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I'm far more bullish on Qualcomm here. I just think they're in a great strategic long term position. The writing is on the wall when it comes to x86 for mobil

I'm far more bullish on Qualcomm here. I just think they're in a great strategic long term position. The writing is on the wall when it comes to x86 for mobility, x86 is crap for mobility, ARM is fast enough to emulate legacy x86 apps, so for me the question isn't "Is ARM viable" it's "Can Qualcomm beat AMD/Intel's/Apple's non-ARM architectures"? In that respect, I see Qualcomm's strategic positioning as being great because they power Android. I can only see them coming after Intel's Celeron line with a vengeance in the medium term, and I don't think they really be more than in the ballpark when it comes to performance, I think Qualcomm needs to compete on cost and power efficiency. I don't really see RISC-V being a thing any time soon because smartphones run ARM, they don't run RISC-V.

smoldesu 5y ago
I don't really get your argument here, hopefully you can clear some stuff up for me. > The writing is on the wall when it comes to x86 for mobility, x86 is crap for mobility Is it? Or are legacy manufacturers just bad at staying up-to-date with the latest node advancements. The only reason Apple has made a consistent case for ARM is because they're using lithography that's more than twice as dense as Intel and ~50% more dense than AMD. When you map out their power efficiency, I think most of it tracks. If Apple built the M1 on x86, I'd wager it would have the same battery life, +/-10%. > ARM is fast enough to emulate legacy x86 apps Nitpicking, but Rosetta isn't an emulator so much as it is a dynamic recompiler. The code you're running is translated, not interpreted, which is why it can even run at near-native speeds in the first place. > In that respect, I see Qualcomm's strategic positioning as being great because they power Android. I can only see them coming after Intel's Celeron line with a vengeance in the medium term, and I don't think they really be more than in the ballpark when it comes to performance, I think Qualcomm needs to compete on cost and power efficiency. This much I can understand, and I think you're spot on with how they're going to compete with the Celeron line. Now that Alder lake is rolling out though, I think things are going to get really heated. Intel can now compete on power efficiency, and it's only going to get better as they focus on density and pushing heterogeneous architectures. Qualcomm is going to have a hard time competing with TSMC 5nm 8c16t Ryzen chips and 4e/4p big.LITTLE Intel chips, since both of them should have pretty good power efficiency. That leaves you with cost, which I reckon AMD will struggle with, but Intel should be able to price pretty competitively courtesy of their more mature silicon. Time will tell, I guess. > I don't really see RISC-V being a thing any time soon because smartphones run ARM, they don't run RISC-V. I mean, yeah. RISC-V didn't even exist when ARM was being considered for smartphones, but that hasn't held it back. Android runs just fine on RISC-V today, the big reason it's not being used is because there are no major manufacturers who produce RISC-V chips, leaving them fairly expensive and out-of-reach for phone companies. That price is expected to nosedive over the next few years though, especially with the insane level of investment from countries like China. Since there's no licensing involved with making RISC-V chips, manufacturers will have to compete directly on performance and pricing merits alone. It's whataboutism to be sure, but things are looking really good for RISC-V usurping ARM in the next 5-10 years.
- faeriechangling 5y ago
  Interesting insights here, I didn't realise rosetta was a dynamic recompiler. I do think from what I've seen from both Apple silicon but also Qualcomm's chips that they can post impressive battery life so I do think ARM is a bit more competitive on battery life, even if the node differences are making Apples to Apples comparison difficult. Lenovo is claiming 28 hour battery for their x13s https://www.windowscentral.com/lenovo-thinkpad-x13s-announce-snapdragon-8cx-gen-3 https://www.windowscentral.com/lenovo-thinkpad-x13s-announce... It will be interesting to see how RISC-V does and if China can push it to supremacy. I wouldn't be shocked to see multiple architectures in use concurrently for awhile.

smoldesu 5y ago

I don't really get your argument here, hopefully you can clear some stuff up for me. > The writing is on the wall when it comes to x86 for mobility, x86 is crap for mobility Is it? Or are legacy manufacturers just bad at staying up-to-date with the latest node advancements. The only reason Apple has made a consistent case for ARM is because they're using lithography that's more than twice as dense as Intel and ~50% more dense than AMD. When you map out their power efficiency, I think most of it tracks. If Apple built the M1 on x86, I'd wager it would have the same battery life, +/-10%. > ARM is fast enough to emulate legacy x86 apps Nitpicking, but Rosetta isn't an emulator so much as it is a dynamic recompiler. The code you're running is translated, not interpreted, which is why it can even run at near-native speeds in the first place. > In that respect, I see Qualcomm's strategic positioning as being great because they power Android. I can only see them coming after Intel's Celeron line with a vengeance in the medium term, and I don't think they really be more than in the ballpark when it comes to performance, I think Qualcomm needs to compete on cost and power efficiency. This much I can understand, and I think you're spot on with how they're going to compete with the Celeron line. Now that Alder lake is rolling out though, I think things are going to get really heated. Intel can now compete on power efficiency, and it's only going to get better as they focus on density and pushing heterogeneous architectures. Qualcomm is going to have a hard time competing with TSMC 5nm 8c16t Ryzen chips and 4e/4p big.LITTLE Intel chips, since both of them should have pretty good power efficiency. That leaves you with cost, which I reckon AMD will struggle with, but Intel should be able to price pretty competitively courtesy of their more mature silicon. Time will tell, I guess. > I don't really see RISC-V being a thing any time soon because smartphones run ARM, they don't run RISC-V. I mean, yeah. RISC-V didn't even exist when ARM was being considered for smartphones, but that hasn't held it back. Android runs just fine on RISC-V today, the big reason it's not being used is because there are no major manufacturers who produce RISC-V chips, leaving them fairly expensive and out-of-reach for phone companies. That price is expected to nosedive over the next few years though, especially with the insane level of investment from countries like China. Since there's no licensing involved with making RISC-V chips, manufacturers will have to compete directly on performance and pricing merits alone. It's whataboutism to be sure, but things are looking really good for RISC-V usurping ARM in the next 5-10 years.

faeriechangling 5y ago
Interesting insights here, I didn't realise rosetta was a dynamic recompiler. I do think from what I've seen from both Apple silicon but also Qualcomm's chips that they can post impressive battery life so I do think ARM is a bit more competitive on battery life, even if the node differences are making Apples to Apples comparison difficult. Lenovo is claiming 28 hour battery for their x13s https://www.windowscentral.com/lenovo-thinkpad-x13s-announce-snapdragon-8cx-gen-3 https://www.windowscentral.com/lenovo-thinkpad-x13s-announce... It will be interesting to see how RISC-V does and if China can push it to supremacy. I wouldn't be shocked to see multiple architectures in use concurrently for awhile.