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What specifically made you wish for ARM? Is there something specific with ARM which is not possible in X86? I personally looking for factors like: low Power, h

by Rillen 6y ago

What specifically made you wish for ARM? Is there something specific with ARM which is not possible in X86? I personally looking for factors like: low Power, high Performance, snappiness and 4k display support. I have no real wish for ARM because it doesn't matter what architecture i use if it is compatible to what i need. If Apple would have brought out M1 x86, it would also have helped the market.

bayindirh 6y ago
It broadens people's mind. Especially software designers and low-level programmers. There's a lot of software (esp. low level libraries, scientific applications, etc.) which is optimized (sometimes hand-optimized) for a specific architecture. Not every software is released with "compile -> test -> release" cycle. Some resources on a CPU is extremely limited (e.g. dividers) and using them is expensive. Alternative architectures changing these balances or being more efficient in some workloads is game-changing. This is what GPUs did for AI, ML, Simulation and Maths domains. e.g.: Eigen's speed increases 300% when compiled with optimizations enabled. Especially its solvers show this performance shift. So, if ARM can change these balances and be more efficient under some workloads, it can carve a space for itself besides x86 and GPUs. This is why Apple's efforts and M1 is so important. When there's only one architecture (x86, CUDA, etc.), innovation stagnates, people's imagination shrinks.
- swiley 6y ago
  The M1 mac isn't the first ARM based PC, and it's not the first popular one. Most Linux users have had plenty of ARM based PCs for a while now, often (at least for me) they've outnumbered the x86 based ones. Most distros and OSS have dealt with the issues on arm already.
  - bayindirh 6y ago
    > The M1 mac isn't the first ARM based PC, and it's not the first popular one... However, it's the first popular and heavily backed ARM CPU which can compete with high end x86. > Most distros and OSS have dealt with the issues on arm already. I also use a lot of ARM based SBCs for a long time but, running a scientific application fast is not the same thing as booting Linux or making it reasonably performant/stable. My day job and personal research is involved with supercomputers a lot. So I live in parallel applications / architectures. There are certain scientific applications which run considerably faster in previous generation hardware when compared to current-gen ones, because they're heavily tuned for that generation's memory subsystem latencies and IPC characteristics (fetch, retire capacities and pipeline latencies to be exact). This sometimes implies that the code contains proper hints or hand-tuned asm for speed-critical sections. Eigen is a very good example of this optimization. It optimizes itself during compilation by compiling the architecture optimized paths with hints in the code and help of the compiler. So, having an ARM CPU which can surpass x86 will make these communities to take note of it. I'm not sure how Eigen performs on M1 for example (will see soon enough), or other software packages which are optimized for x86 extensively. These software packages will start to get optimizations for M1 or Apple silicon since it's pretty popular amongst scientists due to its POSIX nature and hardware quality. At the end of the day; yes, it's a glorified Raspberry Pi, but with looks and performance of a supercar, so it'll attract a different kind of user base and development effort.
  - kube-system 6y ago
    There's 'popular', and then there's mainstream. It looks like AS is set to become mainstream. A mainstream ARM desktop platform is going to be revolutionary in that it will force mainstream commercial developers to include ARM compatibility.
socialdemocrat 6y ago
I always wanted ARM too because x86 is of no interest to hobbyist using e.g. microcontrollers. I like learning low level stuff but never felt like it was worth the investment to properly learn the oddball x86 assembly code. I have an Amiga background where I did some assembly coding on Motorola 68000. I absolutely hated the x86 hardware platform when O switched over. It felt like everything was a kludge. Too few registers. Weird segment registers etc. ARM looks much nicer and you can use same instruction set on tiny micro Controllers.
- tachyonbeam 6y ago
  x86-64 is much nicer to work with than 32-bit x86, but I agree. I hope that AMD comes out with an ARM offering. I would love to see ARM PCs.
- Rillen 6y ago
  So the assembly code is different? Is it easier, more logical?
  - socialdemocrat 6y ago
    It is useful to differentiate between easy and hard as well as simple and complex. x86 has instructions which can make many thing “easy” But they are not simple. ARM is far more logically consistent. x86 is really messy and complex but often have lots of convenient instructions. So I would say ARM is easier to learn and it is easier to learn ARM code as everything by is more logical, regularized and consistent.

by Rillen 6y ago

bayindirh 6y ago

It broadens people's mind. Especially software designers and low-level programmers. There's a lot of software (esp. low level libraries, scientific applications, etc.) which is optimized (sometimes hand-optimized) for a specific architecture. Not every software is released with "compile -> test -> release" cycle. Some resources on a CPU is extremely limited (e.g. dividers) and using them is expensive. Alternative architectures changing these balances or being more efficient in some workloads is game-changing. This is what GPUs did for AI, ML, Simulation and Maths domains. e.g.: Eigen's speed increases 300% when compiled with optimizations enabled. Especially its solvers show this performance shift. So, if ARM can change these balances and be more efficient under some workloads, it can carve a space for itself besides x86 and GPUs. This is why Apple's efforts and M1 is so important. When there's only one architecture (x86, CUDA, etc.), innovation stagnates, people's imagination shrinks.

swiley 6y ago
The M1 mac isn't the first ARM based PC, and it's not the first popular one. Most Linux users have had plenty of ARM based PCs for a while now, often (at least for me) they've outnumbered the x86 based ones. Most distros and OSS have dealt with the issues on arm already.
- bayindirh 6y ago
  > The M1 mac isn't the first ARM based PC, and it's not the first popular one... However, it's the first popular and heavily backed ARM CPU which can compete with high end x86. > Most distros and OSS have dealt with the issues on arm already. I also use a lot of ARM based SBCs for a long time but, running a scientific application fast is not the same thing as booting Linux or making it reasonably performant/stable. My day job and personal research is involved with supercomputers a lot. So I live in parallel applications / architectures. There are certain scientific applications which run considerably faster in previous generation hardware when compared to current-gen ones, because they're heavily tuned for that generation's memory subsystem latencies and IPC characteristics (fetch, retire capacities and pipeline latencies to be exact). This sometimes implies that the code contains proper hints or hand-tuned asm for speed-critical sections. Eigen is a very good example of this optimization. It optimizes itself during compilation by compiling the architecture optimized paths with hints in the code and help of the compiler. So, having an ARM CPU which can surpass x86 will make these communities to take note of it. I'm not sure how Eigen performs on M1 for example (will see soon enough), or other software packages which are optimized for x86 extensively. These software packages will start to get optimizations for M1 or Apple silicon since it's pretty popular amongst scientists due to its POSIX nature and hardware quality. At the end of the day; yes, it's a glorified Raspberry Pi, but with looks and performance of a supercar, so it'll attract a different kind of user base and development effort.
- kube-system 6y ago
  There's 'popular', and then there's mainstream. It looks like AS is set to become mainstream. A mainstream ARM desktop platform is going to be revolutionary in that it will force mainstream commercial developers to include ARM compatibility.

socialdemocrat 6y ago

I always wanted ARM too because x86 is of no interest to hobbyist using e.g. microcontrollers. I like learning low level stuff but never felt like it was worth the investment to properly learn the oddball x86 assembly code. I have an Amiga background where I did some assembly coding on Motorola 68000. I absolutely hated the x86 hardware platform when O switched over. It felt like everything was a kludge. Too few registers. Weird segment registers etc. ARM looks much nicer and you can use same instruction set on tiny micro Controllers.

tachyonbeam 6y ago
x86-64 is much nicer to work with than 32-bit x86, but I agree. I hope that AMD comes out with an ARM offering. I would love to see ARM PCs.
Rillen 6y ago
So the assembly code is different? Is it easier, more logical?
- socialdemocrat 6y ago
  It is useful to differentiate between easy and hard as well as simple and complex. x86 has instructions which can make many thing “easy” But they are not simple. ARM is far more logically consistent. x86 is really messy and complex but often have lots of convenient instructions. So I would say ARM is easier to learn and it is easier to learn ARM code as everything by is more logical, regularized and consistent.