Try to investigate the differences between the x86 and ARM processor families (or x86 and the Apple M1), and you'll see the acronyms CISC and RISC. It's a common way to frame the discussion, but not a ...

Prompted by the chipmaker's announcement of the SSE5 instruction-set extensions, Glaskowsky analyzes the ultimate outcome to this old controversy. Peter N. Glaskowsky is a computer architect in ...

RISC vs. CISC wars raged in the 1980s when chip area and processor design complexity were the primary constraints and desktops and servers exclusively dominated the computing landscape. Today, energy ...

Ten years ago, I waded into the then-raging “Mac vs. PC” wars with a lengthy treatise on “RISC vs. CISC: the Post-RISC Era.” In the conclusion to that article, I declared the “RISC vs. CISC” debate ...

I was just wanting to know if anyone can tell me if the new athlon mp and xp's are risc chips or if they went to cisc. I know the older AMD chips were all RISC, but not sure of the newer ones. When ...

In my first blog, we examined gave the historical context of the instruction set battles of ARM and x86, covering the RISC-CISC Wars in the PrePC Era and the PC Era. This blog covers Round 3, the ...

The Mac's best quality: software A Pioneer Press piece opines that the best part of the Macintosh platform is elegant, well-designed software. "So what does Macintosh have going for it? The most ...

A new instruction set by the original creator of MIPS aims to reinvent the ultra-low power, high-efficiency processor -- and to do so with an architecture that's fundamentally open and available to ...