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Don't worry. AMD was just replaced by ARM (and the manufactures who use their designs). That's why Intel did so much R&D in power efficiency. ARM CPU are somet

by bebna 12y ago

Don't worry. AMD was just replaced by ARM (and the manufactures who use their designs). That's why Intel did so much R&D in power efficiency. ARM CPU are sometimes still favorable to Intel ones, in some markets Intel still doesn't have a chance. PC is dominated by Intel. Smartphones by ARM. Intel invades the tablet market, ARM the notebook. Personally I would love me an nice ARM based notebook, but other factors like housing, keyboard and display are often better on Intel devices. But I don't think until ARM steps up and produces a high quality device like Google did for their Chromebooks, no manufacture will switch from the thinking that ARM is for cheap devices only. My god I could already live with a Apple A7 level CPU and modern E-Ink display, which I have in my ebook reader who also can run linux and all tools I really need to work, fast enough to not limit or annoy me. Only thing why I don't use it as daily driver is the missing physical keyboard. But you have to see, I use to roughly 80% of my time with just two consoles: vim and command window for running scripts and git. So I'm not the norm. But what about the norm? Germany has magazine called c't, who just recently published an article how the life with a smartphone as your work pc looks like. Speed wasn't the concern, because their ARM CPUs where powerful enough to run a browser or office software on a full screen monitor without problems. Connectivity was the only problem, which could negated with the right smartphone. There was also an online article about a reporter test drive, who switched from his notebook to a smartphone and a Bluetooth keyboard for his mobile work setup. He liked it, except it was harder to deploy on the lap and he often needed a table to work. (I think it was engadget, but I can't find at the moment and I run out break time, so please look for yourself.) TLDR: ARM is the new AMD.

higherpurpose 12y ago
Unfortunately, Microsoft has kind of killed ARM's entrance into Windows notebooks, now that Windows RT is essentially dead. And Google - Google of all companies, with their architecture-agnostic Chrome OS - has also helped push Intel into its now near-monopoly in Chromebooks. At least with Microsoft it's somewhat understandable why it would kill Windows RT - no compatible apps. But ChromeOS?! Google should be pushing ARM in notebooks like crazy. If ARM doesn't end up with at least 70% market share in Chromebooks (due to the multiple ARM chip makers, just like Android has the majority of market share in mobile operating systems), then I'll consider that a major competition failure. Granted it's not all Google's fault for pushing Intel. Intel managed to enter the Chromebook market with some shameless lies: 1) First lie: promoting the new Intel Chromebooks as "Haswell Chromebooks". I have a good memory and I remember at the time most people thought that was basically Core i5 Chromebooks - at least for a while. 2) Second lie: Those chips were Haswell Celeron, but at those device price points of $200-$250, it would've been impossible for Intel to sell them profitably. So they sold them below cost, so people then can have the choice between what is essentially a $110 chip and a $20 chip, yet the devices cost roughly the same ($250). So of course the choice was made for them, and people would rather get the $250 device with the $110-value chip than the $20 one. It still pisses me off to no end that governments aren't taking action against Intel over this. It's highly monopolistic and anti-competitive behavior. It's no different than Microsoft eating the cost of IE and bundling it with Windows. Intel has also wasted over $8 billion in subsidizing their mobile chips so far, to be able to sell them under-cost, and competitively against ARM. No ARM maker, not even Samsung or Qualcomm, could ever afford to do something like that. So why is Intel allowed to do it to take out the competition from the market in this way? 3) Third lie: After people got used to $250 Celeron (Haswell) Chromebooks - Intel did a bait and switch and switched those more powerful Haswell Celerons with Atom-based Celerons, which are no more powerful than ARM chips, but people now think those "Celerons" are. It gets worse. Now that people remember that the ~$110 or so "Celerons" were relatively powerful (thanks to the Haswell/Core architecture), they are now starting to charge that much for the Atom-based Celerons. Even though as I said, they are the equivalent of $20-$30 ARM chips. But this is what monopoly can get you (at least in Windows PCs and Chromebooks, where the ARM competition has been all but wiped out). The lies also continue with the way Intel is now calling its new Atoms - "Braswell", as if they had anything to do with Haswell or Broadwell. Intel has become (or perhaps has always been, I've only been following this stuff closely for the past few years) an incredibly shady company. And it saddens me that more people don't see it, and that Intel gets away with it stealing ever more market share in nefarious and anti-competitive ways.
- blumkvist 12y ago
  That's the way markets who rely on heavy CapEx work. Too much money, too much power.
- bebna 12y ago
  First let me state that roughly the same opinion, except that I don't think Google should push ARM notebooks, I think Samsung as one of the biggest Fab owners and also notebook manufacture should push it. See my reference to the high quality device. > Those chips were Haswell Celeron, but at those device price points of $200-$250, it would've been impossible for Intel to sell them profitably. If I'm not mistaken, these are mostly trash from production who are not good enough for the regular QA, but still run with clipped wings. > It still pisses me off to no end that governments aren't taking action against Intel over this. snort If that is all, you seem to be much happier with your government than I dare to dream of.
- mark-r 12y ago
  The architecture of the Chromebook should allow Google to change their CPU preference at will. If Intel is producing superior price/performance then it would be stupid of them to pass it up. Having that flexibility will keep the pressure on Intel.
- tracker1 12y ago
  I mostly agree regarding Intel... A lot of this is all pretty shady, I will make one exception to your comment about MS eating IE's costs. When MS started including IE with windows, every other graphical OS included a browser (OS/2 Warp, and early Linux distros). I think the irritation was how deeply they embedded the browser, which does make some sense as it allowed them to create the CHM help files, which is a pretty nice format. As well as some of the push desktop stuff early one, which I kind of liked. The down side is that support for newer browsers on older OS versions was effectively made into a cliff for IE. I'm glad that Chrome and Firefox carry as much weight as they do. Seeing a roughly 1:1:1 split among the top three is best for the larger community. The down side being how long it takes for an IE version to ship (still), which means that IE while ahead at launch quickly falls behind and becomes our least common denominator for public websites for years. In particular, while I don't mind using JS transpilers like Babel/6to5 to get new features today, the fact that I can't use these without such tools for the next 4-5 years is kind of sad. As an aside, I really wish there was a common background worker abstraction that worked in both node and the browser... I know I can fork/cluster in node and use webworkers where available, it would still be nice to see a common interface for this stuff.
voidlogic 12y ago
>Don't worry. AMD was just replaced by ARM (and the manufactures who use their designs) Maybe for mobile, but even AMD is better than ARM for most server tasks. Maybe a new generation of higher performance 64-bit ARM chips will change this...
dzhiurgis 12y ago
I don't think connectivity is much of a problem as is RAM. And once you have just enough RAM and swapping, you realise that the biggest problem is organising the open tabs in browser. We have just approached the state when computers can finally fully assist us. The problem is in the software. There just isn't a way to manage our shared computer memory.
jccalhoun 12y ago
I am not optimistic about the future of arm chips. Intel is working hard to take over the cheap tablet market. There are more and more intel android tablets coming out. I don't see arm having much success in the notebook market - even chromebooks are are using intel more and more. If apple wasn't designing their own custom arm chips I would think arm's days were numbered.
- rogerbinns 12y ago
  Intel has spent over $7bn subsiding chips for tablets and chromebooks (about $50 per device!) The subsidies are being phased out now. You'll want to check what happens when there is no longer the subsidy for actual levels of Intel support. http://appleinsider.com/articles/14/11/16/after-losing-apples-ipad-business-intel-has-bled-7-billion-while-heavily-subsidizing-cheap-x86-atom-android-tablets http://appleinsider.com/articles/14/11/16/after-losing-apple... (there are many articles from other publications saying the same thing)
marrs 12y ago
Personally I would love me an nice ARM based notebook Then you can install RiscOS on it. Finally, someone will have caught up to 20 years ago.
nextos 12y ago
I am seriously considering ARM too. As a daily driver they are more than good enough. I need a lot of power so my laptop is just a terminal to a server and some desktop applications, mostly CLI-based. ARM wins in terms of low heat and low energy consumption, which are huge plusses IMHO. With a bit of effort, they can also win in openness. They will be powering e.g. http://wiki.vero-apparatus.com/ARM64OpenLaptopConcept http://wiki.vero-apparatus.com/ARM64OpenLaptopConcept and http://pyra-handheld.com/ http://pyra-handheld.com/ Companies should realize design wins over features. If anyone comes up with a developer oriented laptop that (i) has top notch Linux support (ii) can be upgraded / expanded / serviced (iii) has a good keyboard (iv) has a matte 4:3 screen they'll gain loads of backing. With quick SSDs and cheap RAM, CPU speed is not that relevant.
- tracker1 12y ago
  I think the problem is that nobody has implemented/opened up a standard boot system... There's no equivalent to UEFI/BIOS for ARM. Which is a shame, because it prevents some of the variety in terms of OSes targeting a broader range of devices that we see on x86 based platforms. All of that said, I've been hopeful to see something compelling in an ARM powered laptop for a while... Also, with the likes of the transformer tablet/netbook setups, I'm really surprised nobody has done an interface for a smart phone docking/powering a laptop yet (at least that I'm aware of), carrying the same screen/keyboard/touchpad across multiple generations of mobile device. Such a beast would have to be able to run at least 2x 1080p displays without much lag and several applications. It would probably need a means of docking with active cooling while docked. It would be an interesting design challenge.
  - nextos 12y ago
    I've heard coreboot is being ported to ARM. I can't find the source now. Some of the low end Chromebooks will be quite interesting when this becomes a reality.

by bebna 12y ago

higherpurpose 12y ago

Unfortunately, Microsoft has kind of killed ARM's entrance into Windows notebooks, now that Windows RT is essentially dead. And Google - Google of all companies, with their architecture-agnostic Chrome OS - has also helped push Intel into its now near-monopoly in Chromebooks. At least with Microsoft it's somewhat understandable why it would kill Windows RT - no compatible apps. But ChromeOS?! Google should be pushing ARM in notebooks like crazy. If ARM doesn't end up with at least 70% market share in Chromebooks (due to the multiple ARM chip makers, just like Android has the majority of market share in mobile operating systems), then I'll consider that a major competition failure. Granted it's not all Google's fault for pushing Intel. Intel managed to enter the Chromebook market with some shameless lies: 1) First lie: promoting the new Intel Chromebooks as "Haswell Chromebooks". I have a good memory and I remember at the time most people thought that was basically Core i5 Chromebooks - at least for a while. 2) Second lie: Those chips were Haswell Celeron, but at those device price points of $200-$250, it would've been impossible for Intel to sell them profitably. So they sold them below cost, so people then can have the choice between what is essentially a $110 chip and a $20 chip, yet the devices cost roughly the same ($250). So of course the choice was made for them, and people would rather get the $250 device with the $110-value chip than the $20 one. It still pisses me off to no end that governments aren't taking action against Intel over this. It's highly monopolistic and anti-competitive behavior. It's no different than Microsoft eating the cost of IE and bundling it with Windows. Intel has also wasted over $8 billion in subsidizing their mobile chips so far, to be able to sell them under-cost, and competitively against ARM. No ARM maker, not even Samsung or Qualcomm, could ever afford to do something like that. So why is Intel allowed to do it to take out the competition from the market in this way? 3) Third lie: After people got used to $250 Celeron (Haswell) Chromebooks - Intel did a bait and switch and switched those more powerful Haswell Celerons with Atom-based Celerons, which are no more powerful than ARM chips, but people now think those "Celerons" are. It gets worse. Now that people remember that the ~$110 or so "Celerons" were relatively powerful (thanks to the Haswell/Core architecture), they are now starting to charge that much for the Atom-based Celerons. Even though as I said, they are the equivalent of $20-$30 ARM chips. But this is what monopoly can get you (at least in Windows PCs and Chromebooks, where the ARM competition has been all but wiped out). The lies also continue with the way Intel is now calling its new Atoms - "Braswell", as if they had anything to do with Haswell or Broadwell. Intel has become (or perhaps has always been, I've only been following this stuff closely for the past few years) an incredibly shady company. And it saddens me that more people don't see it, and that Intel gets away with it stealing ever more market share in nefarious and anti-competitive ways.

blumkvist 12y ago
That's the way markets who rely on heavy CapEx work. Too much money, too much power.
bebna 12y ago
First let me state that roughly the same opinion, except that I don't think Google should push ARM notebooks, I think Samsung as one of the biggest Fab owners and also notebook manufacture should push it. See my reference to the high quality device. > Those chips were Haswell Celeron, but at those device price points of $200-$250, it would've been impossible for Intel to sell them profitably. If I'm not mistaken, these are mostly trash from production who are not good enough for the regular QA, but still run with clipped wings. > It still pisses me off to no end that governments aren't taking action against Intel over this. snort If that is all, you seem to be much happier with your government than I dare to dream of.
mark-r 12y ago
The architecture of the Chromebook should allow Google to change their CPU preference at will. If Intel is producing superior price/performance then it would be stupid of them to pass it up. Having that flexibility will keep the pressure on Intel.
tracker1 12y ago
I mostly agree regarding Intel... A lot of this is all pretty shady, I will make one exception to your comment about MS eating IE's costs. When MS started including IE with windows, every other graphical OS included a browser (OS/2 Warp, and early Linux distros). I think the irritation was how deeply they embedded the browser, which does make some sense as it allowed them to create the CHM help files, which is a pretty nice format. As well as some of the push desktop stuff early one, which I kind of liked. The down side is that support for newer browsers on older OS versions was effectively made into a cliff for IE. I'm glad that Chrome and Firefox carry as much weight as they do. Seeing a roughly 1:1:1 split among the top three is best for the larger community. The down side being how long it takes for an IE version to ship (still), which means that IE while ahead at launch quickly falls behind and becomes our least common denominator for public websites for years. In particular, while I don't mind using JS transpilers like Babel/6to5 to get new features today, the fact that I can't use these without such tools for the next 4-5 years is kind of sad. As an aside, I really wish there was a common background worker abstraction that worked in both node and the browser... I know I can fork/cluster in node and use webworkers where available, it would still be nice to see a common interface for this stuff.

voidlogic 12y ago

>Don't worry. AMD was just replaced by ARM (and the manufactures who use their designs) Maybe for mobile, but even AMD is better than ARM for most server tasks. Maybe a new generation of higher performance 64-bit ARM chips will change this...

dzhiurgis 12y ago

I don't think connectivity is much of a problem as is RAM. And once you have just enough RAM and swapping, you realise that the biggest problem is organising the open tabs in browser. We have just approached the state when computers can finally fully assist us. The problem is in the software. There just isn't a way to manage our shared computer memory.

jccalhoun 12y ago

I am not optimistic about the future of arm chips. Intel is working hard to take over the cheap tablet market. There are more and more intel android tablets coming out. I don't see arm having much success in the notebook market - even chromebooks are are using intel more and more. If apple wasn't designing their own custom arm chips I would think arm's days were numbered.

rogerbinns 12y ago
Intel has spent over $7bn subsiding chips for tablets and chromebooks (about $50 per device!) The subsidies are being phased out now. You'll want to check what happens when there is no longer the subsidy for actual levels of Intel support. http://appleinsider.com/articles/14/11/16/after-losing-apples-ipad-business-intel-has-bled-7-billion-while-heavily-subsidizing-cheap-x86-atom-android-tablets http://appleinsider.com/articles/14/11/16/after-losing-apple... (there are many articles from other publications saying the same thing)

marrs 12y ago

Personally I would love me an nice ARM based notebook Then you can install RiscOS on it. Finally, someone will have caught up to 20 years ago.

nextos 12y ago

I am seriously considering ARM too. As a daily driver they are more than good enough. I need a lot of power so my laptop is just a terminal to a server and some desktop applications, mostly CLI-based. ARM wins in terms of low heat and low energy consumption, which are huge plusses IMHO. With a bit of effort, they can also win in openness. They will be powering e.g. http://wiki.vero-apparatus.com/ARM64OpenLaptopConcept http://wiki.vero-apparatus.com/ARM64OpenLaptopConcept and http://pyra-handheld.com/ http://pyra-handheld.com/ Companies should realize design wins over features. If anyone comes up with a developer oriented laptop that (i) has top notch Linux support (ii) can be upgraded / expanded / serviced (iii) has a good keyboard (iv) has a matte 4:3 screen they'll gain loads of backing. With quick SSDs and cheap RAM, CPU speed is not that relevant.

tracker1 12y ago
I think the problem is that nobody has implemented/opened up a standard boot system... There's no equivalent to UEFI/BIOS for ARM. Which is a shame, because it prevents some of the variety in terms of OSes targeting a broader range of devices that we see on x86 based platforms. All of that said, I've been hopeful to see something compelling in an ARM powered laptop for a while... Also, with the likes of the transformer tablet/netbook setups, I'm really surprised nobody has done an interface for a smart phone docking/powering a laptop yet (at least that I'm aware of), carrying the same screen/keyboard/touchpad across multiple generations of mobile device. Such a beast would have to be able to run at least 2x 1080p displays without much lag and several applications. It would probably need a means of docking with active cooling while docked. It would be an interesting design challenge.
- nextos 12y ago
  I've heard coreboot is being ported to ARM. I can't find the source now. Some of the low end Chromebooks will be quite interesting when this becomes a reality.