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> Closed ARM? Is there any suggestion that the architecture that Apple is using is any different to what is being used by lots and lots of other licensees? If

> Closed ARM? Is there any suggestion that the architecture that Apple is using is any different to what is being used by lots and lots of other licensees? If not then it's much more open than x86. If you mean that you can't buy an ARM CPU today to plug into your own motherboard then understood but that's probably now a matter of time. At least making such a CPU is possible - no-one is going to make x86 more open.

sudosysgen 6y ago
x86 is already relatively open, there's more than four companies developing x86 chips, though for now they are mostly focused on very low power outside of Intel and AMD. There is no indication that I'll ever be able to buy an ARM CPU and plug it into motherboard with the feature set I choose and plug into it peripherals that follow a standard and open interface with good performance. The only companies that make ARM CPUs that could at all be useful in such an open platform don't make CPUs fast enough. I don't think Apple or Amazon will ever sell me a socketable CPU with high speed PCI support and XMP memory support.
- klelatti 6y ago
  ARM has 250 licensees for application processors with 8 licensees (including AMD and Nvidia) who can develop their own architectures around the 64 bit ARM instruction set. You can buy socketed ARM CPUs today that are likely to be more than fast enough - from Marvell for example. You're 100 % right that there isn't an ARM ecosystem at the moment in the way that there is a PC ecosystem with all its flexibility. But that's not a feature of the ARM architecture or what ARM as a company does - it's because x86 has historically dominated the desktop.
  - sudosysgen 6y ago
    There's only about two ARM licensees that can even come close to desktop tier performance. The instruction set doesn't matter if only one company can make a fast enough CPU, using a massive number proprietary changes to the original architecture. When we'll have three ARM companies making socketed CPUs with standardized I/O between them that are faster or very close to AMD or Intel, then it will be good.
    - imtringued 6y ago
      Preferably AMD just makes an ARM based chip. They have done so in the past.

sudosysgen 6y ago

x86 is already relatively open, there's more than four companies developing x86 chips, though for now they are mostly focused on very low power outside of Intel and AMD. There is no indication that I'll ever be able to buy an ARM CPU and plug it into motherboard with the feature set I choose and plug into it peripherals that follow a standard and open interface with good performance. The only companies that make ARM CPUs that could at all be useful in such an open platform don't make CPUs fast enough. I don't think Apple or Amazon will ever sell me a socketable CPU with high speed PCI support and XMP memory support.

klelatti 6y ago
ARM has 250 licensees for application processors with 8 licensees (including AMD and Nvidia) who can develop their own architectures around the 64 bit ARM instruction set. You can buy socketed ARM CPUs today that are likely to be more than fast enough - from Marvell for example. You're 100 % right that there isn't an ARM ecosystem at the moment in the way that there is a PC ecosystem with all its flexibility. But that's not a feature of the ARM architecture or what ARM as a company does - it's because x86 has historically dominated the desktop.
- sudosysgen 6y ago
  There's only about two ARM licensees that can even come close to desktop tier performance. The instruction set doesn't matter if only one company can make a fast enough CPU, using a massive number proprietary changes to the original architecture. When we'll have three ARM companies making socketed CPUs with standardized I/O between them that are faster or very close to AMD or Intel, then it will be good.
  - imtringued 6y ago
    Preferably AMD just makes an ARM based chip. They have done so in the past.