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It's a cool idea, but wouldn't the CPU be awfully far from the cache and RAM if you did that? You could put some RAM in the docking station with the x86 chip, b
by Analemma_ 10y ago
It's a cool idea, but wouldn't the CPU be awfully far from the cache and RAM if you did that? You could put some RAM in the docking station with the x86 chip, but at that point you're two-thirds of the way toward just having another computer in there, which kind of defeats the purpose.
- mmastrac 10y agoI agree, it would probably be necessary for everything to live in the docking station other than storage. You'd basically be transferring the live system state, which would then take over from the portable device. The idea here is that you can "convert" your mobile device into a powerful desktop, though in reality you are just moving the current, live state from mobile to desktop.
- bhauer 10y agoThat is what some people have conjectured is in the works with a "Surface Phone," although it's really anyone's guess at this point. But it certainly is very appealing. With this new emulation news, the use-case could be that you can run your x86 apps (slowly) in a pinch while out and about. When you get home or to the office, you dock up to get a full-powered PC experience.
- rbanffy 10y agoIt shouldn't take very long to copy a couple gigabytes (and it's usually not more than a couple) from RAM to RAM on docking. And a clever memory controller could copy it only when the memory is first demanded by the docking station CPU.