This is just insane and gets us full-circle to why we want RISC-V.
Modern CPUs are actually really good at deciding operations into micro-ops. And the flexibility of being able to implement a complex operation in microcode, or silicon is essential for CPU designers.
Is there a bunch of legacy crap in x86? Yeah. Does getting rid of dramatically increase the performance ceiling? Probably not.
The real benefit of RISC-V is anybody can use it. It's democratizing the ISA. No one has to pay a license to use it, they can just build their CPU design and go.
Except this isn't actually true.
> Does getting rid of dramatically increase the performance ceiling? Probably not.
No but it dramatically DECREASES the amount of investment necessary to reach that ceiling.
Assume you have 2 teams, each get the same amount of money. Then ask them to make the highest performing spec compatible chip. What team is gone win 99% of the time?
> And the flexibility of being able to implement a complex operation in microcode, or silicon is essential for CPU designers.
You can add microcode to a RISC-V chip if you want, most people just don't want to.
> The real benefit of RISC-V is anybody can use it.
That is true, but its also just a much better instruction set then x86 -_-