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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

One of the features of Ars Premier 2.0 is subscriber-only content such as live chats and articles. Tonight, we're announcing our next Premier 2.0 feature, a retrospective on the past ten years of RISC ...

At WWDC, Apple announced a radical change to its computers. The company is dropping Intel as its CPU provider, and will be transitioning its laptops and desktops to custom Apple-designed chips over ...

Instruction Set Architecture (ISA) is a set of instructions defined for the processor’s architecture. These are the instructions that the processor understands. It defines the hardware and software ...

ARM, along with its core licensees, and Intel, along with its x86 CPU competitors, have recently taken action to put to rest any remaining doubt that both camps were on a collision course—ARM touting ...

Recently, we launched Ars Premier 2.0, our new and improved subscriber program that offers some fantastic new benefits for subscribers. Tonight sees our second insider-only feature: a live, moderated ...