6 ms·

Intel's real problem isn't the power efficiency of ARM CPUs, but rather the entire CPU industry becoming a high-volume, low-margin business. Currently none exc

by jeswin 11y ago

Intel's real problem isn't the power efficiency of ARM CPUs, but rather the entire CPU industry becoming a high-volume, low-margin business. Currently none except Intel (and well AMD) can make chips for the Server/Datacenter business, and they get to keep the healthy margins. If ARM gets into the Datacenter, expect Chinese manufacturers to put out slightly less efficient, but perfectly capable CPUs for a fraction of the cost. The death of the x86 cartel is a good thing for customers.

dogma1138 11y ago
AMD is fabless they already are using other manufacturers to build their CPU's and GPU's. Intel is the only one who's currently both designs and manufactures all of their components. As for the Chinese fabs, there aren't that many Chinese manufacturers that can produce an ARM SOC at this moment, the only one of note is MediaTek (And while they are cheap, they aren't that cheap to cause any major issues), you can't just copy a CPU easily, it's not like you can buy a full blown functional reference design from ARM that will be commercially viable you actually need to develop it yourself (especially considering that you need quite a bit of stuff in the SOC that ARM doesn't cover). If you look at the current ARM SOC's even if they are based on the same ARM architecture they are virtually nothing alike. And it's not like Intel didn't had (Acer, SiS, NEC, UMC, IBM, National Semiconductors, NexGen, Transmeta, fuck the 90's to early/mid 2000's were filled with x86 knockoffs) or has competition in the x86 arena from Chinese (And non-Chinese) companies heck VIA is still making cheap X86 CPU's many of them are very low power (watt per watt until the new Core-M stuff some would actually out-perform intel in some cases) the problem is that all of them are kinda crap, and most importantly don't have a well established ecosystem (interconnect-buses, chipsets, memory controllers etc.) and outside of cheap embedded systems (or 20$ 7" "netbooks" from DealExtreme or Alibaba) you won't see them anywhere.
- petra 11y ago
  The situation now is a bit different: china has decided to encourage switching from intel(due to security reasons), and there are already a few companies working with semi-open IP(ARM/POWER) designing processors for the chinese server market. And i won't be surprised to learn quallcom will be also aiming at that market in some form. And from that base ,competing with intel is a serious possibility.
  - dogma1138 11y ago
    Not really, yes both Russia and China seem to be going for some self-reliance in a form of home-grown CPU's but Quallcom is still an american company so as far as it comes to national interests and national security they are just as much of a liability as Intel. While Quallcom may very well be setting it's sights on competing with Intel doing so because countries do not trust Intel anymore won't be much of an opportunity for them because they'll be painted with the same brush.
- userbinator 11y ago
  the problem is that all of them are kinda crap, and most importantly don't have a well established ecosystem I'd say performance was the more important factor, as most of the early non-Intel x86 were physically compatible (drop-in replacements) - and many were actually faster than Intel's CPUs, but Intel (and to some extent AMD) quickly caught up and passed them. The P6 (Pentium Pro/II/III) is when Intel really started pulling away from the rest. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_former_IA-32_compatible_processor_manufacturers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_former_IA-32_compatibl... Note: MediaTek is Taiwanese and also fabless. Their phone SoCs are nowhere near as performant as Qualcomm's or Samsung's, and largely viewed as the low-cost "value" option.
  - maaku 11y ago
    Technically it is Intel that competes for the AMD64 market ;)
  - dogma1138 11y ago
    As far as the x86 goes if you count the original 486/386 family then yeah, but ever since the Pentium only AMD could some what compete with Intel the performance arena. I remember having to get a non-Intel 486 CPU that would plug into a daughter board that would sit in the original socket and it was some what faster than the 486DX that it replaced. And yes I am very well that MediaTek is fabless and they cannot compete with QC as far as it comes to performance but they aren't dirt cheap either, and some of their newer SOC's are actually quite decent. They are however pretty much the only example of an established "Chinese" (Lets not get political here because people don't really differentiate between Taiwan and China when it comes to manufacturing, and most Taiwanese companies these days will actually manufacture in China because it's cheaper) ARM manufacturer I haven't seen any other one that can design their own SOC's that would actually work well and be commercially viable even for global products.
    - solnyshok 11y ago
      do you think Samsung can enter this market? they have Exynos for mobiles already.
chubot 11y ago
If it even happens, I don't think it's going to happen that quickly. There is plenty of server software that either only works on x86/x64, or works much better on those platforms. There's still a pretty big software gap to fill: native code from C, Go, and other languages; Java and node.js use a JIT, etc. Then there is a significant amount of software using Intel SIMD, like ffmpeg and so forth. C/C++ is probably the one toolchain that you can rely on to be equally good on ARM or x86 (?). Someone with more expertise might correct me. A big advantage of server software over client software is that you don't have to pay the expense of making it portable. Companies generally don't want to have multiple architectures in the data center. The last mile of stuff takes a long time to change.

by jeswin 11y ago

dogma1138 11y ago

AMD is fabless they already are using other manufacturers to build their CPU's and GPU's. Intel is the only one who's currently both designs and manufactures all of their components. As for the Chinese fabs, there aren't that many Chinese manufacturers that can produce an ARM SOC at this moment, the only one of note is MediaTek (And while they are cheap, they aren't that cheap to cause any major issues), you can't just copy a CPU easily, it's not like you can buy a full blown functional reference design from ARM that will be commercially viable you actually need to develop it yourself (especially considering that you need quite a bit of stuff in the SOC that ARM doesn't cover). If you look at the current ARM SOC's even if they are based on the same ARM architecture they are virtually nothing alike. And it's not like Intel didn't had (Acer, SiS, NEC, UMC, IBM, National Semiconductors, NexGen, Transmeta, fuck the 90's to early/mid 2000's were filled with x86 knockoffs) or has competition in the x86 arena from Chinese (And non-Chinese) companies heck VIA is still making cheap X86 CPU's many of them are very low power (watt per watt until the new Core-M stuff some would actually out-perform intel in some cases) the problem is that all of them are kinda crap, and most importantly don't have a well established ecosystem (interconnect-buses, chipsets, memory controllers etc.) and outside of cheap embedded systems (or 20$ 7" "netbooks" from DealExtreme or Alibaba) you won't see them anywhere.

petra 11y ago
The situation now is a bit different: china has decided to encourage switching from intel(due to security reasons), and there are already a few companies working with semi-open IP(ARM/POWER) designing processors for the chinese server market. And i won't be surprised to learn quallcom will be also aiming at that market in some form. And from that base ,competing with intel is a serious possibility.
- dogma1138 11y ago
  Not really, yes both Russia and China seem to be going for some self-reliance in a form of home-grown CPU's but Quallcom is still an american company so as far as it comes to national interests and national security they are just as much of a liability as Intel. While Quallcom may very well be setting it's sights on competing with Intel doing so because countries do not trust Intel anymore won't be much of an opportunity for them because they'll be painted with the same brush.
userbinator 11y ago
the problem is that all of them are kinda crap, and most importantly don't have a well established ecosystem I'd say performance was the more important factor, as most of the early non-Intel x86 were physically compatible (drop-in replacements) - and many were actually faster than Intel's CPUs, but Intel (and to some extent AMD) quickly caught up and passed them. The P6 (Pentium Pro/II/III) is when Intel really started pulling away from the rest. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_former_IA-32_compatible_processor_manufacturers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_former_IA-32_compatibl... Note: MediaTek is Taiwanese and also fabless. Their phone SoCs are nowhere near as performant as Qualcomm's or Samsung's, and largely viewed as the low-cost "value" option.
- maaku 11y ago
  Technically it is Intel that competes for the AMD64 market ;)
- dogma1138 11y ago
  As far as the x86 goes if you count the original 486/386 family then yeah, but ever since the Pentium only AMD could some what compete with Intel the performance arena. I remember having to get a non-Intel 486 CPU that would plug into a daughter board that would sit in the original socket and it was some what faster than the 486DX that it replaced. And yes I am very well that MediaTek is fabless and they cannot compete with QC as far as it comes to performance but they aren't dirt cheap either, and some of their newer SOC's are actually quite decent. They are however pretty much the only example of an established "Chinese" (Lets not get political here because people don't really differentiate between Taiwan and China when it comes to manufacturing, and most Taiwanese companies these days will actually manufacture in China because it's cheaper) ARM manufacturer I haven't seen any other one that can design their own SOC's that would actually work well and be commercially viable even for global products.
  - solnyshok 11y ago
    do you think Samsung can enter this market? they have Exynos for mobiles already.

chubot 11y ago

If it even happens, I don't think it's going to happen that quickly. There is plenty of server software that either only works on x86/x64, or works much better on those platforms. There's still a pretty big software gap to fill: native code from C, Go, and other languages; Java and node.js use a JIT, etc. Then there is a significant amount of software using Intel SIMD, like ffmpeg and so forth. C/C++ is probably the one toolchain that you can rely on to be equally good on ARM or x86 (?). Someone with more expertise might correct me. A big advantage of server software over client software is that you don't have to pay the expense of making it portable. Companies generally don't want to have multiple architectures in the data center. The last mile of stuff takes a long time to change.