[cpu_architect]

I disagree with the following claim:

“With the exception of the Intel Itanium family, all of the architectural features that contribute to the performance of today's microprocessors first appeared (and were pretty fully explored) in a series of "mainframe" computers designed between the late 1950's and 1975.”

Here are just a few innovations hugely important to performance that came later: general out of order execution with precise exceptions, shared memory multiprocessor, memory disambiguation prediction, memory renaming.

Some of the innovations introduced during the described era were by no means “fully explored” either. For example, branch prediction advanced rapidly through the 80s and 90s, and the best branch prediction algorithm known today (TAGE) was developed in 2000s.

And, of course, architectural innovation continues to this day.