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> After that, the last refuge of x86 It's not like ARM has taken over those markets yet. Snapdragon X is fine but nothing special compared AMD/Intel chips. I t

> After that, the last refuge of x86 It's not like ARM has taken over those markets yet. Snapdragon X is fine but nothing special compared AMD/Intel chips. I think we just might have a pretty distorted view of ARM vs x86 because of Apple. They are just much better at designing ARM chips than anyone else (including both Qualcomm and especially ARM itself). Servers is kind of a mixed story as well. There is nothing wrong with other companies trying to disrupt AMD/Intel duopoly and hopefully we'll get lower prices and more innovation because of that but calling x86 dead is a bit premature at this point..

bhouston 2y ago
> Snapdragon X is fine but nothing special compared AMD/Intel chips. The issue is that ARM is now fine for Windows. Until Snapdragon, ARM was actually pretty crap outside of Apple. This is a huge step. Qualcomm acquired a lot of the original Apple team for the M1 via Nuvia and I expect them to be able to execute at least decently going forward. Apparently they are selling because they have better battery life than Intel/AMD laptops according to this: https://www.techpowerup.com/324301/battery-life-is-driving-sales-of-qualcomm-snapdragon-copilot-pcs-not-ai https://www.techpowerup.com/324301/battery-life-is-driving-s... > Servers is kind of a mixed story as well. Graviton is 30% cheap for the performance (e.g. performance adjusted price.) It is a no brainer for a lot of workflows, especially given so many developers are actually building on ARM machines in the first place. I want my servers to be 30% cheaper. > There is nothing wrong with other companies trying to disrupt AMD/Intel duopoly and hopefully we'll get lower prices and more innovation because of that but calling x86 dead is a bit premature at this point.. Qualcomm is exploring acquiring Intel. A company who got its value from ARM is looking to take over the historic leader in x86 - doesn't that tell you something? https://www.reuters.com/markets/deals/qualcomm-approached-intel-about-takeover-recent-days-wsj-reports-2024-09-20/ https://www.reuters.com/markets/deals/qualcomm-approached-in... The writing is on the wall. x86 isn't dead and it won't be dead anytime soon, but it definitely in its twilight period.
- jtc331 2y ago
  Graviton single thread performance is _not_ the same as the Intel or AMD offerings on AWS.
  - bhouston 2y ago
    Yeah, it seems whatever key improvements Qualcomm did for the Snapdragon X and Apple did for the Mx series haven't made it to the Graviton yet. When I said 30% earlier I was talking about value - my understanding is that Graviton is 30% cheaper once you factor in the performance differences.
    - Wytwwww 2y ago
      > Qualcomm did for the Snapdragon X and Apple did for the Mx series haven't made it to the Graviton yet Why would they, though? Neither Apple nor Qualcomm have any incentives to share their designs with ARM anymore than they do with Intel, AMD or each other. I wonder how AmpereOne will look assuming it actually ever comes out...
      - bhouston 2y ago
        > Neither Apple nor Qualcomm have any incentives to share their designs with ARM anymore than they do with Intel, AMD or each other. Techniques leak out as people move around, etc. For example, AMD had a lead on chiplet designs but now Intel has them in the latest generation. I would expect that ARM will have chiplets designs by the end of the decade as well. Look at Anthropic that seems to have an LLM that is on par with OpenAI GPT 4.
      - kmeisthax 2y ago
        Funny you say that, because ARM is actually suing Qualcomm specifically over this issue. The Nuvia designs Qualcomm bought were made under an ARM architectural license that specifically restricts all designs sold to only go in servers - not phones, laptops, or anything else. They also weren't allowed to sell the company without destroying the designs first, because Nuvia got a really sweet deal on the architectural license. Qualcomm thinks that doesn't matter, because they have a (much broader) ARM architectural license already - you can't force someone to buy the same license twice, under the principle of rights exhaustion. ARM furthermore has an incentive to keep architectural licensees from competing with ARM's in-house design licensing business. Apple Silicon isn't a threat to that business because Apple will never sell their own components to third-parties. In fact, that's why they hate right-to-repair so much[0]. They're better off licensing ARM patents and having Apple continue to work on LLVM than trying to squeeze them for more money. Qualcomm on the other hand sells phone chips to other companies, and currently spends a lot of money to package ARM's licensed designs into their own SoCs. Nuvia designs going into those phones would be a significant movement of money from ARM's pocket to Qualcomm's. [0] To be specific, in a right-to-repair world where individual components have to be sold at the same pricing arrangements available to the OEM, Apple would not be able to have exclusive parts in their phones that other vendors can't have. Apple can't say this, because it's hilariously self-serving and the general public correctly doesn't give a flying fuck about IP law, but you can infer it from conduct. Apple is perfectly willing to sell you assemblies, of course. Because no vendor is going to buy 100 unrelated parts to get the 1 they care about.
- Wytwwww 2y ago
  > I want my servers to be 30% cheaper. Sure, I mean I agree that ARM can outcompete x86 there but mainly Amazon can just cut out Intel/AMD and make their chips themselves which can significantly reduce costs. Not because Neoverse is somehow inherently better or faster than its x86 equivalents. Of course from the perspective of most users that's effectively the same thing, why overpay for 1 fast core when you can just get 2 slightly slower ones. > Qualcomm is exploring acquiring Intel. That's far fetched and hard to believe. IIRC there were talks about Qualcomm maybe buying some secondary subsidiaries/departments form Intel and somehow it got extrapolated to Qualcomm acquiring Intel (unless there is any credible information to back that up?)
  - bhouston 2y ago
    > That's far fetched and hard to believe. IIRC there were talks about Qualcomm maybe buying some secondary subsidiaries/departments form Intel and somehow it got extrapolated to Qualcomm acquiring Intel (unless there is any credible information to back that up?) Also reported in WSJ: https://www.wsj.com/business/deals/qualcomm-approached-intel-about-a-takeover-in-recent-days-fa114f9d?st=i5zay9xbq899g24&reflink=article_copyURL_share https://www.wsj.com/business/deals/qualcomm-approached-intel... That is Reuters and WSJ reporting it, not an X post by a anonymous rando. It mentions at least two sources. This is not a rumour, it was at least somewhat real. Doesn't mean it will happen, it seems to be very preliminary and exploratory.
    - not2b 2y ago
      It won't happen because neither the US nor the EU antitrust regulators will allow it. It isn't just up to Qualcomm and Intel. Some other deal, where Qualcomm buys some pieces of Intel, might be possible.
    - Wytwwww 2y ago
      > This is not a rumour, it was at least somewhat real How can you tell? I'm not denying that and obviously can't claim to know but I just don't see any public information that would allow us to make this conclusion. WSJ, Reuters and everyone else regularly report rumours that sound credible. Although if we're only talking about "exploring" rather than anything more that's probably true, there is no reason for Qualcomm to at least try and do the math of at what price point it might start making sense and they should be obviously be doing that. I just don't really see how is that particularly newsworthy since it's just extremely improbably (due to factors both Intel and Qualcomm can't directly control).
- alluro2 2y ago
  "Qualcomm is exploring acquiring Intel" Huh, I didn't even realize they are sufficiently big for this to be potentially possible.
  - Wytwwww 2y ago
    That but I also think they are also at the same time much too big for this to be potentially possible since no government would approve it unless Intel was on the brink of bankruptcy.
- aspenmayer 2y ago
  https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-10-15/qualcomm-said-to-wait-for-us-election-to-decide-intel-move https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-10-15/qualcomm-...
knowitnone 2y ago
"It's not like ARM has taken over those markets yet." Key word here is "yet" so you are basically in agreement with their post
ezst 2y ago
> I think we just might have a pretty distorted view of ARM vs x86 because of Apple. They are just much better at designing ARM chips than anyone else and those chips become relatively unimpressive once everyone gets access to the same TSMC nodes a year and some down the road with AMD's x86 beating Apple's wonder ARM once again…

bhouston 2y ago

> Snapdragon X is fine but nothing special compared AMD/Intel chips. The issue is that ARM is now fine for Windows. Until Snapdragon, ARM was actually pretty crap outside of Apple. This is a huge step. Qualcomm acquired a lot of the original Apple team for the M1 via Nuvia and I expect them to be able to execute at least decently going forward. Apparently they are selling because they have better battery life than Intel/AMD laptops according to this: https://www.techpowerup.com/324301/battery-life-is-driving-sales-of-qualcomm-snapdragon-copilot-pcs-not-ai https://www.techpowerup.com/324301/battery-life-is-driving-s... > Servers is kind of a mixed story as well. Graviton is 30% cheap for the performance (e.g. performance adjusted price.) It is a no brainer for a lot of workflows, especially given so many developers are actually building on ARM machines in the first place. I want my servers to be 30% cheaper. > There is nothing wrong with other companies trying to disrupt AMD/Intel duopoly and hopefully we'll get lower prices and more innovation because of that but calling x86 dead is a bit premature at this point.. Qualcomm is exploring acquiring Intel. A company who got its value from ARM is looking to take over the historic leader in x86 - doesn't that tell you something? https://www.reuters.com/markets/deals/qualcomm-approached-intel-about-takeover-recent-days-wsj-reports-2024-09-20/ https://www.reuters.com/markets/deals/qualcomm-approached-in... The writing is on the wall. x86 isn't dead and it won't be dead anytime soon, but it definitely in its twilight period.

jtc331 2y ago
Graviton single thread performance is _not_ the same as the Intel or AMD offerings on AWS.
- bhouston 2y ago
  Yeah, it seems whatever key improvements Qualcomm did for the Snapdragon X and Apple did for the Mx series haven't made it to the Graviton yet. When I said 30% earlier I was talking about value - my understanding is that Graviton is 30% cheaper once you factor in the performance differences.
  - Wytwwww 2y ago
    > Qualcomm did for the Snapdragon X and Apple did for the Mx series haven't made it to the Graviton yet Why would they, though? Neither Apple nor Qualcomm have any incentives to share their designs with ARM anymore than they do with Intel, AMD or each other. I wonder how AmpereOne will look assuming it actually ever comes out...
    - bhouston 2y ago
      > Neither Apple nor Qualcomm have any incentives to share their designs with ARM anymore than they do with Intel, AMD or each other. Techniques leak out as people move around, etc. For example, AMD had a lead on chiplet designs but now Intel has them in the latest generation. I would expect that ARM will have chiplets designs by the end of the decade as well. Look at Anthropic that seems to have an LLM that is on par with OpenAI GPT 4.
    - kmeisthax 2y ago
      Funny you say that, because ARM is actually suing Qualcomm specifically over this issue. The Nuvia designs Qualcomm bought were made under an ARM architectural license that specifically restricts all designs sold to only go in servers - not phones, laptops, or anything else. They also weren't allowed to sell the company without destroying the designs first, because Nuvia got a really sweet deal on the architectural license. Qualcomm thinks that doesn't matter, because they have a (much broader) ARM architectural license already - you can't force someone to buy the same license twice, under the principle of rights exhaustion. ARM furthermore has an incentive to keep architectural licensees from competing with ARM's in-house design licensing business. Apple Silicon isn't a threat to that business because Apple will never sell their own components to third-parties. In fact, that's why they hate right-to-repair so much[0]. They're better off licensing ARM patents and having Apple continue to work on LLVM than trying to squeeze them for more money. Qualcomm on the other hand sells phone chips to other companies, and currently spends a lot of money to package ARM's licensed designs into their own SoCs. Nuvia designs going into those phones would be a significant movement of money from ARM's pocket to Qualcomm's. [0] To be specific, in a right-to-repair world where individual components have to be sold at the same pricing arrangements available to the OEM, Apple would not be able to have exclusive parts in their phones that other vendors can't have. Apple can't say this, because it's hilariously self-serving and the general public correctly doesn't give a flying fuck about IP law, but you can infer it from conduct. Apple is perfectly willing to sell you assemblies, of course. Because no vendor is going to buy 100 unrelated parts to get the 1 they care about.
Wytwwww 2y ago
> I want my servers to be 30% cheaper. Sure, I mean I agree that ARM can outcompete x86 there but mainly Amazon can just cut out Intel/AMD and make their chips themselves which can significantly reduce costs. Not because Neoverse is somehow inherently better or faster than its x86 equivalents. Of course from the perspective of most users that's effectively the same thing, why overpay for 1 fast core when you can just get 2 slightly slower ones. > Qualcomm is exploring acquiring Intel. That's far fetched and hard to believe. IIRC there were talks about Qualcomm maybe buying some secondary subsidiaries/departments form Intel and somehow it got extrapolated to Qualcomm acquiring Intel (unless there is any credible information to back that up?)
- bhouston 2y ago
  > That's far fetched and hard to believe. IIRC there were talks about Qualcomm maybe buying some secondary subsidiaries/departments form Intel and somehow it got extrapolated to Qualcomm acquiring Intel (unless there is any credible information to back that up?) Also reported in WSJ: https://www.wsj.com/business/deals/qualcomm-approached-intel-about-a-takeover-in-recent-days-fa114f9d?st=i5zay9xbq899g24&reflink=article_copyURL_share https://www.wsj.com/business/deals/qualcomm-approached-intel... That is Reuters and WSJ reporting it, not an X post by a anonymous rando. It mentions at least two sources. This is not a rumour, it was at least somewhat real. Doesn't mean it will happen, it seems to be very preliminary and exploratory.
  - not2b 2y ago
    It won't happen because neither the US nor the EU antitrust regulators will allow it. It isn't just up to Qualcomm and Intel. Some other deal, where Qualcomm buys some pieces of Intel, might be possible.
  - Wytwwww 2y ago
    > This is not a rumour, it was at least somewhat real How can you tell? I'm not denying that and obviously can't claim to know but I just don't see any public information that would allow us to make this conclusion. WSJ, Reuters and everyone else regularly report rumours that sound credible. Although if we're only talking about "exploring" rather than anything more that's probably true, there is no reason for Qualcomm to at least try and do the math of at what price point it might start making sense and they should be obviously be doing that. I just don't really see how is that particularly newsworthy since it's just extremely improbably (due to factors both Intel and Qualcomm can't directly control).
alluro2 2y ago
"Qualcomm is exploring acquiring Intel" Huh, I didn't even realize they are sufficiently big for this to be potentially possible.
- Wytwwww 2y ago
  That but I also think they are also at the same time much too big for this to be potentially possible since no government would approve it unless Intel was on the brink of bankruptcy.
aspenmayer 2y ago
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-10-15/qualcomm-said-to-wait-for-us-election-to-decide-intel-move https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-10-15/qualcomm-...

knowitnone 2y ago

"It's not like ARM has taken over those markets yet." Key word here is "yet" so you are basically in agreement with their post

ezst 2y ago

> I think we just might have a pretty distorted view of ARM vs x86 because of Apple. They are just much better at designing ARM chips than anyone else and those chips become relatively unimpressive once everyone gets access to the same TSMC nodes a year and some down the road with AMD's x86 beating Apple's wonder ARM once again…