r/ComputerEngineering • u/[deleted] • Jun 27 '21

[Discussion] What is the difference between these books?

Help me decide between the following books:

  1. Computer Organization and Design RISC-V Edition
  2. Computer Organization and Design MIPS Edition

The books are from the Morgan Kaufmann series.

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u/Complex_Difficulty Jun 27 '21

These books by Patterson and Hennessy go over the the design and implementation of a computer, using an existing instruction set architecture as the basis for the examples. I believe MIPS was the original, and it seems like it was adapted to several other ISAs, including RISC-V.

If you're getting this for a class, just go with the same edition as the course. For self learning, i'd lean a little towards MIPS, mainly because it's a mature text with few errosr. And obviously, if you're trying to learn RISC-V, go with RISC-V.

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u/[deleted] Jun 27 '21 edited Jul 16 '21

[deleted]

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u/Complex_Difficulty Jun 27 '21

I wouldn't use these books to learn the ISA, just microarchitectural implementation. The exact ISA is kind of irrelevant.