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Lots of comment here about Intel adopting RISC-V or Arm and what this means for x86. I think it's worth considering the commercial issues from Intel's (and AMD'

Lots of comment here about Intel adopting RISC-V or Arm and what this means for x86. I think it's worth considering the commercial issues from Intel's (and AMD's) perspective. Firstly, adopting Arm would mean giving their blessing to an architecture that is now competing with x86 head on in key markets. That would only accelerate the demise of x86. So unless they have absolutely world beating products available on day 1, I don't think that's going to happen. Secondly, adopting either architecture means that they would remove a key part of the 'x86 moat' and open up competition from anyone else with deep pockets who can put together a top quality silicon design team. So I think it's likely that ultimately - whatever ISA they adopt - they will look for any way they can to distinguish themselves from the competition and avoid the commoditisation of their products. Finally, just to add that supporting RISC-V - which is clearly competing successfully with Arm at the low end at the moment - helps to weaken a competitor so might be seen as a shrewd commercial move irrespective of any longer term plans.

fmajid 4y ago
China is moving to RISC-V to remove its dependency on amd64 and arm64, and thus to US sanctions since Intel/AMD and ARM are subject to US law. Intel wants to keep the ability to serve the Chinese market, that means in the long terms having RISC-V offerings, hence the investment in SiFive. Unlike Ottelini, Gelsinger is not a bean-counter who sold off StrongARM/XScale to Marvell and thus made Intel irrelevant to the ARM market, and by extension to mobile computing.
jabl 4y ago
This. I wonder why so many seem so eager to engage in the fantasy that Intel (and AMD) are planning to jump ship to ARM or RISC-V. Yes, ISA's matter, to a point. And yes, ARM64 and RISC-V are much closer to 'best practice' ISA design than x86 with all its legacy baggage. But enough better to make AMD&Intel throw away the x86 market and their position in that as explained in the parent comment? No effing way.
- klelatti 4y ago
  I forgot to add that there is the risk of 'Osborning'[1] x86 on day 1 of announcing a move to a new architecture as they effectively declare it a 'legacy' product. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osborne_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osborne_effect
  - andromeduck 4y ago
    Do you remember Itanium?
    - klelatti 4y ago
      I do and I'm giving them credit that they won't make the same mistakes again with a product that fails.
      - andromeduck 4y ago
        But why not just jump and let momentum carry x86 like before? The problem with Itanium was largely that the ISA itself sucked to work with and SW/tools were not ready for prime time when 3p SW/HW vendors like Nvidia were expected to have ported to it. It doesn't seem like ARM and maybe RISC-V will have the same issues, at leatin terms of magnitude so I don't really see why it matters. I think long term they risk ending up like Canon/Nikon in the DSLR market when Sony came along with the new fangled mirrorless technology - sometimes you gotta disrupt yourself and skate to where the pick is going.
        klelatti 4y ago
        Largely agree. I'd be astonished of they don't have high performance RISC-V designs under development. Problem is that the endpoint is much less attractive (for them) than where they are now and the transition will be very, very messy. At a time when the business is under strain for other reasons it's a risky move. Should have done it a few years ago - when they had process lead - but hindsight is a wonderful thing!
      - 4y ago
andromeduck 4y ago
I think offering a RISC-V + full featured x86 option could be a pretty big differentiator during the transition. They'd have to be really sure of out competing competitors though. Short of that, I expect ARM or RISC-V to become the dominant ISA on server and clients come 3-7 years and where do they go from there? Become the next PPC?
- klelatti 4y ago
  What do you mean by 'RISC-V + full featured x86 option'?
  - moffkalast 4y ago
    I would assume they mean some kind of setup that can natively run binaries for both, depending on the OS installation.
  - andromeduck 4y ago
    A way to mix x86 and ARM/RISC code/binaries either like transmeta or just having it nearby and having the OS deal with it via scheduler. i.e. what if the M1 peo/ultra had x86 cores in addition to ARM? Woud that have made the transition easier from a SW perspective? Could Intel have implemented a translation layer better than Apple owing to IP constraints?
    - dis-sys 4y ago
      > Could Intel have implemented a translation layer better than Apple owing to IP constraints? impossible. rosetta 2 is for a relatively short transition period, not something companies like apple/intel would pour huge amount of $ into it. with such limited funding & expected life expectancy in mind, it is fair to say that rosetta 2 is already close to be perfect. also, intel has a track record for producing software with horrible quality. it is vastly different from apple which is doing very good in a long list of software projects for decades. just look at the negative comments regarding Intel's most recent ARC video card software - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6WDvK41fms https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6WDvK41fms https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8pdXvbW71E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8pdXvbW71E let's be crystal clear - Intel and Apple are not operating on the same level here, their market cap has a 20x gap for a very very good reason. we are talking about the resting & vesting company that pushed for about 5% per annual performance increase for their desktop products for like 8-10 years in a row.

fmajid 4y ago

China is moving to RISC-V to remove its dependency on amd64 and arm64, and thus to US sanctions since Intel/AMD and ARM are subject to US law. Intel wants to keep the ability to serve the Chinese market, that means in the long terms having RISC-V offerings, hence the investment in SiFive. Unlike Ottelini, Gelsinger is not a bean-counter who sold off StrongARM/XScale to Marvell and thus made Intel irrelevant to the ARM market, and by extension to mobile computing.

jabl 4y ago

This. I wonder why so many seem so eager to engage in the fantasy that Intel (and AMD) are planning to jump ship to ARM or RISC-V. Yes, ISA's matter, to a point. And yes, ARM64 and RISC-V are much closer to 'best practice' ISA design than x86 with all its legacy baggage. But enough better to make AMD&Intel throw away the x86 market and their position in that as explained in the parent comment? No effing way.

klelatti 4y ago
I forgot to add that there is the risk of 'Osborning'[1] x86 on day 1 of announcing a move to a new architecture as they effectively declare it a 'legacy' product. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osborne_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osborne_effect
- andromeduck 4y ago
  Do you remember Itanium?
  - klelatti 4y ago
    I do and I'm giving them credit that they won't make the same mistakes again with a product that fails.
    - andromeduck 4y ago
      But why not just jump and let momentum carry x86 like before? The problem with Itanium was largely that the ISA itself sucked to work with and SW/tools were not ready for prime time when 3p SW/HW vendors like Nvidia were expected to have ported to it. It doesn't seem like ARM and maybe RISC-V will have the same issues, at leatin terms of magnitude so I don't really see why it matters. I think long term they risk ending up like Canon/Nikon in the DSLR market when Sony came along with the new fangled mirrorless technology - sometimes you gotta disrupt yourself and skate to where the pick is going.
      - klelatti 4y ago
        Largely agree. I'd be astonished of they don't have high performance RISC-V designs under development. Problem is that the endpoint is much less attractive (for them) than where they are now and the transition will be very, very messy. At a time when the business is under strain for other reasons it's a risky move. Should have done it a few years ago - when they had process lead - but hindsight is a wonderful thing!
    - 4y ago

andromeduck 4y ago

I think offering a RISC-V + full featured x86 option could be a pretty big differentiator during the transition. They'd have to be really sure of out competing competitors though. Short of that, I expect ARM or RISC-V to become the dominant ISA on server and clients come 3-7 years and where do they go from there? Become the next PPC?

klelatti 4y ago
What do you mean by 'RISC-V + full featured x86 option'?
- moffkalast 4y ago
  I would assume they mean some kind of setup that can natively run binaries for both, depending on the OS installation.
- andromeduck 4y ago
  A way to mix x86 and ARM/RISC code/binaries either like transmeta or just having it nearby and having the OS deal with it via scheduler. i.e. what if the M1 peo/ultra had x86 cores in addition to ARM? Woud that have made the transition easier from a SW perspective? Could Intel have implemented a translation layer better than Apple owing to IP constraints?
  - dis-sys 4y ago
    > Could Intel have implemented a translation layer better than Apple owing to IP constraints? impossible. rosetta 2 is for a relatively short transition period, not something companies like apple/intel would pour huge amount of $ into it. with such limited funding & expected life expectancy in mind, it is fair to say that rosetta 2 is already close to be perfect. also, intel has a track record for producing software with horrible quality. it is vastly different from apple which is doing very good in a long list of software projects for decades. just look at the negative comments regarding Intel's most recent ARC video card software - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6WDvK41fms https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6WDvK41fms https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8pdXvbW71E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8pdXvbW71E let's be crystal clear - Intel and Apple are not operating on the same level here, their market cap has a 20x gap for a very very good reason. we are talking about the resting & vesting company that pushed for about 5% per annual performance increase for their desktop products for like 8-10 years in a row.