7 ms·

IMHO comments and TFA are discussing the wrong question. It’s not really about what the best or fastest or most power efficient CPU or ISA is. I don’t know ab

IMHO comments and TFA are discussing the wrong question. It’s not really about what the best or fastest or most power efficient CPU or ISA is. I don’t know about anyone else but I fully grasp that RISC-V is slow. In the context of RISC-V, I am entirely and only interested in whether a free ISA can be developed which is adequate to be used for developing and operating software for the sake of decentralizing and unencumbering the long-term future of free computing. RISC-V seems possibly promising for that purpose. I would like to see the development of even modest graphics coprocessors using it.

amelius 2y ago
Yes, but this time let's not call them graphics coprocessors if we're going to use them for something else 99% of the time.
- tmtvl 2y ago
  If they're gonna be doing processing of arrays of numbers we could call them Group Processing Units to keep the GPU shorthand.
- binary132 2y ago
  but I don't want LLMs I just want some graphics is that really so much to ask
freedomben 2y ago
That is my interest in risc v as well. However, experience watching adoption has shown me that the vast majority of consumers couldn't give a crap less about the ideals that we care about. They will go with whatever is cheapest, fastest, or both. If we want risc v to win, which I very much do, then it will need to be at least competitive, if not superlative.
- giantrobot 2y ago
  > If we want risc v to win, which I very much do, then it will need to be at least competitive, if not superlative. The whole RISC-V "winning" meme is so weird. What do you gain if RISC-V "wins"? Even with an open source CPU core you're not getting away from binary blobs. Any wireless baseband is going to be pretty much a sealed system for regulatory reasons. Manufacturers will still lock down firmwares. Attestation chains will still be required for security. HDCP won't magically open up. High performance is largely divorced from the ISA and more related to the low level chip design and process node/chemistry. If RISC-V were to "win", the decent chips will still be manufactured by TSMC. Existing chip designers won't commit mass seppuku, they'll just start working on RISC-V designs. Compiler toolchains will just target RISC-V. So to you what do you expect to change with RISC-V? Unless you've shorted ARM and just want them to go out of business there's no magic upside for you as an end user or even as a device designer. Maybe your next phone has a RISC-V cellular baseband? You're not going to be able to tweak the EIRP of the radio any more than you can today. ARM at the core of the baseband doesn't control that but the regulatory licensing.
  - binary132 2y ago
    that sounds an awful lot like a bunch of problems which need the same solution, rather than a bunch of reasons that we shouldn't try to solve one of, if not the most significant of them
    - giantrobot 2y ago
      > that sounds an awful lot like a bunch of problems which need the same solution, rather than a bunch of reasons that we shouldn't try to solve one of, if not the most significant of them What problem or problems do you think exists? What of those problems do you think RISC-V somehow solves? An ARM laptop can run some code you write. A RISC-V laptop can as well. The difference is immaterial unless you really love writing RISC-V assembly. RISC-V doesn't change physics so it doesn't obviate radio emission regulation. RISC-V doesn't change licensing to industry SIGs for protocol compliance badging. RISC-V doesn't change security postures so it's going to still use a signed bootloader to make enterprise sales. A decent performing RISC-V chip still requires a factory costing billions of dollars so you're not going to be manufacturing your own.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
brucehoult 2y ago
> I fully grasp that RISC-V is slow RISC-V is not slow. The RISC-V chips currently available in off-the-shelf hardware, which have CPU cores released in 2018/2019 at the same time as the original specs were formally frozen (ratified), are slow. Big money started to be invested into RISC-V designs in 2021 and 2022. The results of that will be seen in hardware in the market in 2026 or 2027 or so.

amelius 2y ago

Yes, but this time let's not call them graphics coprocessors if we're going to use them for something else 99% of the time.

tmtvl 2y ago
If they're gonna be doing processing of arrays of numbers we could call them Group Processing Units to keep the GPU shorthand.
binary132 2y ago
but I don't want LLMs I just want some graphics is that really so much to ask

freedomben 2y ago

That is my interest in risc v as well. However, experience watching adoption has shown me that the vast majority of consumers couldn't give a crap less about the ideals that we care about. They will go with whatever is cheapest, fastest, or both. If we want risc v to win, which I very much do, then it will need to be at least competitive, if not superlative.

giantrobot 2y ago
> If we want risc v to win, which I very much do, then it will need to be at least competitive, if not superlative. The whole RISC-V "winning" meme is so weird. What do you gain if RISC-V "wins"? Even with an open source CPU core you're not getting away from binary blobs. Any wireless baseband is going to be pretty much a sealed system for regulatory reasons. Manufacturers will still lock down firmwares. Attestation chains will still be required for security. HDCP won't magically open up. High performance is largely divorced from the ISA and more related to the low level chip design and process node/chemistry. If RISC-V were to "win", the decent chips will still be manufactured by TSMC. Existing chip designers won't commit mass seppuku, they'll just start working on RISC-V designs. Compiler toolchains will just target RISC-V. So to you what do you expect to change with RISC-V? Unless you've shorted ARM and just want them to go out of business there's no magic upside for you as an end user or even as a device designer. Maybe your next phone has a RISC-V cellular baseband? You're not going to be able to tweak the EIRP of the radio any more than you can today. ARM at the core of the baseband doesn't control that but the regulatory licensing.
- binary132 2y ago
  that sounds an awful lot like a bunch of problems which need the same solution, rather than a bunch of reasons that we shouldn't try to solve one of, if not the most significant of them
  - giantrobot 2y ago
    > that sounds an awful lot like a bunch of problems which need the same solution, rather than a bunch of reasons that we shouldn't try to solve one of, if not the most significant of them What problem or problems do you think exists? What of those problems do you think RISC-V somehow solves? An ARM laptop can run some code you write. A RISC-V laptop can as well. The difference is immaterial unless you really love writing RISC-V assembly. RISC-V doesn't change physics so it doesn't obviate radio emission regulation. RISC-V doesn't change licensing to industry SIGs for protocol compliance badging. RISC-V doesn't change security postures so it's going to still use a signed bootloader to make enterprise sales. A decent performing RISC-V chip still requires a factory costing billions of dollars so you're not going to be manufacturing your own.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

brucehoult 2y ago

> I fully grasp that RISC-V is slow RISC-V is not slow. The RISC-V chips currently available in off-the-shelf hardware, which have CPU cores released in 2018/2019 at the same time as the original specs were formally frozen (ratified), are slow. Big money started to be invested into RISC-V designs in 2021 and 2022. The results of that will be seen in hardware in the market in 2026 or 2027 or so.