A Study of Performance and Power Consumption Differences Among Different ISAs

Abstract

Recent advances in different instruction set architectures (ISAs) and their implementations have revived the argument on the role of ISAs in the overall performance and energy efficiency of a processor. Many computer architects believe that with current compiler and microarchitecture developments, the choice of ISA is not a decisive matter anymore. On the other hand, some believe that ISAs can still play an important role in the overall performance and energy efficiency of a computer system. Our objective is to compare and contrast ISAs by finding the differences in performance and energy consumption across ISAs and the reasons behind those differences. Our work shows that ISAs affect the performance and energy efficiency of applications differently based on their inherent characteristics.