The Core Microarchitecture

Background

Architectures and Microarchitectures

Intellectual Predecessor

The Energy Efficient Ideas

Instructions Per Clock

So, performance is a function of clock speed on the one hand, and the number of instructions that a processor executes at a time--or instructions per clock (IPC)--on the other hand.

However, it's not even so simple as that.

For the number of instructions that a processor executes at a time is itself a function of (1) the design of the microarchitecture and (2) the particular application being run: "IPC is a function of processor microarchitecture and the specific application being executed".

Here we see one potential reason for Intel's big emphasis on platforms.

A platform is a combination of a processor, chipset, and other technologies, that all work together as a system. Centrino, for example, is a platform for notebooks, and its different components are allegedly optimized to work together to provide, among other things, longer battery life.

Here's the thing. The technologies that go to make up a platform include software.

Hence, in theory, one could increase the number of instructions that a processor executes at a time, and thereby increase both performance and energy efficiency, by writing the software a certain way.

Perhaps software optimization is one of the ways that the various parts of Intel's platforms are designed to work together as a system.

Power Consumption

Scalability

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