4 ms·

This is pure speculation. ARM has very successful architectures and cores already in the market. The current iteration of the Snapdragon 8cx does a pretty good

This is pure speculation. ARM has very successful architectures and cores already in the market. The current iteration of the Snapdragon 8cx does a pretty good job in general purpose computing scenarios [0]. There are no RISC-V cores in the market to compete with it. Vendors can and will promise breakthroughs every now and then, that is just how marketing works. It happened before with things like Graviton, and of course Tenstorrent is doing it now. [0] https://www.notebookcheck.net/SD-8cx-Gen-3-vs-M1-vs-M2_14600_12937_14521.247596.0.html https://www.notebookcheck.net/SD-8cx-Gen-3-vs-M1-vs-M2_14600...

snvzz 3y ago
>There are no RISC-V cores in the market to compete with it. Depends on what "it" is. For the whole Cortex-M line and A53/A55, SiFive has had designs with better power-performance-area for years now. For the higher performance A70 line, SiFive has better designs competing up to A76. There's several other vendors, with their own competitive RISC-V cores. >This is pure speculation. Not when it's based in announcements and talks by the relevant companies. >It happened before with things like Graviton, and of course Tenstorrent is doing it now Wait, why do you think Tenstorrent will not deliver? Do you actually have anything? I have no reason to believe that strong teams that have successfully delivered competitive microarchitectures in a range of companies won't do it with RISC-V now that they're with Tenstorrent, MIPS, Rivos, Ventana, Qualcomm or any others. Ventana's Veyron and Tenstorrent Ascalon are imminent. The other companies are less public about what they're doing. Any one of these efforts could be delayed or underdeliver. All of them? That seems highly unlikely. RISC-V is inevitable.
- manuelabeledo 3y ago
  What is a “better” design? How do you quantify that? Are RISC-V “better designed” than x86 processors, even when the latter are overwhelmingly more popular and faster than the former? > Not when it's based in announcements and talks by the relevant companies. Again, this is exactly what marketing is. I cannot begin to count how many companies formed by wildly successful leaders of the industry, have failed to deliver. > Any one of these efforts could be delayed or underdeliver. All of them? That seems highly unlikely. Core design and implementation takes years to complete. The supposition is that a handful of relatively new companies will take the processor market by storm in a year or two, with less than a decade of work behind them, and a tenth of the budget, compared to companies like AMD or Intel. That is speculation if I ever seen any.
  - snvzz 3y ago
    >What is a “better” design? How do you quantify that? I mentioned it: power-performance-area. In the case of SiFive, they seem to like comparing each of their designs with a specific one from ARM. They typically manage to perform better, use less area and consume less power, at the same time, relative to the ARM design they picked. >Core design and implementation takes years to complete. These years already happened, these are several years underway. What follows is the products that we are about to see. >and a tenth of the budget There's several billions already invested. Source: RISC-V Foundation's main talks at RISC-V Summit last December. In 2021, the theme was acceleration. In 2022, it was momentum, because it is already there. RISC-V is huge. RISC-V is inevitable. >The supposition is that a handful of relatively new companies will take the processor market by storm in a year or two, with less than a decade of work behind them, and a tenth of the budget, compared to companies like AMD or Intel. Exciting times to live in. I expect AMD and Intel to survive, and find a way to thrive. They can e.g. provide RISC-V CPUs with excellent x86 acceleration, making them an easy choice in markets that depend on x86 software still. I do not have faith ARM will be able to adapt, due to their management's recent behavior. They are dinosaurs. Won't know what hit them.
    - manuelabeledo 3y ago
      Power-performance-area is not a metric. Power and area are a function of the node, performance is not an unified metric, and design and implementation are two very different aspects of CPUs. It’s like saying that the better architecture is the one with available CPUs manufactured on the smaller node and with the higher CoreMark score. > Won’t know what hit them This is still a extremely naive take. Qualcomm and Apple are not going to ditch ARM any time soon, and there is no market where RISC-V currently has a meaningful share. Hell, there are more x86 SBC out there than RISC-V by a double digit factor. What I’m saying is that RISC-V is a hypothetical contender until manufacturers adopt it. Of course, I will eat my hat if we get competitive RISC-V cores across the market in less than five years, but I’m confident that will not be the case.
      - snvzz 3y ago
- therealcamino 3y ago
  I'm not sure that proponents of RISC-V realize how smug and insufferable it is to keep spouting "RISC-V is inevitable."
  - manuelabeledo 3y ago
    We had other open architectures before, very large companies poured money on them, and very successful consumer product lines were based on them, see MIPS, or POWER. I’m pretty sure nothing is “inevitable”.

snvzz 3y ago

>There are no RISC-V cores in the market to compete with it. Depends on what "it" is. For the whole Cortex-M line and A53/A55, SiFive has had designs with better power-performance-area for years now. For the higher performance A70 line, SiFive has better designs competing up to A76. There's several other vendors, with their own competitive RISC-V cores. >This is pure speculation. Not when it's based in announcements and talks by the relevant companies. >It happened before with things like Graviton, and of course Tenstorrent is doing it now Wait, why do you think Tenstorrent will not deliver? Do you actually have anything? I have no reason to believe that strong teams that have successfully delivered competitive microarchitectures in a range of companies won't do it with RISC-V now that they're with Tenstorrent, MIPS, Rivos, Ventana, Qualcomm or any others. Ventana's Veyron and Tenstorrent Ascalon are imminent. The other companies are less public about what they're doing. Any one of these efforts could be delayed or underdeliver. All of them? That seems highly unlikely. RISC-V is inevitable.

manuelabeledo 3y ago
What is a “better” design? How do you quantify that? Are RISC-V “better designed” than x86 processors, even when the latter are overwhelmingly more popular and faster than the former? > Not when it's based in announcements and talks by the relevant companies. Again, this is exactly what marketing is. I cannot begin to count how many companies formed by wildly successful leaders of the industry, have failed to deliver. > Any one of these efforts could be delayed or underdeliver. All of them? That seems highly unlikely. Core design and implementation takes years to complete. The supposition is that a handful of relatively new companies will take the processor market by storm in a year or two, with less than a decade of work behind them, and a tenth of the budget, compared to companies like AMD or Intel. That is speculation if I ever seen any.
- snvzz 3y ago
  >What is a “better” design? How do you quantify that? I mentioned it: power-performance-area. In the case of SiFive, they seem to like comparing each of their designs with a specific one from ARM. They typically manage to perform better, use less area and consume less power, at the same time, relative to the ARM design they picked. >Core design and implementation takes years to complete. These years already happened, these are several years underway. What follows is the products that we are about to see. >and a tenth of the budget There's several billions already invested. Source: RISC-V Foundation's main talks at RISC-V Summit last December. In 2021, the theme was acceleration. In 2022, it was momentum, because it is already there. RISC-V is huge. RISC-V is inevitable. >The supposition is that a handful of relatively new companies will take the processor market by storm in a year or two, with less than a decade of work behind them, and a tenth of the budget, compared to companies like AMD or Intel. Exciting times to live in. I expect AMD and Intel to survive, and find a way to thrive. They can e.g. provide RISC-V CPUs with excellent x86 acceleration, making them an easy choice in markets that depend on x86 software still. I do not have faith ARM will be able to adapt, due to their management's recent behavior. They are dinosaurs. Won't know what hit them.
  - manuelabeledo 3y ago
    Power-performance-area is not a metric. Power and area are a function of the node, performance is not an unified metric, and design and implementation are two very different aspects of CPUs. It’s like saying that the better architecture is the one with available CPUs manufactured on the smaller node and with the higher CoreMark score. > Won’t know what hit them This is still a extremely naive take. Qualcomm and Apple are not going to ditch ARM any time soon, and there is no market where RISC-V currently has a meaningful share. Hell, there are more x86 SBC out there than RISC-V by a double digit factor. What I’m saying is that RISC-V is a hypothetical contender until manufacturers adopt it. Of course, I will eat my hat if we get competitive RISC-V cores across the market in less than five years, but I’m confident that will not be the case.
    - snvzz 3y ago
therealcamino 3y ago
I'm not sure that proponents of RISC-V realize how smug and insufferable it is to keep spouting "RISC-V is inevitable."
- manuelabeledo 3y ago
  We had other open architectures before, very large companies poured money on them, and very successful consumer product lines were based on them, see MIPS, or POWER. I’m pretty sure nothing is “inevitable”.