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Why do they still bother installing Intel? I am in the market for a new laptop, but I simply cannot buy a reheated vintage CPU that likes to spin fans loudly. T

Why do they still bother installing Intel? I am in the market for a new laptop, but I simply cannot buy a reheated vintage CPU that likes to spin fans loudly. Then the Ryzen one is old as well. Why not a new gen? Why not trying ARM like Apple did?

bogidon 6y ago
They do have a Surface Pro X with their ARM "SQ" chips which they work with Qualcomm to make. It's nowhere near as good compared to the M1 according to the layperson's benchmarks I've seen though. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/p/surface-pro-x/8qg3bmrhnwhk https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/p/surface-pro-x/8qg3bmrhnwhk
Wohlf 6y ago
>Why do they still bother installing Intel? Because despite getting clobbered on desktop, Intel is still competitive in laptops and produces more than AMD can. >Then the Ryzen one is old as well. Why not a new gen? Because there's not enough supply. >Why not trying ARM like Apple did? Because people use Microsoft for backwards compatibility. They tried it before with Windows RT, and it was a flop.
- varispeed 6y ago
  These are sane points. However, given the circumstances I don't understand why releasing a new product when it already feels few years old at launch. Just to keep themselves busy? Keep practicing releases? Maybe they could have channelled that energy towards beating Apple instead...
  - Wohlf 6y ago
    That I can't answer. My guess is it's to meet some sort of contract they have together, like Microsoft sells laptops with AMD processors and gets a better deal on Xbox components. The AMD SKUs seem to top out at 16GB of RAM and smaller SSDs, which signals to me MS doesn't expect to sell as many.
techrat 6y ago
> Why not trying ARM like Apple did? They did. Several times. People turned their noses at them because they couldn't install outside of their app store or their garbage x86 apps directly. The models that did offer x86 compatibility over ARM performed poorly. Apple can get away with segmentation because people will still buy Apple products because they're Apple products. Microsoft's own brand doesn't carry the same fashionable prestige, so minor annoyances on Macbooks become dealbreakers on Surface.
- spideymans 6y ago
  >Apple can get away with segmentation because people will still buy Apple products because they're Apple products. Microsoft's own brand doesn't carry the same fashionable prestige, so minor annoyances on Macbooks become dealbreakers on Surface. ??? Apple gets away with it because their x86 -> ARM translation actually works. Without it the M1 Macs would be DOA. Hopefully Windows will soon see an equally as effective x86 -> ARM translation layer.
- Toutouxc 6y ago
  > Apple can get away with segmentation because people will still buy Apple products because they're Apple products. Apple can get away with an on-the-fly architecture transition, because they're willing to invest a shit ton of resources, and also because Rosetta 2 is the software equivalent of the Top Gear opening theme played by Slash on a guitar that's on fire.
fomine3 6y ago
That's intel but not 14nm/Skylake. It's Tiger Lake that's pretty competitive with Ryzen Renoir, especially on idle power consumption

bogidon 6y ago

They do have a Surface Pro X with their ARM "SQ" chips which they work with Qualcomm to make. It's nowhere near as good compared to the M1 according to the layperson's benchmarks I've seen though. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/p/surface-pro-x/8qg3bmrhnwhk https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/p/surface-pro-x/8qg3bmrhnwhk

Wohlf 6y ago

>Why do they still bother installing Intel? Because despite getting clobbered on desktop, Intel is still competitive in laptops and produces more than AMD can. >Then the Ryzen one is old as well. Why not a new gen? Because there's not enough supply. >Why not trying ARM like Apple did? Because people use Microsoft for backwards compatibility. They tried it before with Windows RT, and it was a flop.

varispeed 6y ago
These are sane points. However, given the circumstances I don't understand why releasing a new product when it already feels few years old at launch. Just to keep themselves busy? Keep practicing releases? Maybe they could have channelled that energy towards beating Apple instead...
- Wohlf 6y ago
  That I can't answer. My guess is it's to meet some sort of contract they have together, like Microsoft sells laptops with AMD processors and gets a better deal on Xbox components. The AMD SKUs seem to top out at 16GB of RAM and smaller SSDs, which signals to me MS doesn't expect to sell as many.

techrat 6y ago

> Why not trying ARM like Apple did? They did. Several times. People turned their noses at them because they couldn't install outside of their app store or their garbage x86 apps directly. The models that did offer x86 compatibility over ARM performed poorly. Apple can get away with segmentation because people will still buy Apple products because they're Apple products. Microsoft's own brand doesn't carry the same fashionable prestige, so minor annoyances on Macbooks become dealbreakers on Surface.

spideymans 6y ago
>Apple can get away with segmentation because people will still buy Apple products because they're Apple products. Microsoft's own brand doesn't carry the same fashionable prestige, so minor annoyances on Macbooks become dealbreakers on Surface. ??? Apple gets away with it because their x86 -> ARM translation actually works. Without it the M1 Macs would be DOA. Hopefully Windows will soon see an equally as effective x86 -> ARM translation layer.
Toutouxc 6y ago
> Apple can get away with segmentation because people will still buy Apple products because they're Apple products. Apple can get away with an on-the-fly architecture transition, because they're willing to invest a shit ton of resources, and also because Rosetta 2 is the software equivalent of the Top Gear opening theme played by Slash on a guitar that's on fire.

fomine3 6y ago

That's intel but not 14nm/Skylake. It's Tiger Lake that's pretty competitive with Ryzen Renoir, especially on idle power consumption