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If 2 CPUs have the same Instruction Set Architecture, which of the following properties will be the same?

  1. Clock Rate
  2. CPI
  3. Execution time
  4. No. of instructions
  5. MIPS
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    $\begingroup$ None of the above. Think about what ISA means. $\endgroup$
    – gnasher729
    Feb 7, 2021 at 1:17
  • $\begingroup$ No, as far as I understand, 4 and 1? $\endgroup$ Feb 7, 2021 at 1:21
  • $\begingroup$ (MIPS is an aspect of marketing. Marketing is about communicating advantage: MIPS is never ever the same.) $\endgroup$
    – greybeard
    Feb 7, 2021 at 7:00

2 Answers 2

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Same ISA means they understand the same instructions in binary. They can certainly be very different in speed. Look at e.g. the x86 family (disregard the instructions added over time). The very latest Pentium is certainly much faster than the first 386, and even within each "number" there are variations.

Even crasser, remember ye goode olden days of i486 and overclocking? Even the same chip can (sometimes) run at different clock rates. BTW, that is something current laptops do: To conserve battery power, the CPU runs at a lower clock rate when possible.

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    $\begingroup$ Take the M1 chip: 4 high performance cores, 4 power saving cores, in the same chip. Same ISA, different clock speed, MIPS, everything. $\endgroup$
    – gnasher729
    Feb 7, 2021 at 7:48
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Only the number of instructions would be the same. Clock Rate, CPI, Execution time and MIPS depend on the micro-architecture (also known as hardware architecture).

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