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Computer Architecture: A Quantitative Approach 5th Edition
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- ISBN-10012383872X
- ISBN-13978-8178672663
- Edition5th
- PublisherMorgan Kaufmann
- Publication dateSeptember 30, 2011
- LanguageEnglish
- Dimensions7.5 x 1.75 x 9 inches
- Print length856 pages
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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.
- 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
Review
Fully updated fifth edition covers the twin shifts to mobile and cloud computing, with new material, exercises, and case studies.
About the Author
David Patterson is the Pardee Professor of Computer Science, Emeritus at the University of California at Berkeley, which he joined after graduating from UCLA in 1977.His teaching has been honored by the Distinguished Teaching Award from the University of California, the Karlstrom Award from ACM, and the Mulligan Education Medal and Undergraduate Teaching Award from IEEE. Prof. Patterson received the IEEE Technical Achievement Award and the ACM Eckert-Mauchly Award for contributions to RISC, and he shared the IEEE Johnson Information Storage Award for contributions to RAID. He also shared the IEEE John von Neumann Medal and the C & C Prize with John Hennessy. Like his co-author, Prof. Patterson is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Computer History Museum, ACM, and IEEE, and he was elected to the National Academy of Engineering, the National Academy of Sciences, and the Silicon Valley Engineering Hall of Fame. He served on the Information Technology Advisory Committee to the U.S. President, as chair of the CS division in the Berkeley EECS department, as chair of the Computing Research Association, and as President of ACM. This record led to Distinguished Service Awards from ACM, CRA, and SIGARCH.
Product details
- Publisher : Morgan Kaufmann; 5th edition (September 30, 2011)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 856 pages
- ISBN-10 : 012383872X
- ISBN-13 : 978-8178672663
- Item Weight : 3.7 pounds
- Dimensions : 7.5 x 1.75 x 9 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #957,465 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #68 in Microprocessor Design
- #72 in Computer Programming Logic
- #232 in Computer Hardware Design & Architecture
- Customer Reviews:
About the authors

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John Leroy Hennessy (born September 22, 1952) is an American computer scientist, academician, and businessman. Hennessy is one of the founders of MIPS Computer Systems Inc. as well as Atheros and is the tenth President of Stanford University. Marc Andreessen called him "the godfather of Silicon Valley".
Bio from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Photo by Eric Chan [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons.
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Top reviews from the United States
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I liked the book because the authors wrote it with students in mind. They were engaging, made slight jokes along the way and presented the topic in a way that makes it easy for a student to learn. The diagrams were well drawn and had very detailed explanations with them so you could keep up. The chapters are somewhat modular in that a student could read some chapters while completely ignoring the rest and it still make sense. My class didn't follow any of the case studies or real world examples, so I can't comment on that. It's also up-to-date as it makes references to the latest Core i7's in the text and explains that the concept you are learning is used in the chip.
What are the downsides? It gets incredibly dense sometimes. The sections can be really long you have to actively pay attention otherwise you'll get lost easily. If your mind drifts off for even a paragraph, you're done! You have to re-read that section again from where you started to day dream. It's pretty long too. If you've got an exam coming up give your self two weeks (a week at a minimum) to read the relevant parts. My suggestion is to do a section a day so that it is easier to digest.
Overall, this is a excellent introduction to advanced computer architecture and a perfect continuation of Hennessy and Patterson's "Computer Organization and Design." I'm going to keep the book because it is very interesting and I might still refer to it in the future. If you have the patience to learn from it, it has the ability to teach you.
This book is heavy enough to concuss someone with it with a good swing, and there's almost an equal number of pages in accompanying appendices in digital format. That is a lot of material, but it goes a great deal into the minutiae of the low level functions that you probably didn't learn correctly the first time around. Knowledge of basic digital design, organization, a C-based language and familiarity with generic assembly is recommended before tackling this thing.
Top reviews from other countries
The authors are very well known cause of the quality and comprehensiveness of this stuff.
Besides the material available on the website is also very useful to study and to teach.
Kindle does not guarantee page numbers. I bought this version in order to both support the author/publishers and help me access this book on my phone easier. In the end I find myself looking at readily available pdfs online.
Instead of page numbers you are given a location number which, from what I can tell, is based on the number of characters in the book.
Do not buy this kindle edition text book.








