4 ms·

There are Windows ARM laptops already, and their existence does a lot to justify that hesitancy.

by detaro 4y ago

Joe_Boogz 4y ago
Previous laptops and current surface devices do support ARM, but IMO nothing MSFT has put out has been serious. (Looking at you Surface Pro X). This targeted solution correctly identifies the main problem with Windows on ARM. Lack of developer support. Outside of internal MSFT dev support no one has taken Windows/ARM support seriously. I hope these dev kits represent a wider market push that ultimately leads to better Windows laptops on ARM. (Ones that can close to gap with the current MacBook lineups).
- doublerebel 4y ago
  The new Surface Pro 7 ARM looks serious — it does seem to be the first serious ARM entry, though. Lack of Windows ARM devices for dev really has hamstrung Hololens 2 development — it’s also Windows ARM and there are very few libraries with Windows ARM compatibility. I altered many libraries myself, despite that the documentation was nearly nonexistent.
pornel 4y ago
Of course Qualcomm being chronically incapable of making fast CPUs doesn't help, but partly it's just a chicken-egg problem of lack of ARM-optimized Windows software caused by the lack of ARM Windows users. Having a decent devkit may help bring more native ARM software, which may make these underpowered machines struggle less with speed and compatibility.
- treis 4y ago
  Genuinely asking because I don't know. Is there anything that's better about ARM or is the Apple/TSMC being better than Intel, AMD, Qualcomm, Samsung, et. al.?
  - Cupprum 4y ago
    1 - The instruction set is more interesting because it is smaller. 2 - Arm also implements weak ordering which is type of memory model. It allows instructions to be separated into groups based on whether they affect other instructions. This allows these groups to skip some waiting lines. (Magic). X86 has strong ordering, which can make it slower in specific scenarios.
    - temac 4y ago
      3 - The instruction set is made of fixed length instructions TBH there are various mostly-Apple/TSMC-"exclusive" tricks too, for why their chips are better than the others: A - On Apple Silicon, pages are larger, but not too large B - there are various accelerators leveraged by libraries provided in the OS (or the provided toolchains, etc.) C - Apple got to use the best TSMC process years before the competition. D - TSMC is ahead (I'm curious of what Zen4 will give on laptop, btw) So it's mixed. The ARM ISA probably plays a small role in the perf of Apple Silicon vs. x86 chips, but is probably not the main cause of the perf gap.
  - sethhochberg 4y ago
    Its less about the instruction set and more about the specific implementation choices and market they're competing in. Apple has been doing ARM SoC design for a long time and was an early 64-bit adopter, buys tons of bleeding-edge capacity from fabs, and is willing to design in more expensive features like tons of onboard cache that they can make up on margins in other ways because Apple sells complete devices, while Qualcomm etc are mostly in the business of selling chips. So while there are fundamental differences between x86 and ARM, the bigger differences are more "Apple vs other ARM SoC designers" than something fundamentally different about ARM that Apple takes advantage of.
  - pornel 4y ago
    TSMC tech helps a lot, but is not exclusive to Apple. A relatively modern and sensible 64-bit ARM architecture helps too, but on top of that Apple seems to be really good at designing the chips. OTOH Qualcomm is constantly lagging behind Apple, promising that next year they will be almost as fast as a previous-gen Apple chip. The most generous explanation I've heard is that Qualcomm is specializing in quantity over quality, and focuses on making CPUs cheap, rather than fast.

There are Windows ARM laptops already, and their existence does a lot to justify that hesitancy.

by detaro 4y ago

There are Windows ARM laptops already, and their existence does a lot to justify that hesitancy.

Previous laptops and current surface devices do support ARM, but IMO nothing MSFT has put out has been serious. (Looking at you Surface Pro X). This targeted solution correctly identifies the main problem with Windows on ARM. Lack of developer support. Outside of internal MSFT dev support no one has taken Windows/ARM support seriously. I hope these dev kits represent a wider market push that ultimately leads to better Windows laptops on ARM. (Ones that can close to gap with the current MacBook lineups).

doublerebel 4y ago
The new Surface Pro 7 ARM looks serious — it does seem to be the first serious ARM entry, though. Lack of Windows ARM devices for dev really has hamstrung Hololens 2 development — it’s also Windows ARM and there are very few libraries with Windows ARM compatibility. I altered many libraries myself, despite that the documentation was nearly nonexistent.

pornel 4y ago

Of course Qualcomm being chronically incapable of making fast CPUs doesn't help, but partly it's just a chicken-egg problem of lack of ARM-optimized Windows software caused by the lack of ARM Windows users. Having a decent devkit may help bring more native ARM software, which may make these underpowered machines struggle less with speed and compatibility.

treis 4y ago
Genuinely asking because I don't know. Is there anything that's better about ARM or is the Apple/TSMC being better than Intel, AMD, Qualcomm, Samsung, et. al.?
- Cupprum 4y ago
  1 - The instruction set is more interesting because it is smaller. 2 - Arm also implements weak ordering which is type of memory model. It allows instructions to be separated into groups based on whether they affect other instructions. This allows these groups to skip some waiting lines. (Magic). X86 has strong ordering, which can make it slower in specific scenarios.
  - temac 4y ago
    3 - The instruction set is made of fixed length instructions TBH there are various mostly-Apple/TSMC-"exclusive" tricks too, for why their chips are better than the others: A - On Apple Silicon, pages are larger, but not too large B - there are various accelerators leveraged by libraries provided in the OS (or the provided toolchains, etc.) C - Apple got to use the best TSMC process years before the competition. D - TSMC is ahead (I'm curious of what Zen4 will give on laptop, btw) So it's mixed. The ARM ISA probably plays a small role in the perf of Apple Silicon vs. x86 chips, but is probably not the main cause of the perf gap.
- sethhochberg 4y ago
  Its less about the instruction set and more about the specific implementation choices and market they're competing in. Apple has been doing ARM SoC design for a long time and was an early 64-bit adopter, buys tons of bleeding-edge capacity from fabs, and is willing to design in more expensive features like tons of onboard cache that they can make up on margins in other ways because Apple sells complete devices, while Qualcomm etc are mostly in the business of selling chips. So while there are fundamental differences between x86 and ARM, the bigger differences are more "Apple vs other ARM SoC designers" than something fundamentally different about ARM that Apple takes advantage of.
- pornel 4y ago
  TSMC tech helps a lot, but is not exclusive to Apple. A relatively modern and sensible 64-bit ARM architecture helps too, but on top of that Apple seems to be really good at designing the chips. OTOH Qualcomm is constantly lagging behind Apple, promising that next year they will be almost as fast as a previous-gen Apple chip. The most generous explanation I've heard is that Qualcomm is specializing in quantity over quality, and focuses on making CPUs cheap, rather than fast.