4 ms·

Could anyone explain the main differences between this new Armv9 CPU and the Apple M1 ARMs? What are the strengths and weaknesses of the two or is one lightyear

Could anyone explain the main differences between this new Armv9 CPU and the Apple M1 ARMs? What are the strengths and weaknesses of the two or is one lightyears ahead of the other?

zibzab 5y ago
M1 is ARMv8.4 v9 has a bunch of neat features that improve security and performance (+ less baggage from ARMv7 which also improves area and power)
- gsnedders 5y ago
  > v9 has a bunch of neat features that improve security and performance Many of them are already optional features in later ARMv8 revisions, however.
  - zibzab 5y ago
    A lot of v8.x features were added to fix mistakes in v8. v9 brings a bunch of completely new stuff, specially in the security department.
- pantalaimon 5y ago
  Wikipedia claims it's ARMv8.5 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_ARMv8-A_cores https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_ARMv8-A_cores
wmf 5y ago
The Arm X2 is still going to be behind Apple Firestorm but at least Arm won't be trailing by 50% any more. At least for now Arm doesn't have an appetite for create monster 8-issue cores. See X1 vs. Firestorm: https://www.anandtech.com/show/16463/snapdragon-888-vs-exynos-2100-galaxy-s21-ultra/4 https://www.anandtech.com/show/16463/snapdragon-888-vs-exyno...
- zibzab 5y ago
  X1 is _not_ ARMv9 and there is not even a comparison with M1 on that page. X2 is not even out yet, you have no idea how it may perform. Why has every post on HN drift into blindly praising an unrelated product?
  - wmf 5y ago
    ARMv8 vs ARMv9 doesn't matter; performance matters. This article is about the X2 so of course we're going to discuss what little information we have.
  - klelatti 5y ago
    > In terms of the performance and power curve, the new X2 core extends itself ahead of the X1 curve in both metrics. The +16% performance figure in terms of the peak performance points, though it does come at a cost of higher power consumption. Some idea how the X2 will perform.
    - GeekyBear 5y ago
      >Some idea how the X2 will perform. If you read on a bit, there is some question that those performance metrics will be seen in the real world, due to existing thermal issues. > I am admittedly pessimistic in regards to power improvements in whichever node the next flagship SoCs come in (be it 5LPP or 4LPP). It could well be plausible that we wouldn’t see the full +16% improvement in actual SoCs next year.
      - zibzab 5y ago
        In general for moving from v8 to v9, I think 16% is extremely pessimistic. Removal of aarch32 has huge implications. And this is not limited to CPU but also touches MMU, caches and more that in v8 had to provide aarch32 compatible interfaces. This lead to really inefficient designs (for example, MMU walk which is extremely critical to performance is more than twice as complicated in ARMv8 compared to v7 and v9). The space saved by removing these can be used for bigger caches, wider units, better branch prediction and other fun stuff. Finally, note also that the baseline X1 numbers come from Samsung who we all know are worst in class right now. And they are using an inferior process. Let's see what qcomm, ampere and amazon can do with v9.
hajile 5y ago
ARMv8 is a big target [0]. You have 6 major ISA extensions of which recent ARM designs support 2 and Apple's support 5. There's also SVE which was a kind of side-option. In addition, there's the 32-bit version, the 64-bit version, the R and A versions all with different capabilities and support levels. ARMv9 tries to unify that a bit [1]. They add a new security model and SVE moves from a side option to a requirement. A bunch of the various v8 instructions also get bundled into the core requirements. A14 vs X2 is a different question. A14/M1 really dropped the ball by not supporting SVE. I suspect they will support it in their next generation of processors, but the problem is adoption. Everyone is jumping on the M1 units and won't be upgrading their laptops for another few years. As such, they'll be held back for the foreseeable future. Performance is no question and A14 will be retaining its lead for the next 2-3 years at least. X1 chips are already significantly slower than A14 chips. X2 only increases performance by 10-16% (as pointed out in the article, the 16% is a bit disingenuous as it compares X1 with 4mb cache to the x2 with 8mb of cache while X1 gets a decent speedup with the 8mb version). Furthermore, by the time X2 is actually in devices, Apple will already be launching their own next generation of processors (though I suspect we're about to see them move to small performance increases due to diminishing returns). [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AArch64 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AArch64 [1] https://www.anandtech.com/show/16584/arm-announces-armv9-architecture https://www.anandtech.com/show/16584/arm-announces-armv9-arc...
- JamesDeepDown 5y ago
  "I suspect we're about to see [Apple Silicon] move to small performance increases due to diminishing returns" Is there any discussion of this online, I'm curious to read more.
  - hajile 5y ago
    This has already happened. A14 is 3.1GHz while A13 is 2.66GHz. A14 is around 20% faster than A13 overall, but it is also clocked 14% higher which gives only around 6% more IPC. Power consumption all but guarantees that they won't be doing that too often.
- brokencode 5y ago

Could anyone explain the main differences between this new Armv9 CPU and the Apple M1 ARMs? What are the strengths and weaknesses of the two or is one lightyears ahead of the other?

zibzab 5y ago

M1 is ARMv8.4 v9 has a bunch of neat features that improve security and performance (+ less baggage from ARMv7 which also improves area and power)

gsnedders 5y ago
> v9 has a bunch of neat features that improve security and performance Many of them are already optional features in later ARMv8 revisions, however.
- zibzab 5y ago
  A lot of v8.x features were added to fix mistakes in v8. v9 brings a bunch of completely new stuff, specially in the security department.
pantalaimon 5y ago
Wikipedia claims it's ARMv8.5 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_ARMv8-A_cores https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_ARMv8-A_cores

wmf 5y ago

The Arm X2 is still going to be behind Apple Firestorm but at least Arm won't be trailing by 50% any more. At least for now Arm doesn't have an appetite for create monster 8-issue cores. See X1 vs. Firestorm: https://www.anandtech.com/show/16463/snapdragon-888-vs-exynos-2100-galaxy-s21-ultra/4 https://www.anandtech.com/show/16463/snapdragon-888-vs-exyno...

zibzab 5y ago
X1 is _not_ ARMv9 and there is not even a comparison with M1 on that page. X2 is not even out yet, you have no idea how it may perform. Why has every post on HN drift into blindly praising an unrelated product?
- wmf 5y ago
  ARMv8 vs ARMv9 doesn't matter; performance matters. This article is about the X2 so of course we're going to discuss what little information we have.
- klelatti 5y ago
  > In terms of the performance and power curve, the new X2 core extends itself ahead of the X1 curve in both metrics. The +16% performance figure in terms of the peak performance points, though it does come at a cost of higher power consumption. Some idea how the X2 will perform.
  - GeekyBear 5y ago
    >Some idea how the X2 will perform. If you read on a bit, there is some question that those performance metrics will be seen in the real world, due to existing thermal issues. > I am admittedly pessimistic in regards to power improvements in whichever node the next flagship SoCs come in (be it 5LPP or 4LPP). It could well be plausible that we wouldn’t see the full +16% improvement in actual SoCs next year.
    - zibzab 5y ago
      In general for moving from v8 to v9, I think 16% is extremely pessimistic. Removal of aarch32 has huge implications. And this is not limited to CPU but also touches MMU, caches and more that in v8 had to provide aarch32 compatible interfaces. This lead to really inefficient designs (for example, MMU walk which is extremely critical to performance is more than twice as complicated in ARMv8 compared to v7 and v9). The space saved by removing these can be used for bigger caches, wider units, better branch prediction and other fun stuff. Finally, note also that the baseline X1 numbers come from Samsung who we all know are worst in class right now. And they are using an inferior process. Let's see what qcomm, ampere and amazon can do with v9.

hajile 5y ago

ARMv8 is a big target [0]. You have 6 major ISA extensions of which recent ARM designs support 2 and Apple's support 5. There's also SVE which was a kind of side-option. In addition, there's the 32-bit version, the 64-bit version, the R and A versions all with different capabilities and support levels. ARMv9 tries to unify that a bit [1]. They add a new security model and SVE moves from a side option to a requirement. A bunch of the various v8 instructions also get bundled into the core requirements. A14 vs X2 is a different question. A14/M1 really dropped the ball by not supporting SVE. I suspect they will support it in their next generation of processors, but the problem is adoption. Everyone is jumping on the M1 units and won't be upgrading their laptops for another few years. As such, they'll be held back for the foreseeable future. Performance is no question and A14 will be retaining its lead for the next 2-3 years at least. X1 chips are already significantly slower than A14 chips. X2 only increases performance by 10-16% (as pointed out in the article, the 16% is a bit disingenuous as it compares X1 with 4mb cache to the x2 with 8mb of cache while X1 gets a decent speedup with the 8mb version). Furthermore, by the time X2 is actually in devices, Apple will already be launching their own next generation of processors (though I suspect we're about to see them move to small performance increases due to diminishing returns). [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AArch64 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AArch64 [1] https://www.anandtech.com/show/16584/arm-announces-armv9-architecture https://www.anandtech.com/show/16584/arm-announces-armv9-arc...

JamesDeepDown 5y ago
"I suspect we're about to see [Apple Silicon] move to small performance increases due to diminishing returns" Is there any discussion of this online, I'm curious to read more.
- hajile 5y ago
  This has already happened. A14 is 3.1GHz while A13 is 2.66GHz. A14 is around 20% faster than A13 overall, but it is also clocked 14% higher which gives only around 6% more IPC. Power consumption all but guarantees that they won't be doing that too often.
brokencode 5y ago