I think the 'death of x86' issue is that currently, CPUs are 'fast enough' for most people; for that matter, they're faster than a lot of people need. Apple's i

I think the 'death of x86' issue is that currently, CPUs are 'fast enough' for most people; for that matter, they're faster than a lot of people need. Apple's iPad processors are fast enough for what most non-professionals need to do, and looking at these benchmarks I'm wondering how many e.g. students, even when they do need a laptop, even need one with as much power as the iPad Air line has right now. Putting it another way: if Dell started offering ARM desktops with half the performance of the iPad Pro and the size and price of an AppleTV, AND they could run typical Office apps, would businesses (which were not bound by legacy software) start buying those instead? I think the sense, in 2011, that ARM was the Intel-killing super robot from the future wasn't about ARM's ability to scale up, but about Intel's ability to scale down. Intel has held the performance crown for quite a while, but there's always seemed to be a minimum level of requirement involved; to buy a modern Intel system is to buy a system with a certain minimum power draw, weight, functionality, etc. ARM is appealing in the sense that it can start very small (see: RPi) and scale upwards from there (see: iPad Pro). Intel, is more than capable of reaching the high end, but the sentiment was always that they couldn't reach the low end, whether that was strictly true or not. It's not a question of will x86 die; it won't, really. It's a question of does Intel bring something to the table with x86 that is necessary for the mass market? What's dying isn't Intel or x86, it's the assumption that we're stuck with Intel and x86 for doing any real work. Edit: I sure hope I don't sound like an idiot in this post because I've been a big fan of your writing and insights so I'm hoping I'm not showing off how dumb I am.