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x86 is dead, long live x86

engineering.mercari.com

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Re: x86 is dead, long live x86

#41

Post by Symmetry »

slfnflctd wrote: post #32

When I think about how long chips like the 6502 have still been in active use (almost 50 years now), it is hard to conceive of a world where there isn't a significant presence of x86 activity for the rest of my life. The majority of 'the market' may go elsewhere, but for a gazillion reasons, x86 will not be disappearing for quite a while. At this point it would honestly surprise me if we didn't at least have high qua…

Plausibly we're headed for a world where feature size decreases stall out but manufacturing improvements continue to lower the price of transistors over time. In a world like that throwing in a few x86 cores even if the dominant ISA shifts might be worth it from a backwards compatibility standpoint even if other ISA become dominant.

There's lots of complications to address there (strict x86 memory ordering versus loose ARM ordering, for instance) but I expect they're solvable.

Re: x86 is dead, long live x86

#42

Post by agloe_dreams »

kens wrote: post #10
retskrad wrote: post #4

x86 lives on desktop now. Windows, Intel, AMD and Nvidia have more or less thrown in the white flag and given the laptop market to Apple.

ARM has a lot more market share in people's minds than in actual numbers. One research firm says that ARM has 15% of the laptop market share in 2023, expected to increase to 25% by 2027. (Surprisingly, Apple only has 90% of the ARM laptop market.) In the server market, just an estimated 8% of CPU shipments in 2023 were ARM. https://www.counterpointresearch.com/arm-based-pcs-to-nearly... https://www.digitimes.com/news…

That is spot-on. The fact of the matter is that it is Apple VS x86, not ARM. The M1/2 have dominant mindshare due to being actually better.

On Windows, ARM products just suck. The product is just bad because there is no reason to use it. The chips available are worse than x86 and then the software issue is bad due to a whole set of reasons that Microsoft can't change on their own..\ Google has that last 10% probably, ChromeOS moves ARM devices all day, every day. Just cheap ones.

Re: x86 is dead, long live x86

#43

Post by _a_a_a_ »

riffic wrote: post #36
slfnflctd wrote: post #32

When I think about how long chips like the 6502 have still been in active use (almost 50 years now), it is hard to conceive of a world where there isn't a significant presence of x86 activity for the rest of my life. The majority of 'the market' may go elsewhere, but for a gazillion reasons, x86 will not be disappearing for quite a while. At this point it would honestly surprise me if we didn't at least have high qua…

A thing's future longevity can sometimes be predicted by how long it's already been around.

But not humans, regrettably.

Re: x86 is dead, long live x86

#44

Post by adamc »

glimshe wrote: post #16
jimmaswell wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Based on what? I would never buy an Apple laptop and no one I know has one either. The Windows "gaming laptop" I got a few years ago for game dev is perfectly adequate and has features missing from Macbooks: - ethernet port - hdmi port - multiple usb A and C ports - solid keyboard Same for my work laptop, again Windows/x86 and no one I know with a work laptop is supplied a Mac either.

I would never buy an Apple laptop. I have one for work and I hate it. Linux and Windows are by far more productive for me, so all I need to do is keep getting better PC laptops. While Mac hardware does have a slight edge on cost/benefit at that price point, macOS is just too cumbersome for my needs. EDIT: It's funny to see this downvoted. I'm literally speaking of my particular use case and needs! Are there people wh…

The whole "click once on the app for it to wake up, click again for it to know which window you wanted" makes using Mac OS highly unpleasant on a daily basis. Yes, I'm on Mac OS, and no, I don't like it.

Re: x86 is dead, long live x86

#45

Post by ngcc_hk »

retskrad wrote: post #4

x86 lives on desktop now. Windows, Intel, AMD and Nvidia have more or less thrown in the white flag and given the laptop market to Apple.

Strange and whilst I have 8 macOS and 3 ipad plus 5 iOS devices I found in the train everyone use small dell notebook.

I guess like me I like macbook 12 and that is what you use for non-desktop like notebook.

Re: x86 is dead, long live x86

#46

Post by TillE »

adamc wrote: post #44
glimshe wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would never buy an Apple laptop. I have one for work and I hate it. Linux and Windows are by far more productive for me, so all I need to do is keep getting better PC laptops. While Mac hardware does have a slight edge on cost/benefit at that price point, macOS is just too cumbersome for my needs. EDIT: It's funny to see this downvoted. I'm literally speaking of my particular use case and needs! Are there people wh…

The whole "click once on the app for it to wake up, click again for it to know which window you wanted" makes using Mac OS highly unpleasant on a daily basis. Yes, I'm on Mac OS, and no, I don't like it.

Use Mission Control for everything, it's great.

Re: x86 is dead, long live x86

#47

Post by ngcc_hk »

agloe_dreams wrote: post #40
cardanome wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple products are only dominant the US. For the rest of the world they are more of an luxury item. That said, I am not terribly interested in ARM-based laptops for now. Yes, they may be more energy efficient and all but that hardly matters to me compared to just having the same x86 architecture I run on my desktop and servers. That sweet binary-compatibility means less headache. People underestimate the advantages t…

A key element to Apple and ARM and why you are right outside the us is this: 1. Apple's chips are so far beyond everything else that it makes obvious sense for Apple only. Snapdragon is at least 30% slower single core while having worse Performance per watt. 2. Apple wasn't playing fair with their translation layer. The Rosetta layer cheats a little because apple also made the chip. The secret sauce is that the M1 ha…

Unfair … strange use of phrase. Innovative would be a better use of word as nothing prepare others to do the same … it is good to have a vendor play differently not follow the slow and dominated by arm player c.

The conclusion is on the ball but only current. M1 has been a bit old now and if other arm vendor and the two major architecture (ibm power for mainframe … cannot be counted) it is at least x86-32 plus x86-64 vs arm vs apple.

Re: x86 is dead, long live x86

#48

Post by briandw »

riffic wrote: post #36
slfnflctd wrote: post #32

When I think about how long chips like the 6502 have still been in active use (almost 50 years now), it is hard to conceive of a world where there isn't a significant presence of x86 activity for the rest of my life. The majority of 'the market' may go elsewhere, but for a gazillion reasons, x86 will not be disappearing for quite a while. At this point it would honestly surprise me if we didn't at least have high qua…

A thing's future longevity can sometimes be predicted by how long it's already been around.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindy_effect

Re: x86 is dead, long live x86

#49

Post by c-hendricks »

distcs wrote: post #39
mobilio wrote: post #3

I've recently switch from VPS with Intel to physical server with latest AMD Zen4. Single thread performance blow my mind with scores like 4000. Without change a single line of code = performance was 10x than before.

> Single thread performance blow my mind with scores like 4000. What exactly is this number 4000? What does it mean? Where can I read more about this scoring system?

Assuming they mean Geekbench.

Re: x86 is dead, long live x86

#50

Post by yyyk »

agloe_dreams wrote: post #40
cardanome wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple products are only dominant the US. For the rest of the world they are more of an luxury item. That said, I am not terribly interested in ARM-based laptops for now. Yes, they may be more energy efficient and all but that hardly matters to me compared to just having the same x86 architecture I run on my desktop and servers. That sweet binary-compatibility means less headache. People underestimate the advantages t…

A key element to Apple and ARM and why you are right outside the us is this: 1. Apple's chips are so far beyond everything else that it makes obvious sense for Apple only. Snapdragon is at least 30% slower single core while having worse Performance per watt. 2. Apple wasn't playing fair with their translation layer. The Rosetta layer cheats a little because apple also made the chip. The secret sauce is that the M1 ha…

>3. Microsoft heavily botched their ARM rollout (again. Hello, Windows RT). The translation layer on W10/11 is just bad, not because of bad coding but just the technical limits of what they were trying to do.

It's not bad at all, however Intel patents heavily restricted the initial implementation, to the point they couldn't ship the 64bit emulation. Apple decided to wait out the patents.

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