RISC, why did it never make it to larger Computing systems?

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CT_Biker

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As per thread title, I would like to know why RISC type processors never crossed over to larger computing systems, like servers, laptops and desktop pc's

During my journey to becoming a software developer, I became curious and started researching CISC vs RISC and compiler design and how programming languages are actually compiled, interpreted and designed.

I then stumbled upon RISC and CISC, noticing that RISC type architectures are used in microcontrollers, Tablets, cellphones etc.
 
CT_Biker said:
As per thread title, I would like to know why RISC type processors never crossed over to larger computing systems, like servers, laptops and desktop pc's

During my journey to becoming a software developer, I became curious and started researching CISC vs RISC and compiler design and how programming languages are actually compiled, interpreted and designed.

I then stumbled upon RISC and CISC, noticing that RISC type architectures are used in microcontrollers, Tablets, cellphones etc.
Click to expand...
LOL laptops etc being larger...

" RISC processors are also used in supercomputers such as Summit, which, as of November 2018, is the world's fastest supercomputer as ranked by the TOP500 project " - Wikipedia
 
Sinbad said:
LOL laptops etc being larger...

" RISC processors are also used in supercomputers such as Summit, which, as of November 2018, is the world's fastest supercomputer as ranked by the TOP500 project " - Wikipedia
Click to expand...

I did notice that a few supercomputers have been built on RISC, CISC doesn't really seem to be efficient when compared to RISC.

Horses for courses I take it?
 
Isn't it inherit in the name though from what I recall? Reduced Instruction Set Computing? Its home would be your less intensive or highly parallel environments.
 
Kosmik said:
Isn't it inherit in the name though from what I recall? Reduced Instruction Set Computing? Its home would be your less intensive or highly parallel environments.
Click to expand...

RISC architectures are used for many things other than Microcontrollers. ARM processors in Raspberry Pi's use s similar architecture to RISC, the Cortex ARM microarchitecture has a load of built in management functions to manage energy consumption and heat etc etc
 
CT_Biker said:
As per thread title, I would like to know why RISC type processors never crossed over to larger computing systems, like servers, laptops and desktop pc's
Click to expand...

They did, sort of. The x86 intel and amd cpus moved to risc like cores a long time ago, intel since P6 not sure about amd.
cisc instructions are broken up into smaller parts uops which are executed by the risc cores.
x86 sells and has a huge legacy, can't just move away from that.
 
But they did...

Every satellite floating around in orbit (well most of them, maybe not all of them) had an IBM PowerPC RISC processor built in.

All Apple Macs were RISC processors before they switches to Intel...mostly because the power saving benefits outweighed the processing benefits.

Apple might very well go back to that world of thinking if ARM comes to the party.
 
SauRoNZA said:
But they did...

Every satellite floating around in orbit (well most of them, maybe not all of them) had an IBM PowerPC RISC processor built in.

All Apple Macs were RISC processors before they switches to Intel...mostly because the power saving benefits outweighed the processing benefits.
Click to expand...

I thought the power saving benefits would have been outweighed by the Performance benefits.

Well, then it is a case of Horses for courses then.
 
Barbarian Conan said:
Apple used the RISC based PowerPC CPU's till around 2006, did they not?
They then threw in the towel as they could not compete with the Intel chips.
Click to expand...

It's all a little relative.

I do believe PowerPC at the time could out perform Intel happily, but they just used a **** load of power which affected the mobile side of things quite heavily as Apple is all about battery life.

With their modern day success with ARM chips designed by themselves we may very well go back there.
 
remember at my school, we all had RISC based PC's in our computer LAB,

was a bit of an adjustment for me, as I had my own PC with win 98 on it,
kept thinking what a quircky and weird OS to use,

until in that great SA tradition, all the equipment got stolen.
 
ponder said:
They did, sort of. The x86 intel and amd cpus moved to risc like cores a long time ago, intel since P6 not sure about amd.
cisc instructions are broken up into smaller parts uops which are executed by the risc cores.
x86 sells and has a huge legacy, can't just move away from that.
Click to expand...

I did try to have a look for some kind of test bench where I could run a small program on a RISC Cortex A53(I think) against an Older Core 2 Duo that I had laying around.

The Core 2 unit was faster, but it needed way less processor ticks than the Cortex unit. Also I realized that each processor counter works differently and the results from this are useless. The only result worth noting was the total amount of time needed to run the program.
 
ghoti said:
Im really excited about this development. Im trying to find a safer chip to use.
Click to expand...

I am actually really keen on this too, as I really like low level programming.

A RISC V board and a 68k is on my to buy list for this year.
 
CT_Biker said:
I am actually really keen on this too, as I really like low level programming.

A RISC V board and a 68k is on my to buy list for this year.
Click to expand...
I had a m68k board... sold it on Carbonite 18 months ago. Had I known...
On the subject of RISC.. ARM is generally broadly considered RISC anyway.
But yeah, I chose ARM as my go-to platform for all things embedded, a long time ago. And look at me today, contributing to u-boot development, Armbian, and bare metal programming on Cortex and having followers on Github.. I cannot believe the x86 architecture had to be stuck with for so long.. our desktop machines would be a gazillion times more efficient even with power, had WINTEL not been a thing..
 
ArtyLoop said:
I had a m68k board... sold it on Carbonite 18 months ago. Had I known...
On the subject of RISC.. ARM is generally broadly considered RISC anyway.
But yeah, I chose ARM as my go-to platform for all things embedded, a long time ago. And look at me today, contributing to u-boot development, Armbian, and bare metal programming on Cortex and having followers on Github.. I cannot believe the x86 architecture had to be stuck with for so long.. our desktop machines would be a gazillion times more efficient even with power, had WINTEL not been a thing..
Click to expand...

This is why I specifically asked this. I have a pretty old book, Its DOD MIL-STD book(The big red one from the 80s), and it appears that that for all internal DOD systems they used RISC for just about everything, SUN was listed as a provider and IBM of course.
 
ArtyLoop said:
I had a m68k board... sold it on Carbonite 18 months ago. Had I known...
On the subject of RISC.. ARM is generally broadly considered RISC anyway.
But yeah, I chose ARM as my go-to platform for all things embedded, a long time ago. And look at me today, contributing to u-boot development, Armbian, and bare metal programming on Cortex and having followers on Github.. I cannot believe the x86 architecture had to be stuck with for so long.. our desktop machines would be a gazillion times more efficient even with power, had WINTEL not been a thing..
Click to expand...

When you dev for Embedded platforms, what do you actually develop? Links to Git maybe? Or Drop me a PM? I'll be keen to have a look and read some of your code.
 
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