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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

#171
post #168
post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I chose "might be" rather than "are indeed", that was to say it's not impossible rather than to outright agree. Other companies do have loss-leaders, I cannot rule out the possibility that Apple also does exactly what was asserted in the comment I was replying to.

I'm not sure even if that was the case it would fit the definition of a "loss-leader" unless we assume that Apple makes back the loss and more through the App Store and other services which seems extremely unlikely. Otherwise who would selling laptops at a loss increase the sales of higher-end laptops, most people don't buy both. > I cannot rule out the possibility That seems like an extremely high-bar.

> That seems like an extremely high-bar.

Ironically, it was an attempt to avoid an argument about that point :P

I think it's at least possible for this scenario, given they make more from services than from macs: https://www.apple.com/newsroom/pdfs/fy2024-q1/FY24_Q1_Consol...

I'd still be on the surprised side if so, but it would be mild surprise rather than shock.

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

#172
post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which issues? Have you considered that maybe those issues from 1995 have been fixed in 2024?

Have you considered that maybe I have been using various flavours of Linux for the last 29 years?

I did, which which is why I first asked about which issues you had.

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

#173
post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Or AMD / Intel could just make more power efficient x86 core? What would they gain by switching to ARM? I mixed some thoughts in rewrites. I hope Nvidia releases laptop/desktop SoC. AMD is getting better at x86 mobile, Steamdeck is pretty decent. I hope they keep getting better. I'd like to see high-end integrated GPU on a SoC from AMD for laptops/desktops. That doesn't exist yet. It requires a discrete GPU and the…

There is a different between design and developing a CPU Core like Oryon Core here, and Nvidia shipping ARM SoC which the CPU design itself that is from ARM, likely Cortex-X5.

Nvidia has a long history of design and developing their own CPU cores.

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

#174
post #138

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I am sorry I have to say this out loud. But seriously? We expect 20% per generation ? When the word generation used to mean 2 years in CPU terms because that was what Moore's law or Intel's tick tock dictate. Even ignoring the word generation, For the past 20 years how many times did we see a successful uArch bringing 20% IPC improvement over the current leading IPC? Where did that 20-30% per gen coming from. The wor…

On the contrary, _not_ expecting at least 20% per year (more for generations farther apart) is actually only a recent take for CPUs [1][2] which formed in what I like to call "the great stagnation" of the mid 2010s where AMD bombed, ARM was still a low performance mobile play, and Intel didn't have any stiff competition. After that things have started to pick up a little again now that there is innovation on said fro…

Are those numbers in absolute performance inclusive of clock speed improvement or IPC ( Instruction per Clock ) ? I am inclined to think [1] and [2] are the first and not the latter.

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

#175
post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article doesn't even mentioned M4. Dont know why you are bringing this up. Apple has lost some or many of their chip design talent. Not All or Most . They did't lost it all at the same time either. Many of them have been working on M2 and M3, some later ones may be on M4 before they left. Apple has a node advantage, which is in itself a separate discussion. This article is straightly about IPC. We didn't even go…

> Apple has lost some or many of their chip design talent. Not All or Most. Did you read this somewhere? I tried to Google for it, but I cannot find anything. Or do you have an inside source? The last that I knew/read, Johny Srouji was the key senior executive in the Apple CPU division. It looks like they continue to expand his R&D labs in Israel (according to a Wiki source). Ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johny_…

It is no secret that some of the chip design team left over the years. From the Nuvia / Qualcomm Oryon team to a few RISC-V CPU design IP companies has many ex-Apple design team. And this is specific to CPU only. There are many other moving parts in the whole SoC design. Which yes Apple is also expanding.

Basically some media make a big deal out of some people left the Apple's CPU design.

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

#176
post #173
post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a different between design and developing a CPU Core like Oryon Core here, and Nvidia shipping ARM SoC which the CPU design itself that is from ARM, likely Cortex-X5.

Nvidia has a long history of design and developing their own CPU cores.

Haven't they mostly abandoned that after Tegra X2 which came out years ago?

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

#177
post #146

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Upgradability of RAM isn't the issue, it's the price of getting access to that RAM. On PC you get it for cheap, you just pay for the RAM modules. On Apple, you get it for arm and a leg, as you don't pay for the modules, but for the privilege to use their higher end model with enough RAM.

Another point of view: The low end models are so cheap that Apple is definitely subsidizing them with revenue from the higher end models. If RAM upgrades were priced based on RAM stick costs, the base model would have to be much more expensive and less people would have access to it. Professional workstations have always cost an arm and leg - both arms and both legs usually, for example a SGI workstation used to cost…

> The low end models are so cheap that Apple is definitely subsidizing them

Source? I find that quite unlikely, considering their brand has strong recognition and demand, and design+manufacturing costs are probably not wildly different from other laptop makers.

They could be trying to get more people on board via lower prices, but the prices I've seen, although accessible to many people, seem similar to other brands, and seems quite compatible with making a profit.

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

#178
post #148
post #54

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Arm64 Ubuntu 22.04 LTS. VMWare Fusion (now free beer) and Podman. Still running the beta of Fusion which I have literally had zero issues with. I have not benchmarked podman. https://blogs.vmware.com/teamfusion/2024/05/fusion-pro-now-a... https://podman-desktop.io/docs/installation/macos-install

Was your VM running arm64 Linux on both Apple and AMD? On AMD cpu, performance of arm64 VM is expected to be poor, because it is a different architecture and "emulation" has to happen. Or do you actually compare to VM running amd64 Linux on the AMD processor?

No, this is wall clock time for compiling ripgrep (Rust) and running stream. Both were optimized binaries for their respective platforms.

https://github.com/jeffhammond/STREAM

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

#179
post #171
post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure even if that was the case it would fit the definition of a "loss-leader" unless we assume that Apple makes back the loss and more through the App Store and other services which seems extremely unlikely. Otherwise who would selling laptops at a loss increase the sales of higher-end laptops, most people don't buy both. > I cannot rule out the possibility That seems like an extremely high-bar.

> That seems like an extremely high-bar. Ironically, it was an attempt to avoid an argument about that point :P I think it's at least possible for this scenario, given they make more from services than from macs: https://www.apple.com/newsroom/pdfs/fy2024-q1/FY24_Q1_Consol... I'd still be on the surprised side if so, but it would be mild surprise rather than shock.

> given they make more from services than from macs:

Almost all of that comes from iPhones/iPad/etc. services. Also IIRC 1/4 of their services revenue is just the $20 billion Google is paying them every year.

> but it would be mild surprise rather than shock.

Alright, you might be right. However, while I'm not shocked but still more than mildly surprised that there are people who think that this might be possible.

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

#180
post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nvidia has a long history of design and developing their own CPU cores.

Haven't they mostly abandoned that after Tegra X2 which came out years ago?

Exactly. And that was nearly 10 years ago. As with all Custom ARM CPU design, it always ends up the same fate, arm 's ARM Cortex Design will catch up and always prove to provide better performance per dollar than owning its own design team. Oryon is great had it been launched in 2020 or 2021 but it will be competing against Cortex X5 soon.

Not that I dont want Nvidia to have their own CPU design again. But judging from current trend and trajectory and very likely their perspective it doesn't make any sense. The future isn't in CPU but GPU or HSA.

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