Nvidia announces Project Denver ARM CPU for the desktop

That's not a universal binary. It's a bytecode package. It still needs to be run through an interpreter or a JIT compiler, just like a JAR file for Java.

A universal binary contains actual machine code for multiple architectures. Universal binary support requires deeper changes to the OS and can complicate testing, but it's basically a requirement for making cross-platform high performance code because a JIT compiler can't spend as much time optimizing code as an ahead-of-time compiler.

Machine-independent bytecode paired with a high-quality VM allows you to ship a cross-platform executable, but it's not going to be enough when ARM PCs are facing an uphill battle to prove their performance is acceptable to a market that isn't particularly satisfied with Intel's Atom.

A universal binary format would be something like what Apple uses now to support both PowerPC and x86 versions of an application within the same file.

Actually MIPS was the original architecture target for NT (the DEC Alpha didn't exist yet when they started).

As far as I recall, at least part of that was down to hardware acceleration.

They were still awesome machines, though. Fantastic for learning assembler on.

Ah, OK... I thought he was comparing more "CPU-like" to "GPU-like" designs, rather than CISC to RISC.

Do you have any insights into why then x86 chips consume so much power than the ARM equivalents?

Btw, I tend to agree with you,and think Intel's engineers are just being lazy wrt power. I expect this Nvidia chip to get crushed technically when Intel's engineers gear up and really work on power (like they did when Transmeta's Crusoe came out).

+1 for "compilers can produce efficient code for any reasonable (i.e. non-Itanium) architecture".. laughed out loud, until i tried to explain why i was laughing to my wife. She thinks i'm a geek.

I don't think that's accurate.

The instruction decoders on x86 processors consume a lot of silicon. x86's instruction retirement also imposes additional overhead due to book-keeping on the scheduler. Eliminating the x87 stack-based FPU is been a gradual process involving an evolving SIMD instruction set that started as a hack.

In reality, resources trumps ISA. x86 has the advantage of hand-optimized logic combined with the best high-performance VLSI manufacturing in the industry.

In spite of that, Itanium blows the doors off of every x86 processor built on the same fabrication technology -- notice that so far, the Itanium and x86 contemporaries are built on fab processes that have been two generations apart, with the high-volume part using the newest process.

We'll see. Not everyone lives in a rich country.

Desktop performance, most of the time, isn't CPU-bound. HDD speed is the usual suspect.

These NVidia chips will most likely ship with custom circuitry to accelerate the few CPU hungry operations performed at the desktop (video codecs and 3D gfx). Keep in mind that at that point, at least 8 cores per chip will probably be the norm. Single core performance will not be that important.

Edit: of course, add CUDA to the mix regarding computationally heavy tasks without dedicated acceleration.

Sure. On the one hand the mid-to-high end desktop isn't the be-all and end-all of high-end chipmaker revenues anymore. And on the other hand a mid-to-high end Windows ARM desktop might be usable with some combination of native Windows and Office, an increasing supply of new ARM-native Windows binaries from ISVs (the Internet should help by making distribution much easier), Web apps running in ARM-native Web browsers, and butt-slow emulation for old but indispensable x86 binaries. It seems to me that the biggest issue could turn out to be PC games. Presumably nVidia either has to get the big games studios to issue ARM ports of their next and recent games, or it has to go on being successful at selling standalone GPUs for gamers' x86 PCs, or it has to give up on its gaming constituency for a time at least. I presume that since most PC games are now written to port to PowerPC and/or Cell, doing an ARM port isn't the adventure it might once have been?

I agree, but my point stands that most of the people getting bad grades probably deserve them despite the few who deserve better. Companies who want to make the best use of their limited hiring resources would be served by avoiding people with low GPAs.

Even with a 3.2, you probably beat most kids at an engineering school. Although I've heard of engineering schools where half the class has a 3.5, but at my school our top guy had a 3.8, nobody had a 3.9 or 4.0 no matter how hard they tried. I was in the top 20% with a 3.3

If I were you, when applying for jobs, I would state you worked full time while in school. I'd definitely take a second look at a mid-GPA candidate who had an awesome work ethic like that.

Also, not everyone has the luxury to go to college at all.

Just wanted to chime in and say I am having the same experience.

We're not really talking about hackers here though. To me a hacker is ripping through code getting it done. But that works better in the software world where it is relatively easy to make a mistake.

I don't work at Nvidia, but working in the hardware field things go a bit slower. You need people who pay attention to detail and follow the process to a T to avoid costly mistakes and rework. Thats why "people who could put up with the bullshit that it took to get into the top 15%" and "people who are intelligent enough to design chips at a high level and disciplined to follow the process to avoid blowing hundreds of thousands of a dollars per mistake" have more cross over than high GPA and good ruby on rails hacker. It is just a different mindset and a different set of economics to be building slow iterating hardware vs quick iterating software.

So you don't have a problem correlating high marks with "lack of team work, communication skills, tactlessness, gigantic egotism, etc etc" yet you have a problem with NVidia correlating high marks with good devs?

The brightest kids I knew got 80% without trying. If you're bright enough to work at NVidia and can't get 80%, you're lazy. I'm sure they missed some talent but saved a ton of time not having to interview mediocre students.

Do you mean top 20%? Because the top 80% is well, almost everyone. Or the 80th percentile would be the top 20%.

I'm not nitpicking, I just took the 80% to mean 2.7 as well.

He didn't say top 80%, he just said 80%, which I took to mean an average score of 80%.

Also, "this class isn't interesting so I'm going to badly in it and screw up my GPA" is a pretty immature and foolish attitude.

That's exactly what I did, and I work at NVIDIA. What a company says at career fairs is not necessarily applicable to everyone.

No offense, but I'm going to be blunt:

If you were putting yourself through college, paying as you go, then as long as you managed a low "B" I'll probably cut you a break. You'll get a fair shot.

If you decide to skip college and throw yourself into work, I'm not going to hold it against you. That being my background, I generally see it as a plus.

If you went to college on someone else's dime, your parent's or the bank's, and have such a weak work ethic you couldn't be bothered to apply yourself then odds are you aren't going to bring anything special to the table at the work-place.

I'm sure there are a lot of cases where it's not fair, but there's few things that annoy me more than an inflated sense of entitlement, and for good reason. In my experience it's a great indicator of a poor performing employee. Generally with drama, generally thinking a lot of themselves despite negligible contributions to the business.

neverthelss the instruction set and especially encoding of the newer instructions is a nightmare.

I wonder what ARM has to say about 64-bit computing, though

I guess there is tons on the die just to convert CISC to RISC. That about it.

ARM recommends using Thumb2 for non-legacy software. Thumb2 is denser than x86, so actually ARM is the one with the advantage here (unless you have an existing ARM codebase).