3 ms·
It took ARM 35 years to be an overnight success and x86 has a very large install base. It's not going anywhere. Remember this thread from not too long ago?
by egsmi 6y ago
It took ARM 35 years to be an overnight success and x86 has a very large install base. It's not going anywhere. Remember this thread from not too long ago?
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22837753 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22837753
x86 has lock in like that in spades.
What I think is much more interesting is what the software industry will do with all these random coprocessors we find in chips these days. They seem much less stable than an instruction set but amazing speed gains can be had there, so it's enticing. If software libraries can bring the dream of the HAL to reality, that would be pretty cool.
But from threads like these, it's safe to conclude we're not there just yet.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25057985 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25057985
- alwillis 6y agoBut x86 and Intel are losing badly in the highest growth part of the market: mobile/smart phones. Now $699 M1-based Mac mini is way faster than any Intel box in that price range and many that cost much more. The benchmarks that are starting to come out are just nuts, favoring the M1. Of course not all of the pieces are in place; that takes a while. But those developers that are on top of their game released universal versions of their apps that take full advantage of the M1 SoC and all of its benefits: unified memory, 8 CPU and GPU cores, Neural Engine, etc. It's day 1 of Big Sur being available and customers haven't gotten their M1 Macs yet, though they'll have them in a few days. In a couple of months, once the dust has settled and developers have gotten their hands on shipping hardware, people's understanding of what performance is possible on consumer-level hardware will be changed for good. There are Hollywood studios already planning to replace their high-end, pro Macs with M1 Mac minis because they'll be faster than what they have: https://appleinsider.com/articles/20/11/12/hollywood-thinks-new-mac-mini-could-be-huge-for-video-editors https://appleinsider.com/articles/20/11/12/hollywood-thinks-...
- totalZero 6y agoMobile phones have had a decade of phenomenal growth and development. Now people are at home again, and not quite so mobile. Commensurately, we are seeing a breath of life into a laptop/desktop market segment that, with few exceptions, has been marching to a steady drumbeat for at least the past six years.
- alwillis 6y agoCommensurately, we are seeing a breath of life into a laptop/desktop market segment True. The Mac had its best quarter ever, which should be a good setup for the transition to M1.
- izacus 6y ago> But x86 and Intel are losing badly in the highest growth part of the market: mobile/smart phones. x86 and Intel are making all their money running your k8s on AWS, GCP and other server platforms so you can consume on your locked down ARM device. That's where the big money and margins are. Apple never really could get a foothold in that market.
- alwillis 6y agox86 and Intel are making all their money running your k8s on AWS, GCP and other server platforms… ARM is coming for the datacenter too; this will not end well for Intel [1]: Amazon Web Services launched its Graviton2 processors, which promise up to 40% better performance from comparable x86-based instances for 20% less. Graviton2, based on the Arm architecture, may have a big impact on cloud workloads, AWS' cost structure, and Arm in the data center. [1]: https://www.zdnet.com/article/aws-graviton2-what-it-means-for-arm-in-the-data-center-cloud-enterprise-aws/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/aws-graviton2-what-it-means-fo...