Question Anyone using ARM CPUs/SOCs?

[whm1974]

I've been looking at Pine64.org products, mainly the upcoming Pinebook Pro and PineTAB, also about reading the ROXK64 Pro as well. Awhile back I was considering getting Raspberry Pi 3B+ for getting into SBCs, I really not sure what I could use for it for. And yes a low cost notebook, even ARM based ones will be far more useful for.

Other then my cheap smartphone, I have no experience with non-x86 systems. So how much usability with reasonable performance I can expect out ARM SOCs such at the Rockchip RK3399 Hexa-Core such as the Pinebook Pro and ROCK64 Pro uses

While I intend to buy the Pinebook Pro, I am wondering about ARM SOCs and ARM based PCs in general using Linux.

 

[Shivansps]

What a surprise when the tester compares an Snapdragon 835 running emulated code vs an Intel machine running native code! Meanwhile you can run various native ARM64 benchmarks, which show the higher performance/power ratio. Thing is, if you want to have the highest performance under a below 5W thermal envelope, there is no way around an ARM SoC.
I did post few PovRay benchmark numbers in another thread.
.

Then use the ARM SoC to run Linux or Android i expect to be able to use the full Windows ecosystem on a device runing Windows, otherwise i would not run Windows at all. I you dont agree with me, ask Windows RT.

 

[whm1974]

Then use the ARM SoC to run Linux or Android i expect to be able to use the full Windows ecosystem on a device runing Windows, otherwise i would not run Windows at all. I you dont agree with me, ask Windows RT.

This+ I am not sure what is the point of using Windows 10 on ARM if most of the applications users are using are not native to ARM.

FOSS OSes and applications have a real big advantage here as the sources are available.

Now if only ARM hardware used a standardized firmware...

 

[Shivansps]

Meh. Obsess over old ARM scores if you want. Like I said, taking anything older than A76 seriously is not a great idea, unless you're in the phone/tablet space, or you want tiny low-power SBCs.

Im comparing what is avalible... Is not my fault that the Snapdragon 850 failed so badly in gaining market share on Windows devices, probably because it is expensive and dosent perform very well.

As is so often the case with ARM SoCs, the main focus is on geekbench:

https://wccftech.com/snapdragon-850-nowhere-close-performance-a12-bionic/

Snapdragon 850 ain't all that. It seems to be having problems with throttling or something which limits its capabilities in multicore mode. A12 is clearly superior. Qualcomm has a ways to go. The 8cx is their first shot at competing with at least Apple's chips, along with the Kirin 980.

The main thing to keep in mind is that Apple, Huawei, Qualcomm, and others are advancing the state of ARM processors rather quickly.

Ive been hearing that for a few years now, once the performance is there we are going to know. Because the notebook market will be flooded with ARM devices.

There are a few others. The main one is the C630, though. Soon the Snapdragon 850 devices will be an afterthought. Qualcomm and MS are trying to lay the groundwork for Win10S + universal windows applications on ARM in advance of real hardware offerings.

[/QUOTE]
The universal windows platform already failed to do this quick enoght, Microsoft had to port the WOW64 layer for ARM in order to making x86 apps to work. And they are now looking into doing the same to be able to run x64 apps.
One of the reason UWP failed is... it is really not universal... you need to specify a target device on it, PC, XBOX, Mobile, etc etc... Plus there are a few limitations.

In short, if you are going to release a app for PC today, the only thing that the UWP brings you is access to the Windows Store. And... a LOT OF LIMITATIONS.

Things will get more interesting for ARM once Microsoft finish the system to run x64 on ARM, not before.

 

[Shivansps]

This+ I am not sure what is the point of using Windows 10 on ARM if most of the applications users are using are not native to ARM.

FOSS OSes and applications have a real big advantage here as the sources are available.

Now if only ARM hardware used a standardized firmware...

As i said before i use 2 RPI in my home now, you are going to be able to use at least 90% of the Linux software ecosystem on ARM, as most of the stuff is open source. Even games (that are open source), as there is now a way to run OpenGL on SoCs that only supports OpenGL ES.

This is the first thing i did one i got my hands on a RPI.

 

[whm1974]

@Shivansps NEAT!!! It would be very ironic if x86/x86-64 is finally dethroned by RISC CPUs/SPCs with perhaps through a combination of ARM, MIPS Open, and RISC-V based hardware.

I do remember back in the early to mid 90's the RISC guys were bragging that RISC was going to bury x86.

Remember AIM and ARC?

 

[DrMrLordX]

Im comparing what is avalible...

No, you didn't even look at the 850, and the 850 is at least a little better than that. And the 850 is on its way out already. The 8cx launches this year. A12 and A12x are already out (and vendor locked, bleh). ARM is moving fast. Try to keep up.

Ive been hearing that for a few years now, once the performance is there we are going to know. Because the notebook market will be flooded with ARM devices.

The performance is there now. It's called A12x. Qualcomm and Huawei (and others, to an extent) are chasing that target. They are not chasing Intel. Or AMD.

The universal windows platform already failed to do this quick enoght, Microsoft had to port the WOW64 layer for ARM in order to making x86 apps to work.

UWP may or may not take root. Or ChromeOS may take over the market. Don't be blind to what has already happened in the phone/tablet space. A lot of "regular users" ditched PCs and laptops for their phones. There are enormous software ecosystems that do not rely on Wintel. They can and will encroach on the desktop/laptop space. MS wants to ride the wave. They may succeed. The hardware will push into that space with or without Microsoft.

And they are now looking into doing the same to be able to run x64 apps.

Honestly, the number of people who care about x64 apps outside of the professional space is getting relatively less important day by day. It is a bitter pill for me to swallow, but it's reality.

Things will get more interesting for ARM once Microsoft finish the system to run x64 on ARM, not before.

Not really. Things will get more interesting once people realize that, with A76, they have a full raft of native 64-bit apps on Win10S + ARM without ever having to run any x64 code. Or Linux, or ChromeOS, or . . . you get the idea.

 

[Thala]

Then use the ARM SoC to run Linux or Android i expect to be able to use the full Windows ecosystem on a device runing Windows, otherwise i would not run Windows at all. I you dont agree with me, ask Windows RT.

This+ I am not sure what is the point of using Windows 10 on ARM if most of the applications users are using are not native to ARM.
FOSS OSes and applications have a real big advantage here as the sources are available.
Now if only ARM hardware used a standardized firmware...

Thing is, with Windows on ARM i am running both, Windows and Linux via WSL. Besides open source is not exclusive to Linux - there are literally thousands of open source projects readily available for compilation under Windows - none of this was possible with Windows RT.

To give you a perspective, 90% of the applications i am running are native ARM64 - but that sure depends on the use-case. If you want to run the latest AAA games, an ARM device is certainly the wrong investment at the moment.

Things will get more interesting for ARM once Microsoft finish the system to run x64 on ARM, not before.

Not really. X64 emulation is the worst thing that could happen. If you buy an ARM device you certainly want to take advantage of the higher performance/power ratio - which is not possible under emulation.
Just to give you an idea what emulation means. I did fire up the multi-arcade emulator Mame (x86 version) to see how some of my favorite NeoGeo arcade games are running - they kind of ran but not always achieved 60fps. So i compiled Mame native ARM64 and now i can start 3 Mame instances all running 60fps in parallel.

 

[Shivansps]

Honestly, the number of people who care about x64 apps outside of the professional space is getting relatively less important day by day. It is a bitter pill for me to swallow, but it's reality.



Not really. Things will get more interesting once people realize that, with A76, they have a full raft of native 64-bit apps on Win10S + ARM without ever having to run any x64 code. Or Linux, or ChromeOS, or . . . you get the idea.

You better start caring about it, the number of apps running now only on 64 bits and not bothering with launching a x86 version increases every day, you can notice this on games as new x86 games dosent seem to exist anymore.

I used a cheap Z3735 tablet for 3 years until the touch died, it had a 32-bit UEFI so 64 bit Windows was not possible, the lack of 64 bit support was really starting to bother me. Until the touch died.

No one is going to go ARM just because it is ARM, ARM needs to give something in exchange and a notebook/desktop is not a phone or tablet. And right now it gives you nothing, the fact there in nearly NO DEVICES tells you someting is wrong. The Pinebook PRO at least gives you decent features at a decent price, sacrificing W10 support as there is really no way to give a good experience with souch SoC.

First we need x64 support so we can run most, if not all Windows ecosystem on it, then we need SoCs and a BOM that dosent cost a fortune that is able to go hand to hand with Atoms and come up on top. Then people will start to buy it.

 

[DrMrLordX]

You better start caring about it, the number of apps running now only on 64 bits and not bothering with launching a x86 version increases every day, you can notice this on games as new x86 games dosent seem to exist anymore.

I think you are missing my point. x64 is losing market share. Aarch64 is gaining market share.

 

[Thala]

First we need x64 support so we can run most, if not all Windows ecosystem on it, then we need SoCs and a BOM that dosent cost a fortune that is able to go hand to hand with Atoms and come up on top. Then people will start to buy it.

Speak for yourself! I do not need x64 support at all with my Windows on ARM device. All i need is Aarch64 support for both Windows and Linux apps.

 

[whm1974]

Speak for yourself! I do not need x64 support at all with my Windows on ARM device. All i need is Aarch64 support for both Windows and Linux apps.

You may not need x64 support on ARM, but for Windows 10 ARM devices most users will if MS and ARM PC vendors want an increase in market share, let alone topple Intel and AMD.

 

[DrMrLordX]

You may not need x64 support on ARM, but for Windows 10 ARM devices most users will if MS and ARM PC vendors want an increase in market share, let alone topple Intel and AMD.

Not sure if that's true. Win10s on ARM is competing with ChromeOS more than anything else. Chromebooks don't require x64 support. Why would Win10s?

 

[whm1974]

Not sure if that's true. Win10s on ARM is competing with ChromeOS more than anything else. Chromebooks don't require x64 support. Why would Win10s?

And what would be the point of running Windows then?

 

[DrMrLordX]

And what would be the point of running Windows then?

Same reason to run ChromeOS. It's a GUI. MS is going to be going straight-up against Google to see who can dominate the low-end "netbook" market. MS is going to have to rebuild their entire software ecosystem since Win10s on ARM will never deliver satisfactory x86 performance.

 

[whm1974]

Same reason to run ChromeOS. It's a GUI. MS is going to be going straight-up against Google to see who can dominate the low-end "netbook" market. MS is going to have to rebuild their entire software ecosystem since Win10s on ARM will never deliver satisfactory x86 performance.

OK I now see the use case for Windows on ARM then, but that would be a lot of work and some users will want to use x86 applications as well.

 

[Thala]

You may not need x64 support on ARM, but for Windows 10 ARM devices most users will if MS and ARM PC vendors want an increase in market share, let alone topple Intel and AMD.

For this goal you need ARM64 support not x64. The user experience needs to be better on ARM not worse, which happens to only work with native apps.
Then of course adaptation depends on how much of the apps a user run is either native ARM or run satisfactory under x86 emulation. For a typical tablet use-case most of the time users spend in the browser, email client, Spotify, Netflix, Office, VLC player or tools like Winzip, Notepad++ etc. which happen to be all native ARM apps.

 

[whm1974]

For this goal you need ARM64 support not x64. The user experience needs to be better on ARM not worse, which happens to only work with native apps.
Then of course adaptation depends on how much of the apps a user run is either native ARM or run satisfactory under x86 emulation. For a typical tablet use-case most of the time users spend in the browser, email client, Spotify, Netflix, Office, VLC player or tools like Winzip, Notepad++ etc. which happen to be all native ARM apps.

I do agree with that, but what about users that do need to use some x64 applications? While I will have very little to no need to use x64 apps since I would using Linux, I do see that some Windows 10 ARM users might.

 

[Tup3x]

Speak for yourself! I do not need x64 support at all with my Windows on ARM device. All i need is Aarch64 support for both Windows and Linux apps.

You might not but the actual target group (ordinary people who don't even know what ARM is) only care whether or not their old applications work.

 

[DrMrLordX]

OK I now see the use case for Windows on ARM then, but that would be a lot of work and some users will want to use x86 applications as well.

You might not but the actual target group (ordinary people who don't even know what ARM is) only care whether or not their old applications work.

Anyone who really wants to use an old x86/x86-64 application will have to suffer through emulation, and it won't be that great. No way to sugar-coat it. I suspect those users will recoil in horror from ARM notebooks in general. Just keep in mind that a lot of people have already eschewed x86/Wintel for smartphones and tablets. The issue that lots of them come back to is that if they want to do "serious" work on their lovely portables, they either need to get keyboard extensions or they start looking at stuff like Chromebooks.

So you have a market segment where you've got like . . . Google Pixelbooks, iPad Pro, MS Surface, etc. Those people have basically signaled that they don't need what they were running on a PC 5-10 years ago. For the right piece of hardware, they'll pay for a whole new set of applications (which is definitely what people have been doing with their iPad Pros).

MS has to either keep shoving Core-M and Atom into this space on Win10 products or find another way to compete. They've dipped their toe into this space with ARM thanks to the Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 and 850, and they're going to keep on going with the 8cx.

 

[Shivansps]

Ill say it again maybe i wasnt clear enoght, people buying a WINDOWS system expect to be able to run Windows apps, AARCH64 has nothing to do with that. This whole idea of "users dont need to run x86 and x64 apps" was already tried and failed, it was called Windows RT. It dosent matters what DO YOU THINK what a end user buying a Windows device instead of a Chromebook needs. This is supported by the fact Microsoft and Qualcomm worked into getting x86 apps to work on ARM, and they are now doing the same with x64. If there is no support for x86 and x64 there in no point in getting a Windows device. If ARM cant provide a good cost/performance ratio to run Windows and its software then there is no reason to go ARM, and this is the reason of why almost no one is doing it.
Im not being unreasonable here, not sure why so many people want to push ARM on Windows users and then tell them HOW they should be using Windows and what they need. Look this is why RT failed, enoght said.

 

[DrMrLordX]

Ill say it again maybe i wasnt clear enoght, people buying a WINDOWS system expect to be able to run Windows apps, AARCH64 has nothing to do with that.

MS will have to make sure that people get Aarch64 Windows apps, or Win10s on ARM will fail, period. Don't blame the hardware. Google and Apple are already doing a good job of making sure people have ARM-native applications on their products.

This whole idea of "users dont need to run x86 and x64 apps" was already tried and failed, it was called Windows RT.

It's also called iOS and ChromeOS, where it's working very nicely.

x86 on ARM has no future. It's a stopgap, at best.

 

[Shivansps]

MS will have to make sure that people get Aarch64 Windows apps, or Win10s on ARM will fail, period. Don't blame the hardware. Google and Apple are already doing a good job of making sure people have ARM-native applications on their products.



It's also called iOS and ChromeOS, where it's working very nicely.

x86 on ARM has no future. It's a stopgap, at best.

yeah, read this and the comments: https://www.pcgamer.com/microsofts-...ndows-doubles-down-on-the-limitations-of-uwp/


Chrome OS is able to run both Android AND Linux Apps natively, people know Android apps because they have it on their phones, its not wonder it is gaining market.

 

[whm1974]

yeah, read this and the comments: https://www.pcgamer.com/microsofts-...ndows-doubles-down-on-the-limitations-of-uwp/


Chrome OS is able to run both Android AND Linux Apps natively, people know Android apps because they have it on their phones, its not wonder it is gaining market.

Yeah but are not the Linux apps on ChromeOS a bit stale since they are from Debian? The other issue I can see is that Chromebooks tend to be rather short on eMMC storage, 16GB isn't going get users very far if they have lots of Linux apps installed.

The few Chromebooks I've found with 64GB eMMC for some strange reason only have 2GB of ram.

 

[DrMrLordX]

Yeah but are not the Linux apps on ChromeOS a bit stale since they are from Debian?

I guess? Stale as in, these apps are from the Debian repos? There are plenty of people running *NIX boxes out there using old versions of software for security or compatibility reasons. I'm sure at some point people will figure out how to add other repos or use snaps (bleh) if they wanted newer versions of software. If they haven't done so already.

The few Chromebooks I've found with 64GB eMMC for some strange reason only have 2GB of ram.

Chromebook configurations are pretty paltry unless you get one of the expensive ones. I think that's one of the areas where MS thinks they can beat back ChromeOS and take over part of the tablet->notebook crossover market where ChromeOS is spreading.

 

[Thala]

Ill say it again maybe i wasnt clear enoght, people buying a WINDOWS system expect to be able to run Windows apps, AARCH64 has nothing to do with that.

And Windows is running Windows apps - who would have guessed that. Its just that x64 Windows running x86 and x64 Windows apps and ARM Windows is running ARM32, ARM64 and x86 Windows apps. Thats all to it. There is no inherent restriction whatsoever - contrary to Windows RT, which was running only ARM32 UWP.

In you argument you fail to realize, that most user only use a fraction of the available apps. As they become available under native AArch64 execution or running reasonable under emulation Windows ARM devices certainly are an option. Apps i am using 90% of the time are already native AArch64 - some of them i just compiled. You have to realize that re-compilation is an easy task for those who are familiar with it - it is not more complicated than under Linux.

If your betting that x64 CPUs will eventually achieve the efficiency - and thus the performance under certain power budget - of ARM CPUs you are up for a big disappointment. Either the Windows ecosystem can adapt to new architectures or its deemed to vanish. This holds in particular now, since alternative architectures do not have a technology disadvantage compared to Intel anymore. Intel/AMD had it much too easy to get away with its crappy x64 ISA in the past.