View Single Post
  #5  
Old July 16th 20, 02:37 PM posted to alt.windows7.general,alt.comp.os.windows-10,comp.sys.intel,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.chips
Yousuf Khan[_2_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,296
Default Linux founder tells Intel to stop inventing 'magic instructions'and 'start fixing real problems'

On 7/15/2020 2:42 PM, VanguardLH wrote:
Not all CPUs are waiting to do something for end users. Some are
involved in highly complex computing, like animated computer graphics.
You think Zootopia was composed on a home computer? So, you think Intel
(or AMD) are going to tool up for a completely separate production line
for consumer vs high-graphics design platforms? There is an economy in
production by reusing existing manufacturing processes. Do consumer
platforms utilize AVX? Rarely. Why didn't Linus bitch when Intel added
Streaming SIMD Extensions (SSE)? How about all those non-gaming users
that don't care even about the old SSE extensions? Oh my God, the CPU
has something they don't need.


Well, no, the SSE extensions were a big improvement over the old
stack-based FPU model. Directly accessible FP registers rather than
pushing and popping indirectly off of a stack. Even AMD's 3DNow achieved
this, requiring even less changes to the hardware (it just fixed the
existing FPU stack model), although AMD did not yet have sufficient
marketshare to push it widely onto the market. I think the point Linus
is making is that AVX takes FPU's to a state that no one asked for. When
the first version of AVX came out, and no one used it, well okay just a
mistake, then the second version came out, hoping that it would correct
the deficiencies of the first one, still kind of understandable. When
even that one wasn't used, and now we're at like version 3 or 4, none of
which are being used, then that's obviously gone too far.

Yousuf Khan