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Computer Architecture: A Quantitative Approach
by
Brand New Softcover Edition.
Paperback, 852 pages
Published
January 1st 2012
by Elsevier India
(first published April 1990)
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Start your review of Computer Architecture: A Quantitative Approach

I think it's a good read. I found it practical and easy to understand, even though I'm not a big fan of comupter books, I'm more into docmuentation and technical manuals.
...more

An outstanding follow-up to Computer Organization and Design, Computer Architecture: A Quantitative Approach is exactly what it says on the tin: A Quantitative Approach to Computer Architecture. Shocking, I know.
I found Chapter One to be fairly uninteresting, the description of memory models in Chapter 2 and advanced pipelining concepts in Chapter 3 (particularly the discussion of Tomasulo's Algorithm) enlightening, but Chapter 4 is where the book really heats up. It starts light with vector and ...more
I found Chapter One to be fairly uninteresting, the description of memory models in Chapter 2 and advanced pipelining concepts in Chapter 3 (particularly the discussion of Tomasulo's Algorithm) enlightening, but Chapter 4 is where the book really heats up. It starts light with vector and ...more

Now that Moore's law is at an end, how do we make computers faster? 1: The Memory Hierarchy (caches). This works pretty well, but caches can only be so large before they get slow. 2: Instruction-Level Parallelism (instruction pipelines). This is horribly complicated, doesn't work particularly well, and is subject to side channel attacks. But it doesn't require any work on the part of developers. 3: Data-Level Parallelism (GPUs). This works great for specialized applications. 4: Thread-Level Para
...more

A bit wordy, like any good american book, but what really gets me about the book is the quote on the back, which will stay with me forever.
"Do you ever have the feeling that computer architectures come and go, but CA:AQA is forever?" =) ...more
"Do you ever have the feeling that computer architectures come and go, but CA:AQA is forever?" =) ...more

Definitely quantitative in its approach, which was sometimes too much for me, but definitely as advertised so I won't slight it for that. It's written in that humble sort of way with respect for the topics, and that's something I always appreciate.
I found it was the most boring book ever, but occasionally I'd learn something so good that I couldn't stop reading it. ...more
I found it was the most boring book ever, but occasionally I'd learn something so good that I couldn't stop reading it. ...more

I think I'm probably now in the wrong position to be reading this book, as I've already had the undergrad courses on it. This is a clear and detailed look at the whole spectrum of computer architecture. It even includes a chapter on disk storage, although event I find it very difficult to get excited about RAID and disk drives!
This is a classic textbook on the subject. There's not much more to say. ...more
This is a classic textbook on the subject. There's not much more to say. ...more

Apr 19, 2014
Vasil Kolev
rated it
really liked it
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
good-tech-books,
tech
Definitely not easy to read.
This is a comprehensive textbook on ISA/architecture design, with very recent examples (i7, cortex-a8), and explains the problems you can see with the current hardware and how some of those get solved. There's a good chapter on GPUs, and not-that-good chapter on "warehouse-sized-computers" (e.g. a google datacenter).
It's good to do at least a cursory read, just to have an idea what happens below the compiler/compiled code/assembly. ...more
This is a comprehensive textbook on ISA/architecture design, with very recent examples (i7, cortex-a8), and explains the problems you can see with the current hardware and how some of those get solved. There's a good chapter on GPUs, and not-that-good chapter on "warehouse-sized-computers" (e.g. a google datacenter).
It's good to do at least a cursory read, just to have an idea what happens below the compiler/compiled code/assembly. ...more

May 11, 2015
Nathaniel Mathews
rated it
really liked it
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
academic
Hennessy and Patterson have a lot of great numbers and facts in the book, which help ground the theory of computer architecture in reality. There's an excellent mix of content-driven chapters and helpful appendices. The only thing holding this book back from a perfect review is the heavy and obvious bias towards their own MIPS architecture, when in the modern world greater attention to x86 would probably have been more helpful.
...more

Jan 27, 2014
Christian Kotz
rated it
it was amazing
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
computer-science
oldy but goldy

Jul 13, 2009
Nynke Fokma
rated it
really liked it
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
architecture-and-design
Mine also mentions David A. Patterson as author.

Patterson teaches a graduate course at Berkeley based on this book, and the lectures are available online
...more

Jun 27, 2012
Robert Grossman
rated it
really liked it
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
structure-of-digital-computing
Challenging, but worth it.

Dec 24, 2007
Musfiq
is currently reading it
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
everyone interested
very interesting book. introductory materials but very helpful
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