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 ...

A new study comparing the Intel X86, the ARM and MIPS CPUs finds that microarchitecture is more important than instruction set architecture, RISC or CISC. If you are one of the few hardware or ...

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 ...

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 ...

Back in 1998, when I first began covering hardware at the newly launched Ars Technica, much of my writing focused on issues raised by the raging Mac vs. PC flame wars that took place in computing ...

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 ...

Closed systems stagnate innovation—Linux users know this. Licenses, royalties, and fees keep the well-funded in control. RISC-V throws that out the window because it's free to adopt, adapt, and ...

FLAGSTAFF, Ariz — A recent study in the ACM Transactions on Computer Systems came to the conclusion that processor instruction set architectures, whether reduced (RISC) or complex (CISC), are ...

Chris has reported for various tech and consumer goods outlets over the past decade, including Android Police and MakeUseOf since early 2022. Previously, he has contributed to outlets such as ...