Customer Reviews

Computer Organization and Architecture: Designing for Performance (8th Edition)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(9)
1 star:		(16)

 

 

This is not a textbook for the beginner. This is probably not even a textbook for an intermediate. At best, this book is only useful as a reference for those people who are already very familiar with the material.

The text and the power point slides available on the website do contain useful information. However, the problems at the end of each chapter are totally indecipherable. They relate only vaguely to the material presented in the chapter. The questions are very specific about information not even hinted at in the text or in the slides.

There are several cases where large flowcharts and connection diagrams are presented with only a general explanation. The parts of the computer currently being examined are named and their general functions are briefly described. The problems then ask very specific questions about the inner workings of computer electronic components. There is absolutely no information given anywhere that in any way relates to solving these problems. The reader is asked to figure it all out on his or her own. There are exactly zero examples.

I would not recommend this book for an undergraduate student under any circumstances. It may be useful for a graduate student in computer engineering or a professional designing computer circuitry.

Otherwise, avoid this book at all costs.

This book is now in its 7th edition. The website notes that four editions, including this one, have been given the "Best Computer Science and Engineering Textbook of the Year" award by the Textbook and Academic Authors Association. The website mentions nothing about what the students thought of it.

I am sort of in between all the other reviwers on this one. The text seems okay for a intro. into the subject. There is enough information to teach a class and I assume it _is_ designed for someone with little to no previous knowledge in computer architecture. Although it sure does help when they hit assembly language instructions in chapter 3!

That's why it's so confusing when you hit the exercises in the back of each chapter. Where did these come from? Very little of it can be answered by reading the book, the teacher of my class was only able to answer the questions due to experience outside of the field. Most of the answers start with "it depends on . . ." and the answers really didn't come from anywhere in the book. Most of the questions are trick questions and this isn't a way to teach, but it is a way to confuse the reader. I guess I'm reviewing the book in the same way the book reads. Sorry. And sorry to anyone required to use this text!

First of all, this book is a very dry read; extremely boring. The concepts aren't very clear and the book as a whole is unorganized; the first chapters refer to things in later chapters and makes everything hard to comprehend. The questions in the back of the chapters are difficult to ansewr because the content of the chapters don't help in answering them. In addition, there is a countless amount of spelling errors and numerical errors in the book. And this is the 6th edition of the book!! I expected so much more from this!! It makes me angry that this book is so bad. The cover is nice though if you get the hardcover edition, but i suggest getting the cheaper international edition because there are no color diagrams in the entire book. What a waste of 100 dollars!!

This book only seems to cover very high level concepts. Then, the end of the chapters contain problems (that our professor loves to assign) that only vaguely relate to the material discussed in the chapter. Several problems involve numerical calculations using formulas that you simply have to magically form out of thin air. No examples of how to work these problems are given.

Also, the book's general explanation of concepts is absolutely horrible. They love to "explain" what they are talking about by providing a chart/figure/diagram labeled with numerous acronyms (that are rarely defined very well) that might as well be cave drawings because they describe these complex pictures so vaguely.

I despise this book, and because of it, I despise the related class.

Sincerely, I know some people look at these reviews and decide to ignore them. DO NOT IGNORE THE BAD RATINGS this book receives! Trust me, to get a hold on digital computer achitectures and organization, look up the authors Mano & Kime for beginning logic and computer organization, and ESPECIALLY Patterson & Hennessey for all levels of technical readers. These (Patterson & Hennessey) guys wrote two different comp. arch texts that are widely considered the industry standard! AND...they have appendices to help explain the tought stuff! Trust me, enter their names and find those books. They are 5 stars compared to this 1 star book.

This book was a requirement for class, and one that the whole class (including the instructor) found to be a waste of time. It is VERY unorganized, and the questions at the end of each chapter are misleading. I read chapter 10 at least 5 times, and still couldn't answer most of the questions. Luckily when I got to class I realized that no one else could either. Hopefully in the future the professor will look into another book that promotes learning.

I was surprised by some of the low ratings of this book. Overall, it is clearly written and the graphics are very helpful to understanding the material. Some coverage at the logic gate level would be useful in future editions - I ended up surfing the web for this information. All in all, this is a good text for a CompSci course. However, it would be difficult to recommend it for self-study unless the reader is already comfortable with technical material.

This book is beyond terrible. I have a B.S. in Computer Engineering, and looked at this book to help a friend out. I've never seen such a poor computer organization book. There are seriously no examples at all. End of chapter problems are impossible to do based on the information presented.

If you are in a Computer Organization course, beg and plead with your professor to choose a book that you will learn from such as the Hennessy and Patterson book:Computer Architecture, Fourth Edition: A Quantitative Approach.

This book tries to over-complicate most of its subject matter. Many of its topics are more easily understood by referencing other texts (or even internet references). The end of chapter questions rarely seem to reference material read in the chapter. Rarely can you review an illustration or table that is on the same page that is referencing it. I almost got the impression that the author was trying very hard to display his intelligence by not presenting the material in a manner that could be understood.

I just don't get what the point of textbooks like these is when you're expected to know everything to start with, or you're just supposed to magically understand everything from single sentence explanations that they give you. You just never quite know where the numbers are coming from and all the a - z symbols they start using randomly...so you go finding the meaning of those symbols and lose track of where you were originally. All that along with really useless complicated flowchart style examples render this book completely USELESS, and another $100 down the drain.