4 ms·

The chart has 4 data points, but only 3 CPUs. The Cortex-76 is in the middle. Can anyone explain? Also, in the wider socioeconomic picture, everyone once got

The chart has 4 data points, but only 3 CPUs. The Cortex-76 is in the middle. Can anyone explain? Also, in the wider socioeconomic picture, everyone once got the same computational technology eventually, because better was also cheaper. Now, computation is stratifying, like any normal industry, where you get what you pay for. This ending of egalitarianism is bad.

blu42 7y ago
One guess re the second CA76 datapoint would be N1.
- hyperpallium 7y ago
  N1? please elaborate
  - blu42 7y ago
    The datacentre (AKA 'Neoverse') CA76 variant.
clouddrover 7y ago
> where you get what you pay for I think that's always been true for CPUs and GPUs. The faster ones were always the more expensive ones.
- hyperpallium 7y ago
  "eventually" the faster ones got cheaper, in previous times
  - clouddrover 7y ago
    No, there was just a new model of processor and the cheaper variant of it was faster than the previous model's cheaper variant. Things haven't changed in that regard.
    - hyperpallium 7y ago
      The new cheaper variant was never faster than a previous model's cheaper variant - even of a few generations back? As one extreme counter point, the cheapest smartphones today have better performance than the original iphone.
- onion2k 7y ago
  To me "you get what you pay for" implies a linear relationship between cost and speed, and that has never really been the case. Sometimes you pay a lot more money for a little more speed.
  - ska 7y ago
    There has always been a nonlinear ramp up for the latest and greatest - typically targeted to enterprise applications that are more time sensitive than cost sensitive. If you are cringing at the idea of a 3k+ cpu (or 9k+ gpu), it quite literally wasn't built for you.
oflordal 7y ago
Supposedly the step in the middle is SW optimizations?
- holy_city 7y ago
  This, 1000%. Especially floating point arithmetic. Compilers aren't that great at vectorization (or more accurately, people aren't that great at writing algorithms that can be vectorized), and scalar operations on x86_64 have the same latency as their vectorized counterparts. When you account for how smart the pipelining/out-of-order engines on x86_64 CPUs are, even with additional/redundant arithmetic you can achieve >4x throughput for the same algorithm. Audio is one of the big areas where we can see huge gains, and I think philosophies about optimization are changing. That said, there are myths out there like "recursive filters can't be vectorized" that need to be dispelled.
  - slaymaker1907 7y ago
    It has gotten very tricky on x86 since using the really wide SIMD instructions can more than halve your clock speed for ALL instructions running on that particular core.
    - holy_city 7y ago
      iirc that's only with some processors using AVX2/512 instructions, which are still faster than scalar (depending on what you're doing around the math). Things being tricky with AVX and cache-weirdness doesn't change the fact that if you're not vectorizing your arithmetic you're losing performance. There's also an argument to be made if you're writing performance critical code you shouldn't optimize it for mid/bottom end hardware, but not everyone agrees.
0815test 7y ago
Computing technology is more egalitarian today than it ever was. Unless you're gaming, doing software development or serious science-related work, you can get away with something baseline and dirt-cheap, and it will work just fine. Maybe slightly less so in mobile but still, usable compute really isn't that niche even in that space.
- hyperpallium 7y ago
  True, it's more egalitarian today, than it was 10, 20, 30 years ago etc, but the trend I'm talking about has only just began (perhaps 2 years ago, barely an upgrade cycle). Where will it be in 10 years? What market forces stop vendors selling small quantities of far better tech at far better profits? Price discrimination is fundamental in marketing: different people will (can) pay different prices. An extreme example: I believe the military gets more advanced process nodes, when there are only small runs, before mass production.
  - robocat 7y ago
    > What market forces stop vendors selling small quantities of far better tech at far better profits? I think the iPad Pro answers that. Could you buy or design a faster mobile processor than the A12X? "High volume, high profit" trumps "low volume, extreme profit".
    - hyperpallium 7y ago
      Oh, you have both, in fact a range of price points.

blu42 7y ago

One guess re the second CA76 datapoint would be N1.

hyperpallium 7y ago
N1? please elaborate
- blu42 7y ago
  The datacentre (AKA 'Neoverse') CA76 variant.

clouddrover 7y ago

> where you get what you pay for I think that's always been true for CPUs and GPUs. The faster ones were always the more expensive ones.

hyperpallium 7y ago
"eventually" the faster ones got cheaper, in previous times
- clouddrover 7y ago
  No, there was just a new model of processor and the cheaper variant of it was faster than the previous model's cheaper variant. Things haven't changed in that regard.
  - hyperpallium 7y ago
    The new cheaper variant was never faster than a previous model's cheaper variant - even of a few generations back? As one extreme counter point, the cheapest smartphones today have better performance than the original iphone.
onion2k 7y ago
To me "you get what you pay for" implies a linear relationship between cost and speed, and that has never really been the case. Sometimes you pay a lot more money for a little more speed.
- ska 7y ago
  There has always been a nonlinear ramp up for the latest and greatest - typically targeted to enterprise applications that are more time sensitive than cost sensitive. If you are cringing at the idea of a 3k+ cpu (or 9k+ gpu), it quite literally wasn't built for you.

oflordal 7y ago

Supposedly the step in the middle is SW optimizations?

holy_city 7y ago
This, 1000%. Especially floating point arithmetic. Compilers aren't that great at vectorization (or more accurately, people aren't that great at writing algorithms that can be vectorized), and scalar operations on x86_64 have the same latency as their vectorized counterparts. When you account for how smart the pipelining/out-of-order engines on x86_64 CPUs are, even with additional/redundant arithmetic you can achieve >4x throughput for the same algorithm. Audio is one of the big areas where we can see huge gains, and I think philosophies about optimization are changing. That said, there are myths out there like "recursive filters can't be vectorized" that need to be dispelled.
- slaymaker1907 7y ago
  It has gotten very tricky on x86 since using the really wide SIMD instructions can more than halve your clock speed for ALL instructions running on that particular core.
  - holy_city 7y ago
    iirc that's only with some processors using AVX2/512 instructions, which are still faster than scalar (depending on what you're doing around the math). Things being tricky with AVX and cache-weirdness doesn't change the fact that if you're not vectorizing your arithmetic you're losing performance. There's also an argument to be made if you're writing performance critical code you shouldn't optimize it for mid/bottom end hardware, but not everyone agrees.

0815test 7y ago

Computing technology is more egalitarian today than it ever was. Unless you're gaming, doing software development or serious science-related work, you can get away with something baseline and dirt-cheap, and it will work just fine. Maybe slightly less so in mobile but still, usable compute really isn't that niche even in that space.

hyperpallium 7y ago
True, it's more egalitarian today, than it was 10, 20, 30 years ago etc, but the trend I'm talking about has only just began (perhaps 2 years ago, barely an upgrade cycle). Where will it be in 10 years? What market forces stop vendors selling small quantities of far better tech at far better profits? Price discrimination is fundamental in marketing: different people will (can) pay different prices. An extreme example: I believe the military gets more advanced process nodes, when there are only small runs, before mass production.
- robocat 7y ago
  > What market forces stop vendors selling small quantities of far better tech at far better profits? I think the iPad Pro answers that. Could you buy or design a faster mobile processor than the A12X? "High volume, high profit" trumps "low volume, extreme profit".
  - hyperpallium 7y ago
    Oh, you have both, in fact a range of price points.