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Qualcomm's Oryon core: A long time in the making

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Re: Qualcomm's Oryon core: A long time in the making

#71
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The M4 is the highest single core CPU in the world and it’s in a ridiculously thin tablet That's kind of the problem. The world's most powerful CPU is put in the world's most expensive and thinnest Netflix machine lol. Was the previous "thicker" M3 iPad holding anyone back? All that power and I can't use it to compile the Linux kernel, I can't use it to play the latest Steam/GOG games, or run CAD simulations, becaus…

That’s a very narrow definition of “useful” and one I’d say is rather focused on yourself? Why is Linux the arbiter of what is “useful”? Why would it still be a benchmark flex if it was on macOS, an Os where millions of people do professional work everyday? And why is the iPad just a “Netflix machine” when tons of people use the iPad for professional creative use cases as well?

I'll attempt the best interpretation of the comment. Installing Linux would allow for general purpose use of the device (in a freedom sense). This increases the "utility" of the device and lowers the bar for extending its functionality.

Re: Qualcomm's Oryon core: A long time in the making

#72
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s a very narrow definition of “useful” and one I’d say is rather focused on yourself? Why is Linux the arbiter of what is “useful”? Why would it still be a benchmark flex if it was on macOS, an Os where millions of people do professional work everyday? And why is the iPad just a “Netflix machine” when tons of people use the iPad for professional creative use cases as well?

> And why is the iPad just a “Netflix machine” when tons of people use the iPad for professional creative use cases as well? For my family, the iPhone and other Apple devices are the ultimate productivity machines. The App Store, fantastic. Why? Because they are (rightly) terrified of installing apps on Windows. Or any “computer.” They’ve been burned too many times, warned too many times. Unless it’s Microsoft Office…

[flagged]

Re: Qualcomm's Oryon core: A long time in the making

#73
post #5

Get proper Linux support and the RISC-V variant they seemed to be working on and I'll buy the laptop ;-) I have no interest in Windows and even less so on ARM.

You don't want a RISC-V laptop. Not yet, at least. It will take quite some doing before those compete with x86_64/arm laptops. Beautiful thing about Windows computers is that it's generally not too hard to make them into linux/BSD/etc computers. :) Qualcomm [1] and some vendors [2][3] are making progress towards linux support though. [1] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-6.8-ARM-Changes [2] https://www.phoronix.com…

Jim Keller is confident that Ascalon will have performance close to zen5 when it is finished later this year. Chips in hand could be some than a lot of people seen to think.

Re: Qualcomm's Oryon core: A long time in the making

#74
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The M4 is the highest single core CPU in the world and it’s in a ridiculously thin tablet That's kind of the problem. The world's most powerful CPU is put in the world's most expensive and thinnest Netflix machine lol. Was the previous "thicker" M3 iPad holding anyone back? All that power and I can't use it to compile the Linux kernel, I can't use it to play the latest Steam/GOG games, or run CAD simulations, becaus…

That’s a very narrow definition of “useful” and one I’d say is rather focused on yourself? Why is Linux the arbiter of what is “useful”? Why would it still be a benchmark flex if it was on macOS, an Os where millions of people do professional work everyday? And why is the iPad just a “Netflix machine” when tons of people use the iPad for professional creative use cases as well?

>And why is the iPad just a “Netflix machine” when tons of people use the iPad for professional creative use cases as well?

I never said people can't use iPads for profesional applications, I was asking what professional tasks are people doing with the iPad that necessitated the M4 to be in that closed platform vs the M3 or M2, instead of being put in a more open one like the Mac where it can be put to better use at more generic compute tasks similar to what X86 and Nvidia chips are used for, instead of being stuck in a very restricted platform mostly targeted towards content consumption.

And so far nobody has provided an answer to that question. All the answers are either repeating Apple's marketing or vague ones like "you can use the iPad for professional applications too you know, it's not just a Netflix machine". OK, but what exactly are those professional iPad applications that mandate the M4 being in the iPad instead of the Mac?

I'm bringing this up, because commenters bring up the M4 as the holy grail of chips in discussions about the latest X86 and Qualcomm chips, so if you compare a chip that can currently only run AppStore apps vs chips that can run most SW ever then we're comparing Apples and Oranges.

Re: Qualcomm's Oryon core: A long time in the making

#76
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, if your question is “what new capabilities did it unlock?” then doesn’t that apply to the whole CPU market? Did any of the stuff you mentioned you do has fundamentally changed in desktop in the last decade +. People like faster and snappier things. Along with that the new hardware unlocks the use of tandem oleds which is a big change for HDR creation and color accuracy. They go hand in hand. A lot of people c…

>Like this argument you’re proposing just boils down to “it doesn’t solve my needs and therefore I can’t imagine it solving other people’s needs” I never said that. I asked what needs does the M4 solve that the M3/2 couldn't? I asked that because people keep bring up the M4 in discussion, arguing against X86/Qualcomm chips, how they're slower than Apple's latest M4 chips, and for that I counteract with the fact that…

You're arguing multiple axes and this argument feels really nonsensical to me as a result.

So first of all, your entire argument hinges on YOUR belief that the iPad is just a consumption device. So you don't believe the M4 is a significant jump over the M2, even when I give you reasons that it is.

Then your argument hinges on the comparison to Qualcomm SoCs, but isn't the use of the iPad irrelevant unless you also believe it'll not make its way to other devices? Which feels unfounded.

Those are two distinct arguments that IMHO have no bearing on each other unless you also make the two assumptions that I think you're erroneously making.

Re: Qualcomm's Oryon core: A long time in the making

#77
post #4

The M4 is the highest single core CPU in the world and it’s in a ridiculously thin tablet without cooling. I don’t understand where this idea that Apple has lost most of their chip design talent and is in trouble rhetoric is coming from. Apple still makes the world’s most advanced and efficient consumer chips, years after the M1.

It comes from the idea that apple didn’t advance significantly in M2 and M3, which are equally untrue, but equally pervasive.

People were absolutely sure that apple made basically no real advancement but just were running up the TDPs and that’s where all their M2 and M3 gains came from. That was the narrative for the last 2 years. But then you look at geekerwan and apple is making 20, 30% steps every gen, and with perf/w climbing upwards every gen too. Mainstream sites just didn’t want to do the diligence, plus there’s a weird persistent bias against the idea of apple being good. It’s gotta just be the node… or the accelerators… or the OS…

Reminder that we sit here 3 years later and even giving AMD a node advantage (7940HS vs M2/M3 family) they’re still pulling >20W core-only single-thread power (even ignoring the x86 platform power problems!) to compete with a 5W M2 thread. And yes, you can limit it but then they lose on performance instead.

https://youtu.be/EbDPvcbilCs?t=928

https://youtu.be/EbDPvcbilCs?t=1000

https://youtu.be/EbDPvcbilCs?t=708

But yeah, anyway, that’s where it came from. People completely dismissed M2 and M3 as having any worthwhile advancement (even with laptops they could objectively analyze!) and were in the process of repeating this for M4 yet again. So why wouldn’t you think that three generations of stagnation indicates apple has a problem? The problem is that apple hasn’t actually stagnated - there is an epistemic closure issue and a lot of people won’t admit it or aren’t exposed to that information, because it’s being proxied through this lens of 25% of the tech community being devout apple anti-fanboys.

It's a problem with every single apple/android thread too. People will admit with the ML stuff that apple does a much better job handling PII (keeping it on-device, offering e2e encryption between devices, using anonymizing tokens when it needs to go to a service), and people intellectually understand they use the same approaches and techniques in other areas too, but suggest that maybe apple isn't quite as bad as the literal adtech company and you'll get the works. People don't want to think of themselves as fanboys but... there is a large contingent that does all the things fanboys would do and says all the things fanboys would say, and acts how fanboys would act, and nevertheless thinks they're the rock of neutrality standing between two equally-bad choices. False balance is very intellectually comforting.

https://paulgraham.com/fh.html

Re: Qualcomm's Oryon core: A long time in the making

#78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The M4 is the highest single core CPU in the world and it’s in a ridiculously thin tablet That's kind of the problem. The world's most powerful CPU is put in the world's most expensive and thinnest Netflix machine lol. Was the previous "thicker" M3 iPad holding anyone back? All that power and I can't use it to compile the Linux kernel, I can't use it to play the latest Steam/GOG games, or run CAD simulations, becaus…

> The world's most powerful CPU maybe the most powerful / watt - desktop CPUs like the 9950X are still way more powerful.

M4 still has a 10% higher Geekbench single core score than the 9950X.

Re: Qualcomm's Oryon core: A long time in the making

#79
post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The question from me was whether the M4 makes iPad users more productive vs the M3 iPad or whatever the last chip was, not if the iPad itself make you more productive than Linux or window s. And since people keep bringing up the M4 as the yardstick in discussions on generic X86 and Qualcomm chips, then my productivity metric for comparison was also meant in a global generic way, as in the general purpose compute chip…

> The question was whether the M4 makes you more productive on the iPad vs the M3 iPad or whatever the last chip was This same question applies to any other computing platform upgrade. So far, the hardware for most common platforms far out-scales the majority of use cases. Nonetheless, tech must and is advancing, regardless. Every platform is releasing newer and faster versions, and only a tiny fraction will make use…

> This same question applies to any other computing platform upgrade

Hardly. Or rather to a much lesser extent, at least pro/power users benefit a lot more from performance improvements on open general purpose platforms.. since well.. you can actually do stuff on them. What (performance sensitive) use cases does the iPad even have? I guess video/image editing to an extent but pretty much all of those apps on iOS are severely crippled and there are other limitations (storage and extremely low memory capacity).

Re: Qualcomm's Oryon core: A long time in the making

#80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And why is the iPad just a “Netflix machine” when tons of people use the iPad for professional creative use cases as well? For my family, the iPhone and other Apple devices are the ultimate productivity machines. The App Store, fantastic. Why? Because they are (rightly) terrified of installing apps on Windows. Or any “computer.” They’ve been burned too many times, warned too many times. Unless it’s Microsoft Office…

[flagged]

Why are you allowed to have an opinion that trivializes how others work, but when other people do, then its astro-turfing?
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