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AMD's strategy has been to focus on a narrow set of initiatives that they can execute well, rather than extend themselves into a bunch of different well-defende
by theevilsharpie 6y ago
AMD's strategy has been to focus on a narrow set of initiatives that they can execute well, rather than extend themselves into a bunch of different well-defended markets (as Intel has done to their detriment). In that regard, AMD developing an "M1" competitor, when they already have class-leading x86 processors, doesn't make sense.
Renoir -- AMD's current-generation mobile and desktop processors -- is already competitive with M1 (although integrated GPU performance is lackluster), and their next-generation Cezanne processors are right around the corner.
On the server side (since that's mentioned elsewhere in this thread), AMD previously released ARM-based Opteron processors, but they were slow and unpopular, and further work on that lineup was cancelled in favor of EPYC. Given that EPYC has single-handedly killed the entire ARM server ecosystem practically overnight (with the survivors being relegated to custom processors for supercomputers and hyperscalers), it's highly unlikely that AMD would revive their ARM efforts for this market.
The only situation where an ARM-based AMD processor would make sense, would be as a custom processor where someone else is footing the R&D and manufacturing bill. The only company that I could potentially see interested in such a thing (and would want an ARM-based processor specifically) is Apple themselves -- they need a high-performance ARM processor for the Mac Pro/iMac Pro, and a Threadripper variant with an ARM ISA might make more sense than developing their own in-house high-performance processor for a low-volume line. But even then, it would be an M1 complement, not a competitor.
Overall, I wouldn't put too much stock in this particular rumor.
- tengbretson 6y agoSupplying the chips for the Xbox and playstation consoles has been pretty successful for amd. I suspect both Microsoft and Sony will be looking long and hard at an arm soc for their next generation consoles and it would be wise for AMD to have an answer to that when it comes.
- Grazester 6y agoWhy would they if AMD's x86-64bit offering remaining competitive, affordable, will offer easy backwards compatibility and easy PC game porting for developers? Sony and Microsoft are going nowhere but back to AMD/x86 if the next generation of console remain to same and the whole concept doesn't change drastically.
- pjmlp 6y agoPS5 and XBox X are hardly out and it will take about 5 years for them to even bother to start thinking about something else. Plus on the XBox side, one of the plus is being able to have the titles on Windows store as well, without much effort to the devs. That is wishful thinking. The Switch is already using ARM from NVidia.
- fomine3 6y agoIs ARM transition worth? Maybe both arch doesn't matter for develop new games, but x86 is better to easily achieve PS4/5 Xbox One/Series compatibility.
- ilaksh 6y agoI was under the impression that ARM has intrinsic advantages for energy use and heat compared to x86.
- theevilsharpie 6y agoARM's dominance in the mobile and low-power market was largely a historical accident. In particular: - At the dawn of the smartphone market, existing x86 platforms were designed for high-performance applications that were too power-hungry for a mobile phone. - Intel wasn't interested in pursing low power mobile phone applications, and sold their XScale line to Marvell. - AMD couldn't afford to invest in low power mobile phone applications, and sold their entire handset division to Qualcomm. - VIA wasn't in a position to invest in much of anything, much less mobile phones. - MIPS was stagnant and didn't really have a clear roadmap or future, and RISC-V didn't exist yet. - ARM was available for third-parties to license, whereas x86 was not. As for efficiency, modern multi-core processors spend the overwhelming majority of their transistor budget on logic units and SRAM -- the cost of decoding instructions is trivial. In addition, many of the more esoteric x86 instructions are emulated in microcode. As such, I don't see how AArch64 would be inherently more efficient than x86-64.