,In Praise of Computer Architecture: A Quantitative Approach
Fifth Edition
“The 5th edition of Computer Architecture: A Quantitative Approach continues
the legacy, providing students of computer architecture with the most up-to-date
information on current computing platforms, and architectural insights to help
them design future systems. A highlight of the new edition is the significantly
revised chapter on data-level parallelism, which demystifies GPU architectures
with clear explanations using traditional computer architecture terminology.”
—Krste Asanović, University of California, Berkeley
“Computer Architecture: A Quantitative Approach is a classic that, like fine
wine, just keeps getting better. I bought my first copy as I finished up my under-
graduate degree and it remains one of my most frequently referenced texts today.
When the fourth edition came out, there was so much new material that I needed
to get it to stay current in the field. And, as I review the fifth edition, I realize that
Hennessy and Patterson have done it again. The entire text is heavily updated and
Chapter 6 alone makes this new edition required reading for those wanting to
really understand cloud and warehouse scale-computing. Only Hennessy and
Patterson have access to the insiders at Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and other
cloud computing and internet-scale application providers and there is no better
coverage of this important area anywhere in the industry.”
—James Hamilton, Amazon Web Services
“Hennessy and Patterson wrote the first edition of this book when graduate stu-
dents built computers with 50,000 transistors. Today, warehouse-size computers
contain that many servers, each consisting of dozens of independent processors
and billions of transistors. The evolution of computer architecture has been rapid
and relentless, but Computer Architecture: A Quantitative Approach has kept
pace, with each edition accurately explaining and analyzing the important emerg-
ing ideas that make this field so exciting.”
—James Larus, Microsoft Research
“This new edition adds a superb new chapter on data-level parallelism in vector,
SIMD, and GPU architectures. It explains key architecture concepts inside mass-
market GPUs, maps them to traditional terms, and compares them with vector
and SIMD architectures. It’s timely and relevant with the widespread shift to
GPU parallel computing. Computer Architecture: A Quantitative Approach fur-
thers its string of firsts in presenting comprehensive architecture coverage of sig-
nificant new developments!”
—John Nickolls, NVIDIA
,“The new edition of this now classic textbook highlights the ascendance of
explicit parallelism (data, thread, request) by devoting a whole chapter to each
type. The chapter on data parallelism is particularly illuminating: the comparison
and contrast between Vector SIMD, instruction level SIMD, and GPU cuts
through the jargon associated with each architecture and exposes the similarities
and differences between these architectures.”
—Kunle Olukotun, Stanford University
“The fifth edition of Computer Architecture: A Quantitative Approach explores
the various parallel concepts and their respective tradeoffs. As with the previous
editions, this new edition covers the latest technology trends. Two highlighted are
the explosive growth of Personal Mobile Devices (PMD) and Warehouse Scale
Computing (WSC)—where the focus has shifted towards a more sophisticated
balance of performance and energy efficiency as compared with raw perfor-
mance. These trends are fueling our demand for ever more processing capability
which in turn is moving us further down the parallel path.”
—Andrew N. Sloss, Consultant Engineer, ARM
Author of ARM System Developer’s Guide
, Computer Architecture
A Quantitative Approach
Fifth Edition
Fifth Edition
“The 5th edition of Computer Architecture: A Quantitative Approach continues
the legacy, providing students of computer architecture with the most up-to-date
information on current computing platforms, and architectural insights to help
them design future systems. A highlight of the new edition is the significantly
revised chapter on data-level parallelism, which demystifies GPU architectures
with clear explanations using traditional computer architecture terminology.”
—Krste Asanović, University of California, Berkeley
“Computer Architecture: A Quantitative Approach is a classic that, like fine
wine, just keeps getting better. I bought my first copy as I finished up my under-
graduate degree and it remains one of my most frequently referenced texts today.
When the fourth edition came out, there was so much new material that I needed
to get it to stay current in the field. And, as I review the fifth edition, I realize that
Hennessy and Patterson have done it again. The entire text is heavily updated and
Chapter 6 alone makes this new edition required reading for those wanting to
really understand cloud and warehouse scale-computing. Only Hennessy and
Patterson have access to the insiders at Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and other
cloud computing and internet-scale application providers and there is no better
coverage of this important area anywhere in the industry.”
—James Hamilton, Amazon Web Services
“Hennessy and Patterson wrote the first edition of this book when graduate stu-
dents built computers with 50,000 transistors. Today, warehouse-size computers
contain that many servers, each consisting of dozens of independent processors
and billions of transistors. The evolution of computer architecture has been rapid
and relentless, but Computer Architecture: A Quantitative Approach has kept
pace, with each edition accurately explaining and analyzing the important emerg-
ing ideas that make this field so exciting.”
—James Larus, Microsoft Research
“This new edition adds a superb new chapter on data-level parallelism in vector,
SIMD, and GPU architectures. It explains key architecture concepts inside mass-
market GPUs, maps them to traditional terms, and compares them with vector
and SIMD architectures. It’s timely and relevant with the widespread shift to
GPU parallel computing. Computer Architecture: A Quantitative Approach fur-
thers its string of firsts in presenting comprehensive architecture coverage of sig-
nificant new developments!”
—John Nickolls, NVIDIA
,“The new edition of this now classic textbook highlights the ascendance of
explicit parallelism (data, thread, request) by devoting a whole chapter to each
type. The chapter on data parallelism is particularly illuminating: the comparison
and contrast between Vector SIMD, instruction level SIMD, and GPU cuts
through the jargon associated with each architecture and exposes the similarities
and differences between these architectures.”
—Kunle Olukotun, Stanford University
“The fifth edition of Computer Architecture: A Quantitative Approach explores
the various parallel concepts and their respective tradeoffs. As with the previous
editions, this new edition covers the latest technology trends. Two highlighted are
the explosive growth of Personal Mobile Devices (PMD) and Warehouse Scale
Computing (WSC)—where the focus has shifted towards a more sophisticated
balance of performance and energy efficiency as compared with raw perfor-
mance. These trends are fueling our demand for ever more processing capability
which in turn is moving us further down the parallel path.”
—Andrew N. Sloss, Consultant Engineer, ARM
Author of ARM System Developer’s Guide
, Computer Architecture
A Quantitative Approach
Fifth Edition
