51–60 of 132 posts
Let it die, adopt RISC-V. X86 is built on cruft over cruft.
Let it die, adopt RISC-V. X86 is built on cruft over cruft.
I wish we could just get away from x86 "standard" and move on. If there is something that still needs it, x86 emulation is very efficient nowadays. Just look what Apple has done with this ARM architecture. Even now, Qualcom's ARM processors running Windows are doing a fantastic job emulating x86 as needed.
Apple is the only one making ARM chips fast enough to be competitive even with emulation. Qualcomm isn't on that level - they're only on par with AMD and Intel without emulation. The market won't move from the x86 duopoly to Apple's walled garden because they have a fast chip. It's on ARM to make a licensable core that's so much faster than the x86 options that people actually move to it.
My big problem is Rosetta 2 doesn’t emulate AVX which more and more software uses.
I work in an AI platform team. I’m not actually trying to do machine learning stuff under it, but I just want to start the Docker containers to test some unrelated functions on my laptop. And that happens to start Tensorflow and pgvector, even though I’m not really using either in anger in this case. And both try to use AVX, and then get a SIGILL, so those containers fail to start.
Maybe should just build Linux ARM Docker containers but trying to get some ARM CI machines to build them with (we could just use our laptops but want to do it properly)
I wish we could just get away from x86 "standard" and move on. If there is something that still needs it, x86 emulation is very efficient nowadays. Just look what Apple has done with this ARM architecture. Even now, Qualcom's ARM processors running Windows are doing a fantastic job emulating x86 as needed.
I think for most 'general' computing, yeah Arm is fine. It has been that way for a while with smart phones and tablets being the primary device many people use now. Either you can run it through a compatibility layer like Rosetta 2 or it shifts to native. The performance hit is unlikely to really be felt for something like Word. But the traditional gaming market (not mobile, I am not dismissing mobile but it is not t…
Consoles tend to break compatibility every like couple of generations anyway. The PS5 is only compatible with PS4, for example, because the PS3 used the PowerPC-based Cell. Also, Nintendo has been using ARM since like, the Gameboy Advance (Fun fact is that in handhelds nintendo tended to use the previous generation's CPU as a sound chip, and would use it when running previous generation carts) (Nintendo home consoles before the switch used PowerPC. The Nintendo 64 used MIPS)
I agree with you on the custom PC market, but that has to be pretty small compared to consoles.
Let it die, adopt RISC-V. X86 is built on cruft over cruft.
I was wondering about this as well. What do Intel and AMD gain from protecting x86? Why not just adopt RISC-V themselves and make the best processors and process for that? Wouldn’t that get them what they want (in terms of their company’s strategy)? There’s not really value in the architecture itself as much as the real products they sell, right (the actual processors)?
After 40+ years, finally :) I really want x86 and ARM to push each other for better power efficiency and performance instead of one side winning out. I’m using an ARM laptop nowadays and the battery life is so impressive.
Very surprisingly, x86 can be competitive (and in some cases, even winning) in terms of power efficiency; see https://www.phoronix.com/review/amd-epyc-9965-ampereone/5 .
Laptops are populated mostly with crap x86 and good ARM (apart from snapdragon which is a crap ARM)
After 40+ years, finally :) I really want x86 and ARM to push each other for better power efficiency and performance instead of one side winning out. I’m using an ARM laptop nowadays and the battery life is so impressive.
Very surprisingly, x86 can be competitive (and in some cases, even winning) in terms of power efficiency; see https://www.phoronix.com/review/amd-epyc-9965-ampereone/5 .
I thought the big advantage tended to be when not much was going on, either idle or simple tasks. And that’s where the big ARM advantage in power was.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Apple is the only one making ARM chips fast enough to be competitive even with emulation. Qualcomm isn't on that level - they're only on par with AMD and Intel without emulation. The market won't move from the x86 duopoly to Apple's walled garden because they have a fast chip. It's on ARM to make a licensable core that's so much faster than the x86 options that people actually move to it.
> Apple is the only one making ARM chips fast enough to be competitive even with emulation. My big problem is Rosetta 2 doesn’t emulate AVX which more and more software uses. I work in an AI platform team. I’m not actually trying to do machine learning stuff under it, but I just want to start the Docker containers to test some unrelated functions on my laptop. And that happens to start Tensorflow and pgvector, even t…
You can probably blame that on patents. Base x86-64, which includes SSE2, is old enough that all relevant patents have already expired (the x86-64 ISA documentation was first published by AMD 24 years ago, see https://web.archive.org/web/20000829042324/http://www.x86-64...). Other ISA extensions are newer, and might still be threatened by patents.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Move on to what? ARM? Is ARM better in every way than x86? (genuine question)
Apple have shown that you can get x86-tier performance, but it generally costs a similar amount of silicon and engineering effort as those x86 devices. The lack of other competitors managing this suggest the arm ISA isn't "fundamentally" better at delivering that performance, it doesn't seem easier in engineering effort or silicon cost. The Apple products tend to outperform in perf/watt though, but that's hard to rea…
“Should we move off x86” is often really “should we leave Intel/AMD”.
Maybe if there was another competitor making x86 chips they discussion would sound different.
As it is, if you don’t like the offerings that you’re being given you simply have to switch architectures.
This is hopeful. Whatever the ARM enthusiasts would like, x86 is going to stick around for a long time, and working together to evolve the ISA extensions in a more cohesive manner would go a long way. In particular, I'd really like AMD and Intel to get on the same page in terms of avx10 / avx512 support. Many people correctly note that avx512 support is not super relevant today, but this can be laid heavily at the fe…
honestly, as exciting as proper AVX-512 support will be, I am probably at least as excited for APX (16->32 general purpose registers). It brings x86 inline with ARM and RISCV, and just generally makes it a lot easier for compilers to not spill registers to the stack.
Double integer register count, three-operand instructions, improved predication support including conditional load/stores.. If I remember correctly, they actually implement it by having the scalar instructions use the EVEX prefix introduced with avx512.
I would really love to seem them settle on APX + AVX10/512 as a next-generation x86 baseline.