What's a Good Place to Start Learning About CPU and GPU Architectures?

[DocSwag]

I've been interested in CPU and GPU architectures and learning more about them for a while. I know a little, at least enough to understand the basics of why bulldozer failed, the major things AMD is changing with Zen, (part of) what make the C2D so great, and a little of the changes going on under the hood whenever a new architecture is released. However, I know next to nothing compared to what's out there, so I'm curious how I could learn more. I've been reading Anandtech for a while now and I've gleaned a little info here and there from it but only a little. I'm wondering if any of you know of a book or good tutorial online about CPU and GPU architectures that I could read up on. And before you ask, no, I can just go to college and become a computer engineering or electrical engineering major, I'm still 13 and 5 years from that.

 

Thanks for the help!  

[Drak3]

Intel, ARM, NVidia, Samsung, and AMD development journals, patent filings, marketing material, and documentation.

 

Just don't trust a damn thing PatrickJP says.

[Clanscorpia]

Im in the exact same boat as you. Same age as well  Also the same program  Im currently doing a crap ton of advanced mathematics as we will need it when we get more advanced. Ive also been reading The art of Electronics online. Its a 300 dollar textbook so I'd recommend just reading a PDF of it  Ive also been messing around with circuits.io for stuff like ICs

[DocSwag]

6 minutes ago, Drak3 said:

Intel, ARM, NVidia, Samsung, and AMD development journals, patent filings, marketing material, and documentation.

Interesting, I never thought of that.

 

Only thing is, those often assume you already know all the basics, which I don't. I'm sure I'd learn something from it, but do you know if there are any basic tutorials on this stuff?

7 minutes ago, Drak3 said:

Just don't trust a damn thing PatrickJP says.

So I should trust what he says?  

[Clanscorpia]

Just now, DocSwag said:

Interesting, I never thought of that.

 

Only thing is, those often assume you already know all the basics, which I don't. I'm sure I'd learn something from it, but do you know if there are any basic tutorials on this stuff?

So I should trust what he says?  

No dont trust Patrick. Thought a ZEN CPU was a Xeon E7  And yeah datasheets are good. You might have to google a few things though. Also arduinos are awesome and after we get more advanced with that I hear learning VHDL and using FPGAs is very good as it can teach you circuit design

[Himommies]

Wikipedia

[Clanscorpia]

1 minute ago, Himommies said:

Wikipedia

That skips over a lot of crucial info he wants to learn

[Himommies]

Just now, Clanscorpia said:

That skips over a lot of crucial info he wants to learn

It's a good place to start

[Drak3]

5 minutes ago, Clanscorpia said:

Thought a ZEN CPU was a Xeon E7

He thought what would be a Zen CPU was a Xeon E5 or E7.

But we don't know for sure if it was a Zen CPU. It could have easily been an engineering sample for the FX lineup, or Intel might use PGA for their early samples.

[Himommies]

Just now, Drak3 said:

He thought what would be a Zen CPU was a Xeon E5 or E7.

But we don't know for sure if it was a Zen CPU. It could have easily been an engineering sample for the FX lineup, or Intel might use PGA for their early samples.

Who is Patrick 

[Drak3]

Just now, Himommies said:

Who is Patrick 

A "Professional learner" and "developer" that talks out of his ass and is basically an anti-AMD shill.

[Himommies]

Just now, Drak3 said:

A "Professional learner" and "developer" that talks out of his ass and is basically an anti-AMD shill.

Uhm is he like a youtuber or something.He sounds like Keemstar

[Drak3]

Just now, Himommies said:

Uhm is he like a youtuber or something.He sounds like Keemstar

Doubtful.

[Himommies]

1 minute ago, Drak3 said:

Doubtful.

Seriously can you give me a link or something

[DocSwag]

2 minutes ago, Clanscorpia said:

Im in the exact same boat as you. Same age as well  Also the same program  Im currently doing a crap ton of advanced mathematics as we will need it when we get more advanced. Ive also been reading The art of Electronics online. Its a 300 dollar textbook so I'd recommend just reading a PDF of it  Ive also been messing around with circuits.io for stuff like ICs

Hmmm... I'll look into that book then.

 

I personally don't have any worries for math. It's my strongest subject at school by far so ya .

 

I wish there was someone like you at my school... I mean it's cool; we have a bunch of pcmasterrace people but they're all just gamers (mostly cs:go players) that use pcs whereas I'm a PC guy that plays games. There is this one total genius kid who's dad's an even more genius. He took pre-calc in sixth grade . He's into science and engineering but not computers specifically which sucks for me.

4 minutes ago, Himommies said:

Who is Patrick 

The resident Intel fanboy of the LTT forums who mindlessly bashes on AMD. He's always going around saying bad things about AMD (recently on a thread about a leak about a zen CPU he said it's a sandy bridge Xeon but first named a Xeon that doesn't even exist and even then it wad obviously not a Xeon). He also never gives sources. He just says, "That's wrong. This is what it is." And when you ask for a source he either doesn't respond or says something like, "Just search it up, it's everywhere." Or something.

[Himommies]

Just now, DocSwag said:

Hmmm... I'll look into that book then.

 

I personally don't have any worries for math. It's my strongest subject at school by far so ya .

 

I wish there was someone like you at my school... I mean it's cool; we have a bunch of pcmasterrace people but they're all just gamers (mostly cs:go players) that use pcs whereas I'm a PC guy that plays games. There is this one total genius kid who's dad's an even more genius. He took pre-calc in sixth grade . He's into science and engineering but not computers specifically which sucks for me.

The resident Intel fanboy of the LTT forums who mindlessly bashes on AMD. He's always going around saying bad things about AMD (recently on a thread about a leak about a zen CPU he said it's a sandy bridge Xeon but first named a Xeon that doesn't even exist and even then it wad obviously not a Xeon). He also never gives sources. He just says, "That's wrong. This is what it is." And when you ask for a source he either doesn't respond or says something like, "Just search it up, it's everywhere." Or something.

Ah thanks

[DocSwag]

1 minute ago, Himommies said:

Ah thanks

If you want it here's the link to his profile:

https://linustechtips.com/main/profile/85535-patrickjp93/

[SLAYR]

33 minutes ago, Himommies said:

Wikipedia

Suprising this would be the best place to get information, just start reading, and when it pops up something you don't know it has links the go to other articles.

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microarchitecture

 

Besides that, rent books from a local library on computer engineering/computer science, you may not understand what they are talking about if you don't already have a very good background with calculus, basic physics, and circuitry knowledge.

 

If you have 0 knowledge about circuits and things like resistance, current, voltage start there,

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrical_network

 

and learn these and get basic circtuitry knowledge before anything else.

If you plan on going into electrical / computer engineering also know a lot of math, start learning calculus, differential equations, and such.

[Clanscorpia]

28 minutes ago, DocSwag said:

Hmmm... I'll look into that book then.

 

I personally don't have any worries for math. It's my strongest subject at school by far so ya .

 

I wish there was someone like you at my school... I mean it's cool; we have a bunch of pcmasterrace people but they're all just gamers (mostly cs:go players) that use pcs whereas I'm a PC guy that plays games. There is this one total genius kid who's dad's an even more genius. He took pre-calc in sixth grade . He's into science and engineering but not computers specifically which sucks for me.

The resident Intel fanboy of the LTT forums who mindlessly bashes on AMD. He's always going around saying bad things about AMD (recently on a thread about a leak about a zen CPU he said it's a sandy bridge Xeon but first named a Xeon that doesn't even exist and even then it wad obviously not a Xeon). He also never gives sources. He just says, "That's wrong. This is what it is." And when you ask for a source he either doesn't respond or says something like, "Just search it up, it's everywhere." Or something.

I took pre-calc in grade 6  Not all of it, had to take a break from it... Stupid canadian school system

[DocSwag]

49 minutes ago, Clanscorpia said:

I took pre-calc in grade 6  Not all of it, had to take a break from it... Stupid canadian school system

Dang dude  

 

Quite honestly I wws probably mentally capable of taking precalc in 6th, but my elementary school wouldn't accelerate me at all. I actually had a lot of problems with my math teacher in elementary because she sort of saw me being smarter than the rest of the kids as a target to her and she graded me pretty harshly (I still got A's though ).

 

My current school is much better about accelerating kids but because of my elementary school I'm still learning alg 2 this year (note that my school learns alg 2 before gen for whatever reason). The math department loves me because I do good on all the competitions and stuff and they see me as ahead of the genius kid but I disagree; he's just careless but he is definitely smarter than me.

 

I do do a math program outside of school that teaches me random math concepts but it's random hence why I can't accelerate even though I knew half of alg 1 last year and probably know 3/4 of the material this year. I'll probably know 1/2 of the stuff next year too .

[DocSwag]

13 hours ago, Clanscorpia said:

Ive also been reading The art of Electronics online. 

Holy crap... I just checked and it's over 1200 pages...

 

Welp, there goes all my free time I "waste" on Reddit, YouTube, and LTT for the next few months . At least now I'll have a good excuse when my mom tells me to start working . Also it'll be cool when people ar like, "What's the longest book you've ever read?" and I'll be like, "The Art of Electronics. It's over 1200 pages."

 

Also, I searched around and found a book called Computer Architecture, Fifth Edition: A Quantative Approach. It's fairly modern (2012) and from what I've gleaned it seems to assume you know the basics and goes pretty deep. It's also over 800 pages but it seems it's also a good book to read. It costs at least around $70 so a pdf is probably your best bet. I think I'll read the Art of Electronics and once I finish that I'll go onto that book. The Art of Electronics seems like more of a general concepts books that covers all areas of electronics whereas that book is focused on CPUs and stuff.

 

EDIT: Just outta curiousity, but did you learn all the math you've learned online or from school?

 

EDIT 2: Hmmm... The book says you should have an acquaintance with trig and exponentional functions (which I think I should be fine with) but it also mentions it'd be nice to know some calculus... How far have you gotten through the book and do you know how much calc you'd need? If I really wanted to I could probably go online and learn calc but I really don't want to  

[xGGAx]

You can start by reading this book. Thats the book we use in my computer architecture class. You do not need any advanced math other than converting numbers between binary, hex and decimal.

[DocSwag]

36 minutes ago, xGGAx said:

You can start by reading this book. Thats the book we use in my computer architecture class. You do not need any advanced math other than converting numbers between binary, hex and decimal.

Lel looks like I'll be busy for the next few months .

 

I assume then you're taking EE, CE, or something else similar in college right now?

[Clanscorpia]

2 hours ago, DocSwag said:

Holy crap... I just checked and it's over 1200 pages...

 

Welp, there goes all my free time I "waste" on Reddit, YouTube, and LTT for the next few months . At least now I'll have a good excuse when my mom tells me to start working . Also it'll be cool when people ar like, "What's the longest book you've ever read?" and I'll be like, "The Art of Electronics. It's over 1200 pages."

 

Also, I searched around and found a book called Computer Architecture, Fifth Edition: A Quantative Approach. It's fairly modern (2012) and from what I've gleaned it seems to assume you know the basics and goes pretty deep. It's also over 800 pages but it seems it's also a good book to read. It costs at least around $70 so a pdf is probably your best bet. I think I'll read the Art of Electronics and once I finish that I'll go onto that book. The Art of Electronics seems like more of a general concepts books that covers all areas of electronics whereas that book is focused on CPUs and stuff.

 

EDIT: Just outta curiousity, but did you learn all the math you've learned online or from school?

 

EDIT 2: Hmmm... The book says you should have an acquaintance with trig and exponentional functions (which I think I should be fine with) but it also mentions it'd be nice to know some calculus... How far have you gotten through the book and do you know how much calc you'd need? If I really wanted to I could probably go online and learn calc but I really don't want to  

Thanks for that book! We'll have to exchange info over time. Finally someone whos interested in it like me  I havent gotten very far into calculus. Like, done a few equations. Im mostly doing grade 10 algebra, functions, and trigonometry. Ive been learning out of my moms old uni textbook which doesnt give much into those 3 things as they are expected to know them so Ive been learning at khanacademy.org I asked for 4 years to learn this stuff to no avail so I had to take it into my own hands. And I think you really need calculus when you get really advanced. And remember the Art of Electronics is also a reference book, not all of it is teaching

[Clanscorpia]

1 hour ago, xGGAx said:

You can start by reading this book. Thats the book we use in my computer architecture class. You do not need any advanced math other than converting numbers between binary, hex and decimal.

Also thank you for this