4 ms·

Yes, kinda annoying. But on the other hand, given that apple releases a new chip every 12 months, we can grant them some slack here. Given that from AMD, Intel

by sod 2y ago

Yes, kinda annoying. But on the other hand, given that apple releases a new chip every 12 months, we can grant them some slack here. Given that from AMD, Intel or nvidia we see usually a 2 year cadence.

dartos 2y ago
There’s probably easier problems to solve in the ARM space than x86 considering the amount of money and time spent on x86. That’s not to say that any of these problems are easy, just that there’s probably more lower hanging fruit in ARM land.
- kimixa 2y ago
  And yet they seem to be the only people picking the apparently "Low Hanging Fruit" in ARM land. We'll see about Qualcomm's Nuvia-based stuff, but that's been "nearly released" for what feels like years now, but you still can't buy one to actually test. And don't underestimate the investment Apple made - it's likely at a similar level to the big x86 incumbents. I mean AMD's entire Zen development team cost was likely a blip on the balance sheet for Apple.
  - re-thc 2y ago
    > We'll see about Qualcomm's Nuvia-based stuff, but that's been "nearly released" for what feels like years now, but you still can't buy one to actually test. That's more bound by legal than technical reasons...
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
  - transpute 2y ago
    > Qualcomm's Nuvia-based stuff, but that's been "nearly released" for what feels like years now Launching at Computex in 2 weeks, https://www.windowscentral.com/hardware/laptops/next-gen-ai-pcs-are-within-reach-as-asus-joins-microsoft-and-qualcomm-to-unveil-a-new-snapdragon-x-laptop-on-may-20 https://www.windowscentral.com/hardware/laptops/next-gen-ai-...
    - 0x457 2y ago
      Good to know that it's finally seeing the light. I thought they're still in legal dispute with ARM about Nuvia's design?
      - transpute 2y ago
        Not privy to details, but some legal disputes can be resolved by licensing price negotiations, motivated by customer launch deadlines.
      - paulmd 2y ago
        speaking of which, whatever happened to qualcomm's bizarre assertion that ARM was pulling a sneak move in all its new licensing deals to outlaw third-party IP entirely and force ARM-IP-only? there was one quiet "we haven't got anything like that in the contract we're signing with ARM" from someone else, and then radio silence. And you'd really think that would be major news, because it's massively impactful on pretty much everyone, since one of the major use-cases of ARM is as a base SOC to bolt your custom proprietary accelerators onto... seemed like obvious bullshit at the time from a company trying to "publicly renegotiate" a licensing agreement they probably broke...
  - dartos 2y ago
    Again, not saying that they are easy (or cheap!) problems to solve, but that there are more relatively easy problems in the ARM space than the x86 space. That’s why Apple can release a meaningfully new chip every year where it takes several for x86 manufacturers
  - seec 2y ago
    They don't care as much for the ARM stuff because software development investment vastly outweighs the chip development costs. Sure, maybe they can do better but at what cost and for what? The only thing Apple does truly better is performance per watt which is not something that is relevant for a large part of the market. x86 stuff is still competitive performance wise, especially in the GPU department where Apple attempts are rather weak compared to what is on offer across the pond. The Apple Silicon switch cost a large amount of developer effort for optimisation, and in the process a lot of software compatibility was lost, it took a long time to get even the most popular softwares to get properly optimized and some software house even gave up on supporting macOS because it just wasn't worth the man hour investment considering the tiny market. This is why I am very skeptical about the Qualcomm ARM stuff, it needs to be priced extremely well to have a chance, if consumers do not pick it up in droves, no software port is going to happen in a timely manner and it will stay irrelevant. Considering the only thing much better than the current x86 offering is the performance per watt, I do not have a lot of hope, but I may be pleasantly surprised. Apple aficionados keep raving about battery life but it's not really something a lot of people care about (appart for smartphones, where Apple isn't doing any better than the rest of industry).
blackoil 2y ago
Maybe for GPUs, but for CPU both intel and AMD release with yearly cadance. Even when Intel has nothing new to release, generation is bumped.

by sod 2y ago

dartos 2y ago

There’s probably easier problems to solve in the ARM space than x86 considering the amount of money and time spent on x86. That’s not to say that any of these problems are easy, just that there’s probably more lower hanging fruit in ARM land.

kimixa 2y ago
And yet they seem to be the only people picking the apparently "Low Hanging Fruit" in ARM land. We'll see about Qualcomm's Nuvia-based stuff, but that's been "nearly released" for what feels like years now, but you still can't buy one to actually test. And don't underestimate the investment Apple made - it's likely at a similar level to the big x86 incumbents. I mean AMD's entire Zen development team cost was likely a blip on the balance sheet for Apple.
- re-thc 2y ago
  > We'll see about Qualcomm's Nuvia-based stuff, but that's been "nearly released" for what feels like years now, but you still can't buy one to actually test. That's more bound by legal than technical reasons...
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
- transpute 2y ago
  > Qualcomm's Nuvia-based stuff, but that's been "nearly released" for what feels like years now Launching at Computex in 2 weeks, https://www.windowscentral.com/hardware/laptops/next-gen-ai-pcs-are-within-reach-as-asus-joins-microsoft-and-qualcomm-to-unveil-a-new-snapdragon-x-laptop-on-may-20 https://www.windowscentral.com/hardware/laptops/next-gen-ai-...
  - 0x457 2y ago
    Good to know that it's finally seeing the light. I thought they're still in legal dispute with ARM about Nuvia's design?
    - transpute 2y ago
      Not privy to details, but some legal disputes can be resolved by licensing price negotiations, motivated by customer launch deadlines.
    - paulmd 2y ago
      speaking of which, whatever happened to qualcomm's bizarre assertion that ARM was pulling a sneak move in all its new licensing deals to outlaw third-party IP entirely and force ARM-IP-only? there was one quiet "we haven't got anything like that in the contract we're signing with ARM" from someone else, and then radio silence. And you'd really think that would be major news, because it's massively impactful on pretty much everyone, since one of the major use-cases of ARM is as a base SOC to bolt your custom proprietary accelerators onto... seemed like obvious bullshit at the time from a company trying to "publicly renegotiate" a licensing agreement they probably broke...
- dartos 2y ago
  Again, not saying that they are easy (or cheap!) problems to solve, but that there are more relatively easy problems in the ARM space than the x86 space. That’s why Apple can release a meaningfully new chip every year where it takes several for x86 manufacturers
- seec 2y ago
  They don't care as much for the ARM stuff because software development investment vastly outweighs the chip development costs. Sure, maybe they can do better but at what cost and for what? The only thing Apple does truly better is performance per watt which is not something that is relevant for a large part of the market. x86 stuff is still competitive performance wise, especially in the GPU department where Apple attempts are rather weak compared to what is on offer across the pond. The Apple Silicon switch cost a large amount of developer effort for optimisation, and in the process a lot of software compatibility was lost, it took a long time to get even the most popular softwares to get properly optimized and some software house even gave up on supporting macOS because it just wasn't worth the man hour investment considering the tiny market. This is why I am very skeptical about the Qualcomm ARM stuff, it needs to be priced extremely well to have a chance, if consumers do not pick it up in droves, no software port is going to happen in a timely manner and it will stay irrelevant. Considering the only thing much better than the current x86 offering is the performance per watt, I do not have a lot of hope, but I may be pleasantly surprised. Apple aficionados keep raving about battery life but it's not really something a lot of people care about (appart for smartphones, where Apple isn't doing any better than the rest of industry).

blackoil 2y ago

Maybe for GPUs, but for CPU both intel and AMD release with yearly cadance. Even when Intel has nothing new to release, generation is bumped.