Computer Architecture, Fifth Edition: A Quantitative Approach (The Morgan Kaufmann Series in Computer Architecture and Design) [Paperback]

John L. Hennessy (Author), David A. Patterson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 30, 2011 | ISBN-10: 012383872X | ISBN-13: 978-0123838728 | Edition: 5

The computing world today is in the middle of a revolution: mobile clients and cloud computing have emerged as the dominant paradigms driving programming and hardware innovation today. The Fifth Edition of Computer Architecture focuses on this dramatic shift, exploring the ways in which software and technology in the cloud are accessed by cell phones, tablets, laptops, and other mobile computing devices. Each chapter includes two real-world examples, one mobile and one datacenter, to illustrate this revolutionary change.

• Updated to cover the mobile computing revolution
• Emphasizes the two most important topics in architecture today: memory hierarchy and parallelism in all its forms.
• Develops common themes throughout each chapter: power, performance, cost, dependability, protection, programming models, and emerging trends ("What's Next")
• Includes three review appendices in the printed text. Additional reference appendices are available online.
• Includes updated Case Studies and completely new exercises.

--This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The computing world today is in the middle of a revolution: mobile clients and cloud computing have emerged as the dominant paradigms driving programming and hardware innovation today. The fifth edition of Computer Architecture focuses on this dramatic shift, exploring the ways in which software and technology in the cloud are accessed by cell phones, tablets, laptops, and other mobile computing devices. Each chapter includes two real-world examples, one mobile and one data center, to illustrate this revolutionary change.

• Updated to cover the mobile computing revolution.
• Emphasizes the two most important topics in architecture today: memory hierarchy and parallelism in all its forms.
• Develops common themes throughout each chapter: power, performance, cost, dependability, protection, programming models, and emerging trends ("What's Next").
• Includes three review appendices in the printed text. Additional reference appendices are available online.
• Includes updated case studies and completely new exercises.

---

New this Edition

• Each chapter includes two new, real-world examples, one mobile and one data center, to illustrate the revolutionary change to personal mobile devices and cloud computing.
• Expanded and improved coverage of multicore and GPU architectures.
• Completely new chapters on warehouse-scale (cloud) computers (Chapter 6) and vector processors and GPUs (Chapter 4).
• New "Putting it All Together" sections exploring real-world applications, including the pipeline organizations and memory hierarchies of the ARM Cortex A8 processor; the Intel core i7 processor; the NVIDIA GTX-280 and GTX-480 GPUs; and warehouse-scale computing at Google.
• Improvements and updates throughout, including updated performance analysis data featuring the new SPECPower benchmark.

---

Review

"What has made this book an enduring classic is that each edition is not an update, but an extensive revision that presents the most current information and unparalleled insight into this fascinating and fast changing field. For me, after over twenty years in this profession, it is also another opportunity to experience that student-grade admiration for two remarkable teachers." - From the Foreword by Luiz André Barroso, Google, Inc.

"This is an academic textbook that is also suitable for a far broader readership. Each chapter is organised in the same structure, with the main content supported by case studies and exercises. Having read this book I now have a far better understanding of why processors from all the different designers and manufacturers are so different. Memory hierarchies, multicore architectures and compiler optimisation are all covered in great detail. I was particularly interested in their discussion of graphical processing units and how they are suitable for far more than just graphical workloads. What is great about this book is that it moves with the times. There is a lot of content on processors for mobile computing, and power usage is a pervasive theme. At the other extreme there is an excellent chapter on warehouse scale computers, which offers tremendous insight into the cloud computing infrastructure provided by Google, Amazon and others. If your job has anything to do with IT infrastructure then I recommend this book as a must-read. As an academic text book it has both depth and breadth. And if you're just interested in the topic you'll gain a huge amount of insight into the fundamentals of computer architecture."--The Chartered Institute for IT

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 856 pages
• Publisher: Morgan Kaufmann; 5 edition (September 30, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 012383872X
• ISBN-13: 978-0123838728
• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 1.8 x 9.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (57 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #32,082 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #13 in Books > Computers & Technology > Hardware > Design & Architecture

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

48 of 56 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars Disappointed October 20, 2011

By Read and think

Format:Paperback

It appears that this book was rushed out by the publisher, *unfinished*.

Core subjects that would normally be chapters in other books, such as "Computer Arithmetic", "Storage Systems", "Large-scale multiprocessors", "Survey of Instructions Set", etc (nine chapters in total ), have been relegated to an "Online Appendices" status, which is a misnomer because as of 2011/10/20 they don't exist at all, even online (a terse "coming soon" appearing on the website).

My suggestions: don't buy the book now, wait until the missing chapters are published and appears in print in the book itself.

If you buy the book now, you will only be able to read a lot of chapters as ".pdf" when they get published, not a pleasant experience in my opinion, and you will also contribute to encourage publishers in this bad practice.

To give you an idea of how bad it is, the number of non-printed chapters (9) is the same as the number of printed chapters (6 + 3 "appendices") and if we can trust the authors themselves: "There are more pages in these appendices (the non-printed ones) than there is in this book" (preface p xvi) !

[Update: 2011/11/01: the appendices are now present on the books web site in pdf. But still no printed paper version of the appendices available or announced]

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars Kindle version ... not happy September 30, 2012

By Claudi van NL

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

I have no complaints about the content, but the Kindle version of this book is horrible. The layout sucks, Figures are cut in the middle of the page, the formulas are hardly readable unless you zoom in and generally everything looks very cheap. I cannot believe that I paid $60 for that. How hard can it be to generate a good looking PDF-like file?

18 of 23 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars An excellent improvement on a Computer Science classic October 2, 2011

By Jonathan C. Masters

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

I was sitting in Austin airport last week with a friend who casually mentioned that he was quoted in the latest edition of Computer Architecture. It seemed like only yesterday I was reading the 4th edition, but I was pleasantly surprised by the new release and had a copy rushed over next day. I was not disappointed. Having spent most of the weekend reading the latest edition, I've been extremely impressed thus far. This edition lives up to its heritage, and goes beyond, embracing the industry trends toward "Cloud Computing" (Warehouse Scale Computers - chapter 6 includes an awesome analysis of the Google cluster/array designs and their efficiencies), Task Level Parallelism, and so on. It also goes beyond the 4th edition cleanup, featuring substantially new material in a much more complete overall volume. A sheer joy to read.