we had to do:
presto memory model.
 
Also note: this was just after the execution pipeline went
Great Big Our of Order, and thus made the lack of order
problems much more visible to applications. {Pentium Pro}
>

And that happened almost 10 years before Intel published their first
official x86 Memory Ordering paper. As to AMD, I think they hold it
unpublished even longer.

According to my understanding, what matters is # of CPU cores with
coherent access to the same memory+IO.
For x86, 4 cores (CPUs) were relatively common since 1996. There
existed few odd 8-core systems too, still back in the last century.