Computer Architecture Final Exam
Question and answers verified to pass
What are the five main architectural components of a computer? - correct
answer ✔Input, Output, Memory, Datapath, Control
Why did processor clock speeds, which had increased for decades, finally
stop increasing in the last decade? - correct answer ✔The power wall: as
frequency increases, so does power consumption, and eventually power
consumption became too high to allow feasible cooling or battery life.
Where are increasing transistor counts being used now?
What about in the past? - correct answer ✔More processor cores.
Deeper pipelines.
What is a meaningless metric? - correct answer ✔A metric that doesn't
convey any true performance and may vary entirely independently from
performance.
x86 ISA has shown incredible resisiency due to backwards compatibility. Why
is backwards compatibility so important?
Given this, why is ARM popular? - correct answer ✔Software (binaries)
generally lives much longer than hardware and there's more money invested
in software than hardware.
ARM is a new platform and has no old binaries that need continued support.
, Many x86 instructions require the destination register to also be one of the
source registers... Why? - correct answer ✔This eliminates one of the
register specifiers from the instruction op code, i.e., requires fewer bits.
What is the RISC ISA and what are the advantages?
Which ISA is this? - correct answer ✔Make the most simple instructions
possible at high speed
Fewer instruction formats and addressing modes leads to simpler hardware
MIPS
What is the CISC ISA and what are the advantages?
Which ISA is this? - correct answer ✔Complete the task in as few lines of
code as possible
Higher code density
Operations work directly on memory
Larger immediate fields
x86
What is the ideal speed of of a N stage pipeline?
Question and answers verified to pass
What are the five main architectural components of a computer? - correct
answer ✔Input, Output, Memory, Datapath, Control
Why did processor clock speeds, which had increased for decades, finally
stop increasing in the last decade? - correct answer ✔The power wall: as
frequency increases, so does power consumption, and eventually power
consumption became too high to allow feasible cooling or battery life.
Where are increasing transistor counts being used now?
What about in the past? - correct answer ✔More processor cores.
Deeper pipelines.
What is a meaningless metric? - correct answer ✔A metric that doesn't
convey any true performance and may vary entirely independently from
performance.
x86 ISA has shown incredible resisiency due to backwards compatibility. Why
is backwards compatibility so important?
Given this, why is ARM popular? - correct answer ✔Software (binaries)
generally lives much longer than hardware and there's more money invested
in software than hardware.
ARM is a new platform and has no old binaries that need continued support.
, Many x86 instructions require the destination register to also be one of the
source registers... Why? - correct answer ✔This eliminates one of the
register specifiers from the instruction op code, i.e., requires fewer bits.
What is the RISC ISA and what are the advantages?
Which ISA is this? - correct answer ✔Make the most simple instructions
possible at high speed
Fewer instruction formats and addressing modes leads to simpler hardware
MIPS
What is the CISC ISA and what are the advantages?
Which ISA is this? - correct answer ✔Complete the task in as few lines of
code as possible
Higher code density
Operations work directly on memory
Larger immediate fields
x86
What is the ideal speed of of a N stage pipeline?
