9 ms·

It's time for Intel and x86 to die. But I would also be a little wary, because ARM systems are way more locked down than x86 systems today.

comeonseriously 6y ago
Why does Intel need to die? Sure they're not exactly the company they used to be, but would it be enough for them to just move away from x86? I'm just thinking I don't want just one or two or three companies doing procs.
- ashtonkem 6y ago
  They don't need to die, but if they don't begin to compete they simple will die.
- JAlexoid 6y ago
  Resource allocation. Intel dying would free up resources for development by other companies.
- AmericanChopper 6y ago
  Intel stagnated and at the same time started implementing some rather anti-consumer practices. This allowed AMD to take the performance lead off them with their latest generation of products. It’s fantastic that the market for processors is so competitive. I’ve grown to not like Intel very much recently, but I’m glad they’re here. They’ll keep the pressure on for further innovation, so AMD will either need to keep up or be overtaken again. Either of which is a good outcome for consumers.
vmception 6y ago
Is some of this because of those processor level flaws/exploits where the fixes resulted in disabling some processor commands making them slower and less efficient With only a completely new/different architecture getting those advances back?
StreamBright 6y ago
Absolutely not. We need more competition because the #1 reason we got to this situation is mono culture and a single platform (x86). We need Apple to succeed of creating an alternative ARM based desktop/laptop platform and for more competition we could add in Mips64 from China to the mix. I am really hoping that by 2025 we are going to have 3 major platforms available for end customers, so that there is real competition.
- Hamuko 6y ago
  Isn't having a whole bunch of different processor architectures at the same time kind of bad for end-users?
  - spijdar 6y ago
    This really depends. Once-upon-a-time, at least in the UNIX (tm) world, there were a plethora of ISAs, and this was the environment where ideas like Java really made sense. Write once, run anywhere. Most OSes are still pretty well situated to handle this. Java remains, and is easily cross platform. I can run Java-based proprietary games like Minecraft on my POWER9 desktop, despite no-one involved probably ever considering ppc64le a valid target. The CLR on Windows is also pretty easily cross-platform, although it won't help legacy x86 PE executables. Apple has solved this for ages on the tooling side, encouraging production of "fat" binaries with many arches since OS X was NeXT, and your .app packages needed to run on x86 + m68k + SPARC + PA-RISC. Emulators like Rosetta (and qemu's usermode emulation) can fill the gap of legacy executables, while these other technologies can make the end-user experience good. Of course, that's only if a) someone writes your platform's equivalent of Rosetta, and b) developers write crossplatform apps. So, the answer depends on how cynical or optimistic you are :-)
  - pabs3 6y ago
    The experience in Linux distros is that extra arches surface bugs that other arches paper over, leading to higher quality software. For example unaligned memory access is slower on some arches but causes crashes on other ones.
- JAlexoid 6y ago
totalZero 6y ago
It's time for tick-tock to die and Moore's Law to stop being the guiding light of Intel management. Instead, they should set up two groups: one to generate new architectures for desktop and server, and another to take the best features of those architectures and make them thermally efficient for use in laptops. The development of these two products should be unconstrained by time, because as we have seen, impossible deadlines delay the possible. In the past 10 years, most of the chips that amaze me have simply done what was already possible, just with enough thermal efficiency that they can be placed in mobile devices. Intel dying would be horrible for the world. They have so much institutional knowledge...

comeonseriously 6y ago

Why does Intel need to die? Sure they're not exactly the company they used to be, but would it be enough for them to just move away from x86? I'm just thinking I don't want just one or two or three companies doing procs.

ashtonkem 6y ago
They don't need to die, but if they don't begin to compete they simple will die.
JAlexoid 6y ago
Resource allocation. Intel dying would free up resources for development by other companies.
AmericanChopper 6y ago
Intel stagnated and at the same time started implementing some rather anti-consumer practices. This allowed AMD to take the performance lead off them with their latest generation of products. It’s fantastic that the market for processors is so competitive. I’ve grown to not like Intel very much recently, but I’m glad they’re here. They’ll keep the pressure on for further innovation, so AMD will either need to keep up or be overtaken again. Either of which is a good outcome for consumers.

vmception 6y ago

Is some of this because of those processor level flaws/exploits where the fixes resulted in disabling some processor commands making them slower and less efficient With only a completely new/different architecture getting those advances back?

StreamBright 6y ago

Absolutely not. We need more competition because the #1 reason we got to this situation is mono culture and a single platform (x86). We need Apple to succeed of creating an alternative ARM based desktop/laptop platform and for more competition we could add in Mips64 from China to the mix. I am really hoping that by 2025 we are going to have 3 major platforms available for end customers, so that there is real competition.

Hamuko 6y ago
Isn't having a whole bunch of different processor architectures at the same time kind of bad for end-users?
- spijdar 6y ago
  This really depends. Once-upon-a-time, at least in the UNIX (tm) world, there were a plethora of ISAs, and this was the environment where ideas like Java really made sense. Write once, run anywhere. Most OSes are still pretty well situated to handle this. Java remains, and is easily cross platform. I can run Java-based proprietary games like Minecraft on my POWER9 desktop, despite no-one involved probably ever considering ppc64le a valid target. The CLR on Windows is also pretty easily cross-platform, although it won't help legacy x86 PE executables. Apple has solved this for ages on the tooling side, encouraging production of "fat" binaries with many arches since OS X was NeXT, and your .app packages needed to run on x86 + m68k + SPARC + PA-RISC. Emulators like Rosetta (and qemu's usermode emulation) can fill the gap of legacy executables, while these other technologies can make the end-user experience good. Of course, that's only if a) someone writes your platform's equivalent of Rosetta, and b) developers write crossplatform apps. So, the answer depends on how cynical or optimistic you are :-)
- pabs3 6y ago
  The experience in Linux distros is that extra arches surface bugs that other arches paper over, leading to higher quality software. For example unaligned memory access is slower on some arches but causes crashes on other ones.
JAlexoid 6y ago

totalZero 6y ago

It's time for tick-tock to die and Moore's Law to stop being the guiding light of Intel management. Instead, they should set up two groups: one to generate new architectures for desktop and server, and another to take the best features of those architectures and make them thermally efficient for use in laptops. The development of these two products should be unconstrained by time, because as we have seen, impossible deadlines delay the possible. In the past 10 years, most of the chips that amaze me have simply done what was already possible, just with enough thermal efficiency that they can be placed in mobile devices. Intel dying would be horrible for the world. They have so much institutional knowledge...