Analysis: x86 Vs PPC
Linked by Nicholas Blachford on Wed 9th Jul 2003 16:43 UTC
Talk, Rumors, X Versus Y This article started life when I was asked to write a comparison of x86 and PowerPC CPUs for work. We produce PowerPC based systems and are often asked why we use PowerPC CPUs instead of x86 so a comparison is rather useful. While I have had an interest in CPUs for quite some time but I have never explored this issue in any detail so writing the document proved an interesting exercise. I thought my conclusions would be of interest to OSNews readers so I've done more research and written this new, rather more detailed article. This article is concerned with the technical differences between the families not the market differences.
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Polarised debate
by Nicholas Blachford on Wed 9th Jul 2003 21:28 UTC

It's strange how polorised the debate here is. Not quite as bad as the Mac Vs PC threads though. I gave up commenting on those a long time ago because although there are good and bad points to both platforms - and of course personal opinions - there were a lot of people who obviously couldn't see this and attempting to debate sensibly is a futile exercise.

Thank you to those who have made the very kind comments, it took a lot of time and effort and these make it worth the while. Thanks.

To those telling us that it's full of basic errors please be aware that this is not meant to be a technical reference manual, it's an article for OSNews. I expect I did make the odd error or explain things not quite perfectly but if I am making glaring errors please tell us where they are.

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That said I note that not many have commented on or downright missed the main point of the article - that CISC processors are NOT the same as RISC, and unless Intel or AMD or someone else comes up with a *very* clever design they never will be.

RISC has the advantage and could outperform x86 CPUs if the effort was put in. Thats a very big If however. x86 has the market and is likely to have so for some considerable time to come.

Paul DeMone explains this much better than I can here:
http://www.realworldtech.com/page.cfm?articleid=RWT021300000000

And no realworldtech is not "just a step above marketing". It's the most technical of any of the sites I (or anyone else) has referred to.