Question x86 and ARM architectures comparison thread.

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adroc_thurston

Diamond Member
Jul 2, 2023
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Must have been well hidden
Never left the validation bench.
You think the prototypes will ever be seen in public like AirPower eventually came be known.
AirPower had an actual pre-prod attempts.
Real-real Airpower prototypes were far more dingy.
ARM will become a merchant Si vendor because that's the only way to make money in this business.
IP licensing sucks. It's why pretty much all smaller licensing players (both CPU and graphics) died out over the past 10 years.

Neoverse was just a free crack sample for hyperscalers. Soon, they'll have to pay Actual Real Money for their server Si.
 

mikegg

Golden Member
Jan 30, 2010
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ARM will become a merchant Si vendor because that's the only way to make money in this business.
Neoverse was just a free crack sample for hyperscalers.
Even if they do, which I doubt, it doesn't change that ARM was more popular on AWS than AMD in 2020 already.
 

OneEng2

Senior member
Sep 19, 2022
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That's cope, Apple tried to make 4T setups work and failed horribly.
That's why Mac Pro (yes it's a thing. yes it's a real market) is orphaned.
I think it is common for people to believe that if Company A is doing it, it is EASY for company B to do it too.

To your point, obviously, this is not true.
DC - see my post on first page. ARM is already 50%+ of all hyperscaler deployments. Much higher than 50% on AWS actually. So no, it's not getting decimated.
Lets be clear, they aren't doing ARM because it is better, they are doing it because it is cheap. They also have the resources to put code CTM to enhance performance in a hardware specific way (like a game console can).

This has nothing to do with architecture and everything to do with economies of scale in a massively large company. This is pure vertical integration in action. "I'm big enough to make my own computer, processor, and OS, so why buy it from someone?".
 
Jul 27, 2020
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"I'm big enough to make my own computer, processor, and OS, so why buy it from someone?".
This is what M$ is dreaming about too. Their QC partnership plan was actually to put hardware out there and get their new OS in the hands of consumers. Once the wrinkles have been ironed out, they can release their own CPU and get closer to being Apple 2.0 and having a partner is just to make sure their employees can learn (or steal, depending on how you see it) the secrets to controlling all aspects of the hardware platform.

I think this also explains QC's Linux enablement efforts because they would be stupid to fully trust M$. The whole industry knows how M$ burned Sega and Nokia.
 
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Doug S

Diamond Member
Feb 8, 2020
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Oh no it was a thing.

No it was not. They filed a patent showing how they'd do it, but there's no evidence they ever put three sets of I/O pads on any Max die. You're just seeing rumors, speculation and patent claims and somehow concluding that Apple invested a bunch of NRE making a product but "couldn't make it work". That's your Apple hating projection which has nothing to do with reality.


Apple also tried dGPUs.

Again, where's the evidence that Apple ever invested a single dollar in such an effort? This is another thing that maybe had some unfounded rumors somewhere which you decided to believe Apple tried and failed at it, because I guess it comforts you to think that Apple can't succeed in something as simple as putting a GPU chip on a PCIe board.
 

adroc_thurston

Diamond Member
Jul 2, 2023
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No it was not
Yeah it was.
That's your Apple hating projection which has nothing to do with reality.
I don't hate them. Big systems are just hard.
Again, where's the evidence that Apple ever invested a single dollar in such an effort?
You know it even had a proper on-roadmap codename right?
because I guess it comforts you to think that Apple can't succeed in something as simple as putting a GPU chip on a PCIe board
Well yeah that's the hard part.
dGPU drivers alone are a nightmare. see Intel's efforts so far.
 

Jan Olšan

Senior member
Jan 12, 2017
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It's a worry because they have a far superior architecture. Yes, desktops are more resilient due to factors like modularity, easy upgradability. However, their notebooks have a dimmer future.

You know the battery degradation inherent in most laptops? Well, ever since I got a fanless device, I realized that it's better in that regard as well. My Kabylake-Y is only 20% degraded in battery, and I bought it used.
It has nothing to do with being fanless but with lowering the current loads put on the battery, so it's the lower TDP and lower PL2s/PPTs help. High-wattage processors and dGPUs do harm.
The higher temperature associated with loading a fanless device may actually harm the battery's longevity.
 

poke01

Diamond Member
Mar 8, 2022
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The higher temperature associated with loading a fanless device may actually harm the battery's longevity.
Depends WHICH SoC is being used. Lunar Lake isn’t as efficient as the base M3/M4 under load. Forget Intel CPUs prior to lunar lake being used in a fanless device cause while the TDP is low they made the devices hot and were slower than snails

Look at Core M series from Intel, low TDP but made fanless laptops warm even under moderate load. So yes it’s important to know that devices with a fan can lead to faster battery degradation than devices that are fanless, just depends on the SoC being used.
 

adroc_thurston

Diamond Member
Jul 2, 2023
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Look at Core M series from Intel, low TDP but made fanless laptops warm even under moderate load
That's a function of board/case/etc design though.
Modern phone SoCs have higher peaks and sustained power than the infamous SD810, but phone thermal management just got a lot better.
 

poke01

Diamond Member
Mar 8, 2022
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That's a function of board/case/etc design though.
Modern phone SoCs have higher peaks and sustained power than the infamous SD810, but phone thermal management just got a lot better.
That’s the point, you can’t assume just because a device is fanless it would lead to worse battery life degradation in the future than a device with fans. There are lot of factors involved like you said.
 

adroc_thurston

Diamond Member
Jul 2, 2023
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That’s the point, you can’t assume just because a device is fanless it would lead to worse battery life degradation in the future than a device with fans
Yes you can, on average, fanless devices have higher Tcase.
But I don't think it would matter much.