Knowing more about microarchitectures

[Space_Shift]

Hello everyone, i hope this is the correct forum to post this if not sorry for the mistake 

 

After looking all the new technologies that are going to be released by AMD, Nvidia or Intel, i'm starting to get more interested on knowing about more how their micro architectures works (either from CPUs to GPUs). I have a fair knowledge on how both CPU and GPU works, but i think that knowing a little better how the CPU or GPU works on the inside could help on deciding what kind of performance i would like to have from my PC in any determined scenario. Currently i'm studying Computer Engineering and i have been very interested in this subject but i don't know where to look for that kind of information on how it works any determined architecture like what are their characteristics, instructions, technologies, etc. either from current or older architectures of cpus or gpus.

So i would like to know if someone knows any sites, videos or books to learn a little more about this subject i would really appreciate it.

 

Thanks for reading and sorry for any misspelling.

[skimmilk5]

1 minute ago, Space_Shift said:

Hello everyone, i hope this is the correct forum to post this if not sorry for the mistake 

 

After looking all the new technologies that are going to be released by AMD, Nvidia or Intel, i'm starting to get more interested on knowing about more how their micro architectures works (either from CPUs to GPUs). I have a fair knowledge on how both CPU and GPU works, but i think that knowing a little better how the CPU or GPU works on the inside could help on deciding what kind of performance i would like to have from my PC in any determined scenario. Currently i'm studying Computer Engineering and i have been very interested in this subject but i don't know where to look for that kind of information on how it works any determined architecture like what are their characteristics, instructions, technologies, etc. either from current or older architectures of cpus or gpus.

So i would like to know if someone knows any sites, videos or books to learn a little more about this subject i would really appreciate it.

 

Thanks for reading and sorry for any misspelling.

I'm assuming you got all that transistor shizzle down. Nvidia's GTC streams may help you. Intel has some videos on their channel. Go to your local library (yes, there are these places called "libraries" and they hold these dark and mysterious things called "books" which are made of "paper" and "ink.") and see if they have anything.

[Clanscorpia]

5 minutes ago, Space_Shift said:

Hello everyone, i hope this is the correct forum to post this if not sorry for the mistake 

 

After looking all the new technologies that are going to be released by AMD, Nvidia or Intel, i'm starting to get more interested on knowing about more how their micro architectures works (either from CPUs to GPUs). I have a fair knowledge on how both CPU and GPU works, but i think that knowing a little better how the CPU or GPU works on the inside could help on deciding what kind of performance i would like to have from my PC in any determined scenario. Currently i'm studying Computer Engineering and i have been very interested in this subject but i don't know where to look for that kind of information on how it works any determined architecture like what are their characteristics, instructions, technologies, etc. either from current or older architectures of cpus or gpus.

So i would like to know if someone knows any sites, videos or books to learn a little more about this subject i would really appreciate it.

 

Thanks for reading and sorry for any misspelling.

if you know basically how CPUs work, the architecture is the layout of the chip, generation of chip parts inside, and transistor size.

[Lotus]

It won't help you decide which CPU to get. It could be interesting, but understanding how they get a modern high IPC architecture will literally require years of education, research, and understanding. For most basic tasks, just think of IPC * Clockspeed = single threaded performance, and IPC * clockspeed * cores is multi-threaded performance. However both AMD and Intel do things that throw off that multi-threaded performance idea. Intel has Hyperthreading which can increase it beyond that equation, and AMD has Bulldozer based architecture where each module has two integer units but shared everything else and can handle 2 threads. Each module will act like 2 cores in integer tasks, but one in floating point tasks. For instance, an FX-8350 is a 4 module CPU, not an 8 "core" CPU, because while there ARE 8 integer units, there are only 4 FPUs and cache is shared between modules. This is going to change in Zen because it's not a very good design for many common tasks.

[Space_Shift]

Thanks for your reply @kimsejin5, i'm going to check them out and yeah i know about libraries x) i saw some books from my university library but i was looking for some specific recommendations but i will give a read to a few. Thanks!

 

@Clanscorpia I mean on a more specific way or what's inside of the processor, like the different manufacturing processes(FinFet for example), instructions, technologies etc. that kind of stuff.

 

@Lotus I know its a lot of information and a lot of time of studying, and yeah i found it very interesting, and at the moment i would just like to learn a little to have a basic idea on the subject.

 

Thanks to all for your replies

[Hamosch]

1 hour ago, Space_Shift said:

Thanks for your reply @kimsejin5, i'm going to check them out and yeah i know about libraries x) i saw some books from my university library but i was looking for some specific recommendations but i will give a read to a few. Thanks!

 

@Clanscorpia I mean on a more specific way or what's inside of the processor, like the different manufacturing processes(FinFet for example), instructions, technologies etc. that kind of stuff.

 

@Lotus I know its a lot of information and a lot of time of studying, and yeah i found it very interesting, and at the moment i would just like to learn a little to have a basic idea on the subject.

 

Thanks to all for your replies

To be honest, your better of looking at benchmarks concerning your usecase.

 

There's a lot of things that play part in performance,

• Instruction set extension
• memory model employed
• cache performance (ie. cache size but more importantly the cache design (associativity, line size and so on, replacement strategy, how writebacks are handeled)
• how scheduling is handeled
• TLB performance and design
• Predictors

And for multithreading the huge difference will be the memory/cache coherence protocol they use, snooping or directory.

And many more things I most certainly forgot or didn't think of right now.

 

Bottom line, as a consumer, all of this is decided for you by the manufacturer, you would "never" be better at deciding on the design then them, also all of these things affect eachother so you mostly can't say one is objectively better than the other, it depends on a million other things.

 

If you're building high performance supercomputers for some specific application you will kind of choose this stuff but also tailor your programs to the underlying architecture, but at that point you're not a consumer...

[Mark77]

If you're in a Computer Engineering program, architecture should be covered in a 2nd year course, namely, the flow of instructions through a CPU.  Obviously the fancy decoding schemes, branch prediction, and the latest proprietary tweaks aren't covered, but this is stuff that you definitely will see in your course.  Additionally, at some point in time or another, you probably will have to design a CPU based on a postulated Instruction Set Architecture in VHDL or Verilog.  Which, in theory and at the level of simplicity for an undergrad, could/would/will be implemented in the lab on a FPGA.  (spinning real Silicon for a CPU or an ASIC isn't really something done at the undergrad or even at the non-PhD level anymore)

 

Of course, as you go "higher" level, it no longer is really called "architecture", but is rather called "systems engineering".  For instance, at a CPU company like Intel, the 'architecture' of a CPU's instruction set may very well be relating to the individual core architecture, while systems engineering concerns itself with tying everything together into a coherent chip design in which multiple cores work together.  And even higher levels up to and including integration of applications and hardware. 

 

I'd personally caution you not to get caught up in the marketing-speak of the various vendors out there who want to dumb things down a lot, or convince you that manufacturer "X" has designed something new and great.  Sometimes its true, but often its just a load of marketing BS.

[Clanscorpia]

8 hours ago, Space_Shift said:

Thanks for your reply @kimsejin5, i'm going to check them out and yeah i know about libraries x) i saw some books from my university library but i was looking for some specific recommendations but i will give a read to a few. Thanks!

 

@Clanscorpia I mean on a more specific way or what's inside of the processor, like the different manufacturing processes(FinFet for example), instructions, technologies etc. that kind of stuff.

 

@Lotus I know its a lot of information and a lot of time of studying, and yeah i found it very interesting, and at the moment i would just like to learn a little to have a basic idea on the subject.

 

Thanks to all for your replies

Look at diagrams then and then look up everything that's labeled. And FinFet is just a type of transistor. Don't know much about Instructions though

[porina]

For a higher level view, look up the Anandtech articles they do when a new CPU architecture comes out. They'll describe what's in it, and also how it differs from recent previous generations.

 

For a different lower level view I found the 3rd document at http://www.agner.org/optimize/ to be interesting reading. It describes the actual operation of how various parts work in practice.

[Hamosch]

On 2016-04-06 at 5:17 AM, Space_Shift said:

Thanks for your reply @kimsejin5, i'm going to check them out and yeah i know about libraries x) i saw some books from my university library but i was looking for some specific recommendations but i will give a read to a few. Thanks!

 

@Clanscorpia I mean on a more specific way or what's inside of the processor, like the different manufacturing processes(FinFet for example), instructions, technologies etc. that kind of stuff.

 

@Lotus I know its a lot of information and a lot of time of studying, and yeah i found it very interesting, and at the moment i would just like to learn a little to have a basic idea on the subject.

 

Thanks to all for your replies

An interesting read about the topic

 

http://www.lighterra.com/papers/modernmicroprocessors/