7 ms·

This is the kind of thing that will cause Apple to switch to internally designed arm chips for their Mac line with great alacrity. One could argue that it’s su

This is the kind of thing that will cause Apple to switch to internally designed arm chips for their Mac line with great alacrity. One could argue that it’s surprising they haven’t already.

loeg 9y ago
Performance still matters. They're getting closer, but they aren't there.
- lloeki 9y ago
  > "baseline score of 4400 (which is the score of an Intel Core i7-6600U" https://twitter.com/codinghorror/status/907711853530300416 https://twitter.com/codinghorror/status/907711853530300416 It rips my current computer apart, which is perfectly decent: https://browser.geekbench.com/v4/cpu/compare/4107961?baseline=3967901 https://browser.geekbench.com/v4/cpu/compare/4107961?baselin...
  - intoverflow2 9y ago
    Am I the only one sceptical about if these scores actually translate to true computing power? If these things can outperform on passive cooling why are we not seeing people building farms out of them with active cooling.
    - lloeki 9y ago
      You're right but it's not a drop-in replacement: obviously being passively cooled into such a small device does not make it useful for constantly sustained performance. I'm confident aptly designed hardware surrounding those chips could have the characteristics we're looking for, but there are multiple barriers to break, such as a software <-> hardware synergy that is lacking for laptops, desktops and servers on the ARM side of things, as well as the current platform being largely good enough, so there's really no incentive (yet). IOW it's too esoteric right now to be of value, although some have tried, such as Scaleway, but that's not A11, and we all know where non-Apple ARM performance stands currently.
    - loeg 9y ago
      I am also skeptical. I would love to be proven wrong and see ARM as a successful competitor to Intel's monopoly first and the x86 monoculture second. (I'm also excited by AMD's recent successes in the CPU sphere. The Threadripper 1950X is a phenomenal CPU — 16 real cores at 3.4GHz is nuts and like nothing Intel sells.)
    - esmi 9y ago
      I think they can very likely match the TDP-down (7.5W,800MHz) performance of a Intel CPU from 2015 in a passively cooled iPhone. Now can they match the TDP-up (25W,2.8GHz,actively cooled) performance of this chip? Probably not. That's the thing with Intel CPUs. There are a huge number of ways to configure them. Even knowing the part number is not really enough to judge what the overall system performance will be. https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/intel/core_i7/i7-6600u https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/intel/core_i7/i7-6600u
michaelmrose 9y ago
Its possible that this isn't so because the performance would be relatively crap.
- NathanWilliams 9y ago
  I wouldn’t be so quick to dismiss the idea on performance. The new A11 seems to be doing pretty well: https://www.extremetech.com/mobile/256090-apples-new-a11-bionic-packs-one-hell-wallop https://www.extremetech.com/mobile/256090-apples-new-a11-bio... Now imagine that with a laptop’s power budget. Put a Transmetta like x86 decoder in front for legacy apps, combine with Apple’a full stack control, custom blocks on the chips, llvm bitcode and a few more years of development and you end up with a laptop that covers 80% of Apple’s market. They can still use Intel for higher end machines, but the bulk of laptops will be all Apple. Along with unbeatable battery life.
  - michaelmrose 9y ago
    Translating from x86 on the fly to run most existing desktop apps combined with switching to an under performing platform would be a one two punch that would make apple unpalatable compared to the competition. Further it would disable the idea of installing windows in a partition for gaming or other purposes. It would further require supporting software on both x86 and arm unless apple is willing to wholly surrender the high end. Apple laptops already have a good battery life. I don't think people would be willing to give up performance relative to competitors products to have better battery life. Basically in sum you are expecting apple to support 2 different hardware arch on the desktop/laptop, have inferior performance compared to windows, give up bootcamp etc in order for people to have 14 hours of battery instead of 9 when they will just do what they currently do and plug their devices in when they go to bed. Its certainly an interesting idea but I think the downsides outweigh the positives.
    - NathanWilliams 9y ago
      I think different people have different use cases. Not everyone is tied to legacy apps. I’m sure a lot of MacBook Airs are just used for web and email. Look at the Macbook, it’s trade-offs are for people that want long battery life and probably do a lot of typing. Think journalists on the road, on long flights. I’m sure that market would jump at longer battery life for majority of apps. As for not being able to install Windows, I’m sure you could if the x86 front end was in silicon (again, think Transmetta), but it is probably not for that target market anyway. As for Apple supporting two systems, I don’t see the problem. They did it for the 68k to PPC and PPC to x86 transition, and when you own the entire stack, including system language and build chain, it probably isn’t as big a deal as cross platform with different APIs and paradigms.
otterley 9y ago
Apple is a large enough buyer that they could probably get Intel to supply CPUs with the feature disabled. They likely don't have to go as far as changing the CPU architecture entirely.
- cyphar 9y ago
  Google has already asked and Intel said no. You would need to get a coalition of many different OEMs in order to force Intel's hand. EDIT: Actually, I might be mis-remembering. After a short while of searching I couldn't find any references to what I just said (though searching for "Google" appears to make the results less relevant than normal).
  - otterley 9y ago
    Do you have a reference for this?
    - cyphar 9y ago
      I just searched for a while and couldn't find it, so I must be mis-remembering. Edited.
      - jacobush 9y ago
        You must be. We have always been at war with Eurasia.
oroup 9y ago
Give me a break. The same three letter agency that convinced Intel to do this will convince Apple to do the same. I'm guessing you're basing your faith in Apple based on their refusal to cooperate in the San Bernadino case[1] and the so-called "cop button" in iOS 11[2]. (And some generic "we value privacy" rhetoric that I won't bother linking.) That stuff is great but doesn't mean much. Just because they're blocking border agents from trivially imaging phones at the border doesn't mean that they won't cooperate at a higher level with some undocumented baseband features. Just as Defense in Depth is a concept in security, we've already seen a corollary "Offense in Depth" from the intelligence community. Is the best attack in the random number generator[3] or undocumented silicon[4] or intercepting your boxes on the way to your data center[5] or tapping your fiber[6] or stealing your certs[7] or paying your employees to go rogue[8]? Why choose when you can just do them all. Apple hardware is vertically integrated and utterly undocumented. The AMT chip has been present on motherboards since 2006[9]. The Snowden Introspection Engine found that the Wifi Chipset remains powered up even when Wifi is turned off.[10] I find it hard to believe that the same government who went to all these lengths to compromise our infrastructure would really let Apple get away with refusing. How did that turn out for Joseph Nacchio?[11] [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-wants-apple-to-help-unlock-iphone-used-by-san-bernardino-shooter/2016/02/16/69b903ee-d4d9-11e5-9823-02b905009f99_story.html?utm_term=.28bb85453e0a https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-wa... [2] https://www.cultofmac.com/498052/ios-11-lets-quickly-disable-touch-id-prevent-forced-unlocks/ https://www.cultofmac.com/498052/ios-11-lets-quickly-disable... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Random_number_generator_attack#Possible_Backdoor_in_Elliptical_Curve_DRBG https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Random_number_generator_attack... [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardware_backdoor#Examples https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardware_backdoor#Examples [5] https://www.extremetech.com/computing/173721-the-nsa-regularly-intercepts-laptop-shipments-to-implant-malware-report-says https://www.extremetech.com/computing/173721-the-nsa-regular... [6] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/10/new-docs-show-nsa-taps-google-yahoo-data-center-links/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/10/new-docs-show-ns... [7] https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2013/12/09/serious-security-google-finds-fake-but-trusted-ssl-certificates-for-its-domains-made-in-france/ https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2013/12/09/serious-security... [8] http://www.ocweekly.com/news/fbi-used-best-buys-geek-squad-to-increase-secret-public-surveillance-7950030 http://www.ocweekly.com/news/fbi-used-best-buys-geek-squad-t... [9] https://libreboot.org/faq.html#intel https://libreboot.org/faq.html#intel [10] https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2996800-AgainstTheLaw.html#document/p2 https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2996800-AgainstTheLa... [11] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Nacchio https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Nacchio
nickrio 9y ago
Why Apple wants to do that? I mean, if use a tapped Intel chip can keep FBI and NSA away from their door step, they probably more than happy do to that. Because at the end of the day, most people will only blame Intel, not them.
- breatheoften 9y ago
  In the short term maybe, but in the long term apples capacity to generate profit will eventually depend on their ability to implement systems that operate in society with incredibly high levels of trustable operation (autonomous cars, robots... — who knows what the future tech will bring — many of those possibilities will require at least same as level of computing security as is possible now. If it becomes widely possible to remotely compromise anything with an Intel chip — then the intel parts will simply not be viable parts in future products)

This is the kind of thing that will cause Apple to switch to internally designed arm chips for their Mac line with great alacrity. One could argue that it’s surprising they haven’t already.

loeg 9y ago

Performance still matters. They're getting closer, but they aren't there.

lloeki 9y ago
> "baseline score of 4400 (which is the score of an Intel Core i7-6600U" https://twitter.com/codinghorror/status/907711853530300416 https://twitter.com/codinghorror/status/907711853530300416 It rips my current computer apart, which is perfectly decent: https://browser.geekbench.com/v4/cpu/compare/4107961?baseline=3967901 https://browser.geekbench.com/v4/cpu/compare/4107961?baselin...
- intoverflow2 9y ago
  Am I the only one sceptical about if these scores actually translate to true computing power? If these things can outperform on passive cooling why are we not seeing people building farms out of them with active cooling.
  - lloeki 9y ago
    You're right but it's not a drop-in replacement: obviously being passively cooled into such a small device does not make it useful for constantly sustained performance. I'm confident aptly designed hardware surrounding those chips could have the characteristics we're looking for, but there are multiple barriers to break, such as a software <-> hardware synergy that is lacking for laptops, desktops and servers on the ARM side of things, as well as the current platform being largely good enough, so there's really no incentive (yet). IOW it's too esoteric right now to be of value, although some have tried, such as Scaleway, but that's not A11, and we all know where non-Apple ARM performance stands currently.
  - loeg 9y ago
    I am also skeptical. I would love to be proven wrong and see ARM as a successful competitor to Intel's monopoly first and the x86 monoculture second. (I'm also excited by AMD's recent successes in the CPU sphere. The Threadripper 1950X is a phenomenal CPU — 16 real cores at 3.4GHz is nuts and like nothing Intel sells.)
  - esmi 9y ago
    I think they can very likely match the TDP-down (7.5W,800MHz) performance of a Intel CPU from 2015 in a passively cooled iPhone. Now can they match the TDP-up (25W,2.8GHz,actively cooled) performance of this chip? Probably not. That's the thing with Intel CPUs. There are a huge number of ways to configure them. Even knowing the part number is not really enough to judge what the overall system performance will be. https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/intel/core_i7/i7-6600u https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/intel/core_i7/i7-6600u

michaelmrose 9y ago

Its possible that this isn't so because the performance would be relatively crap.

NathanWilliams 9y ago
I wouldn’t be so quick to dismiss the idea on performance. The new A11 seems to be doing pretty well: https://www.extremetech.com/mobile/256090-apples-new-a11-bionic-packs-one-hell-wallop https://www.extremetech.com/mobile/256090-apples-new-a11-bio... Now imagine that with a laptop’s power budget. Put a Transmetta like x86 decoder in front for legacy apps, combine with Apple’a full stack control, custom blocks on the chips, llvm bitcode and a few more years of development and you end up with a laptop that covers 80% of Apple’s market. They can still use Intel for higher end machines, but the bulk of laptops will be all Apple. Along with unbeatable battery life.
- michaelmrose 9y ago
  Translating from x86 on the fly to run most existing desktop apps combined with switching to an under performing platform would be a one two punch that would make apple unpalatable compared to the competition. Further it would disable the idea of installing windows in a partition for gaming or other purposes. It would further require supporting software on both x86 and arm unless apple is willing to wholly surrender the high end. Apple laptops already have a good battery life. I don't think people would be willing to give up performance relative to competitors products to have better battery life. Basically in sum you are expecting apple to support 2 different hardware arch on the desktop/laptop, have inferior performance compared to windows, give up bootcamp etc in order for people to have 14 hours of battery instead of 9 when they will just do what they currently do and plug their devices in when they go to bed. Its certainly an interesting idea but I think the downsides outweigh the positives.
  - NathanWilliams 9y ago
    I think different people have different use cases. Not everyone is tied to legacy apps. I’m sure a lot of MacBook Airs are just used for web and email. Look at the Macbook, it’s trade-offs are for people that want long battery life and probably do a lot of typing. Think journalists on the road, on long flights. I’m sure that market would jump at longer battery life for majority of apps. As for not being able to install Windows, I’m sure you could if the x86 front end was in silicon (again, think Transmetta), but it is probably not for that target market anyway. As for Apple supporting two systems, I don’t see the problem. They did it for the 68k to PPC and PPC to x86 transition, and when you own the entire stack, including system language and build chain, it probably isn’t as big a deal as cross platform with different APIs and paradigms.

otterley 9y ago

Apple is a large enough buyer that they could probably get Intel to supply CPUs with the feature disabled. They likely don't have to go as far as changing the CPU architecture entirely.

cyphar 9y ago
Google has already asked and Intel said no. You would need to get a coalition of many different OEMs in order to force Intel's hand. EDIT: Actually, I might be mis-remembering. After a short while of searching I couldn't find any references to what I just said (though searching for "Google" appears to make the results less relevant than normal).
- otterley 9y ago
  Do you have a reference for this?
  - cyphar 9y ago
    I just searched for a while and couldn't find it, so I must be mis-remembering. Edited.
    - jacobush 9y ago
      You must be. We have always been at war with Eurasia.

oroup 9y ago

Give me a break. The same three letter agency that convinced Intel to do this will convince Apple to do the same. I'm guessing you're basing your faith in Apple based on their refusal to cooperate in the San Bernadino case[1] and the so-called "cop button" in iOS 11[2]. (And some generic "we value privacy" rhetoric that I won't bother linking.) That stuff is great but doesn't mean much. Just because they're blocking border agents from trivially imaging phones at the border doesn't mean that they won't cooperate at a higher level with some undocumented baseband features. Just as Defense in Depth is a concept in security, we've already seen a corollary "Offense in Depth" from the intelligence community. Is the best attack in the random number generator[3] or undocumented silicon[4] or intercepting your boxes on the way to your data center[5] or tapping your fiber[6] or stealing your certs[7] or paying your employees to go rogue[8]? Why choose when you can just do them all. Apple hardware is vertically integrated and utterly undocumented. The AMT chip has been present on motherboards since 2006[9]. The Snowden Introspection Engine found that the Wifi Chipset remains powered up even when Wifi is turned off.[10] I find it hard to believe that the same government who went to all these lengths to compromise our infrastructure would really let Apple get away with refusing. How did that turn out for Joseph Nacchio?[11] [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-wants-apple-to-help-unlock-iphone-used-by-san-bernardino-shooter/2016/02/16/69b903ee-d4d9-11e5-9823-02b905009f99_story.html?utm_term=.28bb85453e0a https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-wa... [2] https://www.cultofmac.com/498052/ios-11-lets-quickly-disable-touch-id-prevent-forced-unlocks/ https://www.cultofmac.com/498052/ios-11-lets-quickly-disable... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Random_number_generator_attack#Possible_Backdoor_in_Elliptical_Curve_DRBG https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Random_number_generator_attack... [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardware_backdoor#Examples https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardware_backdoor#Examples [5] https://www.extremetech.com/computing/173721-the-nsa-regularly-intercepts-laptop-shipments-to-implant-malware-report-says https://www.extremetech.com/computing/173721-the-nsa-regular... [6] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/10/new-docs-show-nsa-taps-google-yahoo-data-center-links/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/10/new-docs-show-ns... [7] https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2013/12/09/serious-security-google-finds-fake-but-trusted-ssl-certificates-for-its-domains-made-in-france/ https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2013/12/09/serious-security... [8] http://www.ocweekly.com/news/fbi-used-best-buys-geek-squad-to-increase-secret-public-surveillance-7950030 http://www.ocweekly.com/news/fbi-used-best-buys-geek-squad-t... [9] https://libreboot.org/faq.html#intel https://libreboot.org/faq.html#intel [10] https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2996800-AgainstTheLaw.html#document/p2 https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2996800-AgainstTheLa... [11] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Nacchio https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Nacchio

nickrio 9y ago

Why Apple wants to do that? I mean, if use a tapped Intel chip can keep FBI and NSA away from their door step, they probably more than happy do to that. Because at the end of the day, most people will only blame Intel, not them.

breatheoften 9y ago
In the short term maybe, but in the long term apples capacity to generate profit will eventually depend on their ability to implement systems that operate in society with incredibly high levels of trustable operation (autonomous cars, robots... — who knows what the future tech will bring — many of those possibilities will require at least same as level of computing security as is possible now. If it becomes widely possible to remotely compromise anything with an Intel chip — then the intel parts will simply not be viable parts in future products)