4 ms·

> You dont want RISC-V in your PC Why not? Isn't the Apple M1 showing exactly the opposite?

by beaner 6y ago

mromanuk 6y ago
Apple M1 is not RISC V, it’s Arm and it’s heavily tweaked
- bem94 6y ago
  The point is that RISC-V allows people to build their own tweaked / extended processors without having to pay an ARM and a leg for it.
  - MangoCoffee 6y ago
    >without having to pay an ARM and a leg for it. why Apple M1 and AWS Graviton is based on ARM? if ARM license cost is a concern. even smaller players use ARM as well...
    - mlyle 6y ago
      Because RISC-V wasn't ready yet, and still isn't ready. Ecosystems matter. But the ecosystem sure seems primed for massive growth, and there's no architectural reason why RISC-V can't perform as high as ARM and beyond.
  - wmf 6y ago
    What's the cost of ARM licensing relative to designing a processor? 1%? 10%? 100%?
- beaner 6y ago
  I guess I interpreted the original comment as RISC vs CISC and an M1 is RISC, though not RISC-V.
- brucehoult 6y ago
  ARM64 and RISCV64 are so similar ISAs that whatever implementation you can do with one you can do with the other, given the same level of engineering skill and effort. Apple probably spent billions to make M1. If someone made the same investment with RISC-V they could get the same results -- the main company currently pushing higher performance RISC-V (SiFive) has total funding of under $200m so they clearly don't have billions to spend. They've got an announced CPU (tested in FPGA) with ARM A72 level performance. That's only about five years of very incremental performance improvements behind (non-Apple) ARM.
quelsolaar 6y ago
Only sort of. If you care about power consumption (like a thin and light laptop, a tablet or a phone) then the M1 looks pretty good. But if you want optimal performance, for gaming, engineering, ML, and other workstation tasks, then you want a design that is only optimized for performance, and can make use of a much larger power envelope.

> You dont want RISC-V in your PC Why not? Isn't the Apple M1 showing exactly the opposite?

by beaner 6y ago

> You dont want RISC-V in your PC Why not? Isn't the Apple M1 showing exactly the opposite?

mromanuk 6y ago

Apple M1 is not RISC V, it’s Arm and it’s heavily tweaked

bem94 6y ago
The point is that RISC-V allows people to build their own tweaked / extended processors without having to pay an ARM and a leg for it.
- MangoCoffee 6y ago
  >without having to pay an ARM and a leg for it. why Apple M1 and AWS Graviton is based on ARM? if ARM license cost is a concern. even smaller players use ARM as well...
  - mlyle 6y ago
    Because RISC-V wasn't ready yet, and still isn't ready. Ecosystems matter. But the ecosystem sure seems primed for massive growth, and there's no architectural reason why RISC-V can't perform as high as ARM and beyond.
- wmf 6y ago
  What's the cost of ARM licensing relative to designing a processor? 1%? 10%? 100%?
beaner 6y ago
I guess I interpreted the original comment as RISC vs CISC and an M1 is RISC, though not RISC-V.
brucehoult 6y ago
ARM64 and RISCV64 are so similar ISAs that whatever implementation you can do with one you can do with the other, given the same level of engineering skill and effort. Apple probably spent billions to make M1. If someone made the same investment with RISC-V they could get the same results -- the main company currently pushing higher performance RISC-V (SiFive) has total funding of under $200m so they clearly don't have billions to spend. They've got an announced CPU (tested in FPGA) with ARM A72 level performance. That's only about five years of very incremental performance improvements behind (non-Apple) ARM.

quelsolaar 6y ago

Only sort of. If you care about power consumption (like a thin and light laptop, a tablet or a phone) then the M1 looks pretty good. But if you want optimal performance, for gaming, engineering, ML, and other workstation tasks, then you want a design that is only optimized for performance, and can make use of a much larger power envelope.