5 ms·

* enter RISC-V *

by easygenes 5y ago

* enter RISC-V *

bnt 5y ago
So we force Apple to migrate away from ARM? Or should the next iPhone have a swappable CPU?
- dcow 5y ago
  I’m not sure I understand how microcode is a problem here. Microcode isn’t an OS. I can compile for arm 8.3 and execute those instructions on apple silicon just fine. The kernel is the only thing that gets in the way, not the microcode…
  - cyberpunk 5y ago
    I guess they mean the coprocessor stuff, ime and whatever the AMD one is called. I mean this does forget the point that absolutely nothing is stopping anyone making a riscv processor which also has such features; we just have to take the manufacturer’s word that they don’t? Riscv isn’t the solution to any of these problems, but hopefully it’ll enable a few more ethical manufacturers to pop up who do make this stuff their core mission. Probably not, though.
- NotChina 5y ago
  Force? Apple can continue to mistreat their customers, and they'll beg for more.
hulitu 5y ago
RISC-V is "nice to have". I do not know of anybody who sells RISC-V computers or boards at a reasonable price.
- kilburn 5y ago
  Maybe it does not seem a reasonable price to you, but for people who don't know, the HiFive Unmatched [1] sells for 679$ [2]. This is the most powerful RISC-V platform you can buy today. It comes as a Mini-ITX board including 16Gb of DDR4 ram, 1Gbps ethernet, usb 3.2, PCI Express and NVMe. Of course it is less powerful than an x64 machine at the same price point, but it should work reasonably well when paired with an SSD and a graphics card. [1] https://www.sifive.com/boards/hifive-unmatched https://www.sifive.com/boards/hifive-unmatched [2] https://www.crowdsupply.com/sifive/hifive-unmatched https://www.crowdsupply.com/sifive/hifive-unmatched
  - feanaro 5y ago
    I find it weird how none of these links state the CPU frequency prominently (or at least I didn't notice it). Not even the product sheet has it.
    - monsieurbanana 5y ago
      On another hand, I don't remember the last time I was interested in a CPU's frequency. In isolation it gives no insights about the performance of a CPU, not even single-threaded performance. Even with the exact specs I wouldn't know how to interpret them, and I doubt many people would. Nowadays I just check the benchmarks of a CPU to have a rough idea of it's performance.
    - easygenes 5y ago
      1.5GHz for the four high speed cores, by the way.

* enter RISC-V *

bnt 5y ago

So we force Apple to migrate away from ARM? Or should the next iPhone have a swappable CPU?

dcow 5y ago
I’m not sure I understand how microcode is a problem here. Microcode isn’t an OS. I can compile for arm 8.3 and execute those instructions on apple silicon just fine. The kernel is the only thing that gets in the way, not the microcode…
- cyberpunk 5y ago
  I guess they mean the coprocessor stuff, ime and whatever the AMD one is called. I mean this does forget the point that absolutely nothing is stopping anyone making a riscv processor which also has such features; we just have to take the manufacturer’s word that they don’t? Riscv isn’t the solution to any of these problems, but hopefully it’ll enable a few more ethical manufacturers to pop up who do make this stuff their core mission. Probably not, though.
NotChina 5y ago
Force? Apple can continue to mistreat their customers, and they'll beg for more.

hulitu 5y ago

RISC-V is "nice to have". I do not know of anybody who sells RISC-V computers or boards at a reasonable price.

kilburn 5y ago
Maybe it does not seem a reasonable price to you, but for people who don't know, the HiFive Unmatched [1] sells for 679$ [2]. This is the most powerful RISC-V platform you can buy today. It comes as a Mini-ITX board including 16Gb of DDR4 ram, 1Gbps ethernet, usb 3.2, PCI Express and NVMe. Of course it is less powerful than an x64 machine at the same price point, but it should work reasonably well when paired with an SSD and a graphics card. [1] https://www.sifive.com/boards/hifive-unmatched https://www.sifive.com/boards/hifive-unmatched [2] https://www.crowdsupply.com/sifive/hifive-unmatched https://www.crowdsupply.com/sifive/hifive-unmatched
- feanaro 5y ago
  I find it weird how none of these links state the CPU frequency prominently (or at least I didn't notice it). Not even the product sheet has it.
  - monsieurbanana 5y ago
    On another hand, I don't remember the last time I was interested in a CPU's frequency. In isolation it gives no insights about the performance of a CPU, not even single-threaded performance. Even with the exact specs I wouldn't know how to interpret them, and I doubt many people would. Nowadays I just check the benchmarks of a CPU to have a rough idea of it's performance.
  - easygenes 5y ago
    1.5GHz for the four high speed cores, by the way.