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I am not really a knowledgeable person when it comes to CPUs, I just follow what Anandtech posts. And reading his comments on X1 it looks like ARM (and thus Qua

I am not really a knowledgeable person when it comes to CPUs, I just follow what Anandtech posts. And reading his comments on X1 it looks like ARM (and thus Qualcomm) are just being too conservative because there was really no business need for a non-Apple company to make such a large chip. But now there is, so it won't be impossible for them to catch up. Huawei's Kirin 9000 is already scoring close to A14 in multi core benchmarks and this is based on a year old A77 cortex design.

zamadatix 6y ago
Qualcomm's best phone chip (the 865) has 56% the single thread performance of the A14 as found in the iPhone 12. I'm just not following how suddenly with the M1 all Qualcomm needs to do is make a chip of the same size and it will be just as performant. The disparity in performance isn't new with the M1, Qualcomm ARM CPUs have been slower than Apple ARM CPUs for nearly a decade now. What was amazing about the M1 is that it beats even the best power hungry x86 chips in many single thread tasks as well, not that it suddenly jumped ahead Qualcomm (Apple was already ahead of Qualcomm). Also the business case isn't new, Qualcomm has been trying to display x86 laptop chips for years and has fallen short on performance every attempt. The M1 does not present a new challenge or new opportunity in this space, just better execution.
- harpratap 6y ago
  Firstly, single core scores aren't the be all end all of a CPU. Secondly, Kirin 9000 gets 3700 multi core vs 4000 A14, so quite close to that of Apple with a year old A77 cortex. ARM tried making their chips larger with X1 and it resulted in 30% improvement in the first iteration itself, so it's not crazy to think there are so many unrealized gains to be made by ARM and others. Second mover advantage is a thing. And lastly Qualcomm isn't the flag bearer of ARM chips. Nuvia, Ampere, HiSilicon and even old Mediatek & Samsung could take their crown.

zamadatix 6y ago

Qualcomm's best phone chip (the 865) has 56% the single thread performance of the A14 as found in the iPhone 12. I'm just not following how suddenly with the M1 all Qualcomm needs to do is make a chip of the same size and it will be just as performant. The disparity in performance isn't new with the M1, Qualcomm ARM CPUs have been slower than Apple ARM CPUs for nearly a decade now. What was amazing about the M1 is that it beats even the best power hungry x86 chips in many single thread tasks as well, not that it suddenly jumped ahead Qualcomm (Apple was already ahead of Qualcomm). Also the business case isn't new, Qualcomm has been trying to display x86 laptop chips for years and has fallen short on performance every attempt. The M1 does not present a new challenge or new opportunity in this space, just better execution.

harpratap 6y ago
Firstly, single core scores aren't the be all end all of a CPU. Secondly, Kirin 9000 gets 3700 multi core vs 4000 A14, so quite close to that of Apple with a year old A77 cortex. ARM tried making their chips larger with X1 and it resulted in 30% improvement in the first iteration itself, so it's not crazy to think there are so many unrealized gains to be made by ARM and others. Second mover advantage is a thing. And lastly Qualcomm isn't the flag bearer of ARM chips. Nuvia, Ampere, HiSilicon and even old Mediatek & Samsung could take their crown.