9 ms·

After apple silicon was released, I was wondering if intel and amd would respond with some arm socs down the line due to the seeming "end of road" for x86. But

After apple silicon was released, I was wondering if intel and amd would respond with some arm socs down the line due to the seeming "end of road" for x86. But now what if they are intending to hold out on x86 long enough (~5-7 years) to be able to go all in on riscV?

vosper 4y ago
Is x86 at the end of the road? I don’t follow closely, but I impression is it’s been getting faster and faster ever since AMD stepped up and provided some competition with Ryzen.
- ahartmetz 4y ago
  Almost like AMD is saving Intel from itself... In any case, if Intel needs to diversify, open source (RISC-V) does seem better than proprietary mortal enemy (ARM).
  - baruch 4y ago
    Any Intel server comes with an ARM chip (at least one that I know of), the BMC.
    - tim-- 4y ago
      And most modern AMD chips ship with ARM cores in them... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMD_Platform_Security_Processor https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMD_Platform_Security_Proces...
  - acomjean 4y ago
    Competition works wonders.. having both of them (what happened to cyrix?) keeps them honest to some extent.
- atty 4y ago
  Both AMD and Intel have released some truly impressive CPUs lately, and this month both of them are releasing their next-gen products (ryzen 7000 and raptor lake respectively, I believe). The new ryzen chips are looking very impressive, and if Intel’s announced numbers are to be believed, raptor lake is going to be pretty great. Where they fall down is on perf/watt, not raw performance. However there’s a lot of things that go into that difference, not just ISA, so I’m not sure if anyone has really decided if x86 is fundamentally less efficient, or just currently less efficient due to current design choices and constraints.
  - harpratap 4y ago
    > Where they fall down is on perf/watt, not raw performance Raptor Lake is a pretty big jump in perf/watt. In just one generation they are claiming similar perf to Alder Lake at 250W but just 65W on Raptor Lake. AMD did a similar huge jump in efficiency last year with Ryzen 6000 for mobile
    - KingOfCoders 4y ago
      Intel x86 will make even greater leaps in the future. The eCores (where they added more this generation, but no (?) pCores) are as small as ARM cores and the saved die space can be used for chaches (Intel already increased caches again on Raptor) for performance and power efficiency (as Apple shows). Then there will be 5nm which is a big reason for Apples Perf/Watt performance.
- jabl 4y ago
  > Is x86 at the end of the road? No. AMD and Intel are the oligopolistic providers for an unbelievably vast software ecosystem that practically rules all computing outside embedded (and some legacy mainframes here and there), are they going to throw away that market position just because the cleaner encoding of ARM or RISC-V would save an estimated low single-digit % of decoding power [1]? [1]: https://www.usenix.org/system/files/conference/cooldc16/cooldc16-paper-hirki.pdf https://www.usenix.org/system/files/conference/cooldc16/cool...
  - dmitrygr 4y ago
    Top of the line x86 decoders are 6 wide (with limits of 64 aligned bytes on input, making average throughout around 4 per cycle as admitted by intel in their docs). Aarch64 can be decoded as wide as you wish thanks to fixed size. No solution to this other than a fixed length encoding.
    - jabl 4y ago
      > No solution to this other than a fixed length encoding. Micro-op caching enters the room. I mean, seriously, micro-op caching has been extensively used for over 20 years, including on ARM64 designs although Apple M1 doesn't have it.
    - snvzz 4y ago
      >No solution to this other than a fixed length encoding. This problem does not apply to RISC-V, where with the C extension you get either 32bit or 2x 16bit. The added complexity is negligible, to the point where if a chip has any cache or rom in it, using C becomes a net benefit in area and power. ARMv8 AArch64 made a critical mistake in adopting a fixed 32bit opcode size. A mistake we can see in practice when looking at the L1 cache size that Apple M1 needed to compensate for poor code density. L1 is never free. It is always very costly: Its size dictates area the cache takes, the latency of this cache, the clocks the cache itself can achieve (which in turns caps the speed of the CPU), and how much power the cache draws. As you mentioned decoder width: There's Ascalon[0], a RISC-V microarchitecture that's 8-decode (like M1), and 10-issue, by Jim Keller's team at Tenstorrent. It isn't in the market yet, but is bound to be among the first RISC-V chips targeting very high performance. Note that, at that size (8-decode implies lots of execution units, a relatively large design), the negligible overhead of C extension is invisible. There's only gains to be had. C extension decode overhead would only apply in the comically impractical scenario of a core that has neither L1 Cache nor any ROM in the chip. Such a specialized chip would simply not implement C. Otherwise, it is a net win. 0. https://youtu.be/yHrdEcsr9V0?t=346 https://youtu.be/yHrdEcsr9V0?t=346
- mhh__ 4y ago
  No. It's not a nice ISA but in the 20 Billion transistor limit it's not the pressing issue
jillesvangurp 4y ago
An ARM based design would make sense, except unlike Apple they'd have to buy a license. Apple has a perpetual license so they don't have to pay a thing and can do what they want with it. Like the M1 processor. But Intel does not have that. So, developing risc v in the background without committing to it, yet, makes a lot of sense. It might actually give them a path to come up with an answer to the M1 that isn't just a slightly more efficient x86 processor. Apple just demonstrated that changing CPU architecture is not that big of a deal; so the value of x86 compatibility isn't what it used to be. You can just emulate it and it's fine. Even for games apparently. So Intel, backing an architecture that is already starting to compete with arm that is free makes a lot of sense. AMD has the same challenge. And despite Nvidia failing to buy ARM, it's pretty clear that their long term strategy is not going to be letting other companies supply CPUs but to provide a complete solution.
- scrlk 4y ago
  At one point, Intel stated that they retained their ARM architectural licence even after they sold their XScale line to Marvell. https://www.zdnet.com/article/intel-we-have-arm-license-no-plans-to-use-it/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/intel-we-have-arm-license-no-p...
- ZiiS 4y ago
  Intel used to make a whole line of StrongArm chips. Even today they ship Arm softcores with thier FPGAs. They have no issue with Arm's licensing.
  - andromeduck 4y ago
    Intel SSDs used ARM cores too.
    - retrocryptid 4y ago
      I think I remember hearing that Intel's current or recent past networking products are Arm based. I had always assumed Intel was interested in RISC-V as a possible replacement for the wide array of non-x86 cores in network, baseband and storage controller products they fab.
allie1 4y ago
I am a M1 Max user and I would love to have Apple go back to Intel. Sure, the battery life and not overheating is great, but you are limited to Arm based solutions, when installing linux VMs for example. Or gaming. Everyone seems to have forgotten how awesome it was to be able to do everything on one machine. It is a compromise I live with, not something I prefer. And at least half of Apple’s benefit comes from process technology, where the gap will be closing very soon, if for no other reason than the fact that after 2nm there is not much more room to grow with silicon, so even laggards will have time to catch up on process and yields. The would has been running on x86 for so long it’s a waste to just decide to rework so many chunks of it.
- biehl 4y ago
  I am getting one of these https://dk.starlabs.systems/pages/desktops https://dk.starlabs.systems/pages/desktops to go with my M1 to run x86 based VMs, docker and similar stuff. An extra expense, but hopefully a good combination.
  - allie1 4y ago
    Those look good, a bulkier beasty option on the topic of intel: https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/docs/boards-kits/nuc/mini-pcs/nuc-12-extreme.html https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/docs/boards... Just need to find a way to justify it to myself after spending on the MBP xD
    - biehl 4y ago
      Yes, I looked at that one too. But since I only need it for work I went with the small and quiet.
- KerrAvon 4y ago
  Macs are not and never will be ideal for gaming. Apple execs don’t care about gaming, don’t understand it, are not interested in it, are not willing to do what is necessary to excel in gaming. Lots of people at Apple are working on game-adjacent technologies and their efforts are doomed because the execs sabotage every gaming opportunity eventually.

vosper 4y ago

Is x86 at the end of the road? I don’t follow closely, but I impression is it’s been getting faster and faster ever since AMD stepped up and provided some competition with Ryzen.

ahartmetz 4y ago
Almost like AMD is saving Intel from itself... In any case, if Intel needs to diversify, open source (RISC-V) does seem better than proprietary mortal enemy (ARM).
- baruch 4y ago
  Any Intel server comes with an ARM chip (at least one that I know of), the BMC.
  - tim-- 4y ago
    And most modern AMD chips ship with ARM cores in them... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMD_Platform_Security_Processor https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMD_Platform_Security_Proces...
- acomjean 4y ago
  Competition works wonders.. having both of them (what happened to cyrix?) keeps them honest to some extent.
atty 4y ago
Both AMD and Intel have released some truly impressive CPUs lately, and this month both of them are releasing their next-gen products (ryzen 7000 and raptor lake respectively, I believe). The new ryzen chips are looking very impressive, and if Intel’s announced numbers are to be believed, raptor lake is going to be pretty great. Where they fall down is on perf/watt, not raw performance. However there’s a lot of things that go into that difference, not just ISA, so I’m not sure if anyone has really decided if x86 is fundamentally less efficient, or just currently less efficient due to current design choices and constraints.
- harpratap 4y ago
  > Where they fall down is on perf/watt, not raw performance Raptor Lake is a pretty big jump in perf/watt. In just one generation they are claiming similar perf to Alder Lake at 250W but just 65W on Raptor Lake. AMD did a similar huge jump in efficiency last year with Ryzen 6000 for mobile
  - KingOfCoders 4y ago
    Intel x86 will make even greater leaps in the future. The eCores (where they added more this generation, but no (?) pCores) are as small as ARM cores and the saved die space can be used for chaches (Intel already increased caches again on Raptor) for performance and power efficiency (as Apple shows). Then there will be 5nm which is a big reason for Apples Perf/Watt performance.
jabl 4y ago
> Is x86 at the end of the road? No. AMD and Intel are the oligopolistic providers for an unbelievably vast software ecosystem that practically rules all computing outside embedded (and some legacy mainframes here and there), are they going to throw away that market position just because the cleaner encoding of ARM or RISC-V would save an estimated low single-digit % of decoding power [1]? [1]: https://www.usenix.org/system/files/conference/cooldc16/cooldc16-paper-hirki.pdf https://www.usenix.org/system/files/conference/cooldc16/cool...
- dmitrygr 4y ago
  Top of the line x86 decoders are 6 wide (with limits of 64 aligned bytes on input, making average throughout around 4 per cycle as admitted by intel in their docs). Aarch64 can be decoded as wide as you wish thanks to fixed size. No solution to this other than a fixed length encoding.
  - jabl 4y ago
    > No solution to this other than a fixed length encoding. Micro-op caching enters the room. I mean, seriously, micro-op caching has been extensively used for over 20 years, including on ARM64 designs although Apple M1 doesn't have it.
  - snvzz 4y ago
    >No solution to this other than a fixed length encoding. This problem does not apply to RISC-V, where with the C extension you get either 32bit or 2x 16bit. The added complexity is negligible, to the point where if a chip has any cache or rom in it, using C becomes a net benefit in area and power. ARMv8 AArch64 made a critical mistake in adopting a fixed 32bit opcode size. A mistake we can see in practice when looking at the L1 cache size that Apple M1 needed to compensate for poor code density. L1 is never free. It is always very costly: Its size dictates area the cache takes, the latency of this cache, the clocks the cache itself can achieve (which in turns caps the speed of the CPU), and how much power the cache draws. As you mentioned decoder width: There's Ascalon[0], a RISC-V microarchitecture that's 8-decode (like M1), and 10-issue, by Jim Keller's team at Tenstorrent. It isn't in the market yet, but is bound to be among the first RISC-V chips targeting very high performance. Note that, at that size (8-decode implies lots of execution units, a relatively large design), the negligible overhead of C extension is invisible. There's only gains to be had. C extension decode overhead would only apply in the comically impractical scenario of a core that has neither L1 Cache nor any ROM in the chip. Such a specialized chip would simply not implement C. Otherwise, it is a net win. 0. https://youtu.be/yHrdEcsr9V0?t=346 https://youtu.be/yHrdEcsr9V0?t=346
mhh__ 4y ago
No. It's not a nice ISA but in the 20 Billion transistor limit it's not the pressing issue

jillesvangurp 4y ago

An ARM based design would make sense, except unlike Apple they'd have to buy a license. Apple has a perpetual license so they don't have to pay a thing and can do what they want with it. Like the M1 processor. But Intel does not have that. So, developing risc v in the background without committing to it, yet, makes a lot of sense. It might actually give them a path to come up with an answer to the M1 that isn't just a slightly more efficient x86 processor. Apple just demonstrated that changing CPU architecture is not that big of a deal; so the value of x86 compatibility isn't what it used to be. You can just emulate it and it's fine. Even for games apparently. So Intel, backing an architecture that is already starting to compete with arm that is free makes a lot of sense. AMD has the same challenge. And despite Nvidia failing to buy ARM, it's pretty clear that their long term strategy is not going to be letting other companies supply CPUs but to provide a complete solution.

scrlk 4y ago
At one point, Intel stated that they retained their ARM architectural licence even after they sold their XScale line to Marvell. https://www.zdnet.com/article/intel-we-have-arm-license-no-plans-to-use-it/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/intel-we-have-arm-license-no-p...
ZiiS 4y ago
Intel used to make a whole line of StrongArm chips. Even today they ship Arm softcores with thier FPGAs. They have no issue with Arm's licensing.
- andromeduck 4y ago
  Intel SSDs used ARM cores too.
  - retrocryptid 4y ago
    I think I remember hearing that Intel's current or recent past networking products are Arm based. I had always assumed Intel was interested in RISC-V as a possible replacement for the wide array of non-x86 cores in network, baseband and storage controller products they fab.

allie1 4y ago

I am a M1 Max user and I would love to have Apple go back to Intel. Sure, the battery life and not overheating is great, but you are limited to Arm based solutions, when installing linux VMs for example. Or gaming. Everyone seems to have forgotten how awesome it was to be able to do everything on one machine. It is a compromise I live with, not something I prefer. And at least half of Apple’s benefit comes from process technology, where the gap will be closing very soon, if for no other reason than the fact that after 2nm there is not much more room to grow with silicon, so even laggards will have time to catch up on process and yields. The would has been running on x86 for so long it’s a waste to just decide to rework so many chunks of it.

biehl 4y ago
I am getting one of these https://dk.starlabs.systems/pages/desktops https://dk.starlabs.systems/pages/desktops to go with my M1 to run x86 based VMs, docker and similar stuff. An extra expense, but hopefully a good combination.
- allie1 4y ago
  Those look good, a bulkier beasty option on the topic of intel: https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/docs/boards-kits/nuc/mini-pcs/nuc-12-extreme.html https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/docs/boards... Just need to find a way to justify it to myself after spending on the MBP xD
  - biehl 4y ago
    Yes, I looked at that one too. But since I only need it for work I went with the small and quiet.
KerrAvon 4y ago
Macs are not and never will be ideal for gaming. Apple execs don’t care about gaming, don’t understand it, are not interested in it, are not willing to do what is necessary to excel in gaming. Lots of people at Apple are working on game-adjacent technologies and their efforts are doomed because the execs sabotage every gaming opportunity eventually.