Anyone remember xScale?
Intel once upon a time had an arm division. They (foolishly) sold the entire division Marvell.
Nvidia to make Arm-based PC chips in major new challenge to Intel
51–60 of 103 posts
Re: Nvidia to make Arm-based PC chips in major new challenge to Intel
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
Except OP said, "combined with great graphics performances" - the NUCs never had good graphics performance ... and their CPU performance was actually not that great either.
eDRAM Broadwell was respectable. Unsurprisingly, Intel made it for Apple, and they were pretty much the only OEM that used it. Anyway, I think Intel sold some NUCs with them, but they were very expensive.
Intel sold it as Iris Plus graphics and Intel NUC units with Iris Plus were available as part of the product lineup: https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/graphic...
Re: Nvidia to make Arm-based PC chips in major new challenge to Intel
#53> Microsoft's plans take aim at Apple, which has nearly doubled its market share in the three years since releasing its own Arm-based chips in-house for its Mac computers. I know that Mac was always in single digit marketshare (but still a healthy amount as far as money for apple goes) but still doubling seems to be quite an achievement? I am curious if this is actually from an increase in Mac sales or a decrease in…
> gaming will likely never move to arm. Oh, it can if Nvidia, AMD and Microsoft push it. Most of the back catalog can probably run fine emulated, though you may want to stick to x86 for those older CPU bound sim games that aren't going to get a recompile.
You missed the part after it. The first problem is software, which given what Apple managed with Rosetta I think will be able to be addressed.
But the big problem is hardware. Are we going to see customizable ARM systems or are all ARM systems going to be basically SOC's and basically just be a console. Maybe with an expansion port for something other than graphics?
I am asking because to my knowledge we have not seen this yet. But upgradability and building your own computer is a big reason that people choose a PC vs a console.
Is this a limitation of ARM (and could Nvidia, AMD, and Microsoft just go down that same path) or is it just a limitation of how it has been implemented so far.
If it is perfectly feasible, would we still see the big performance improvements like we are seeing on the M chips with everything combined?
Re: Nvidia to make Arm-based PC chips in major new challenge to Intel
#54Prior to switching to Apple Silicon, Apple prepared the path with their effort to push for universal binaries by default Software made yesterday were already prepared to run on their new silicon Rosetta was only a transition helper, not meant to be a permanent solution Microsoft didn't do any of that, and still doesn't, their leadership is clueless and dangerous If Microsoft doesn't put in the effort, it'll never wor…
> Microsoft didn't do any of that, and still doesn't, their leadership is clueless and dangerous
It did with .NET but most software isn't .NET I think.
Re: Nvidia to make Arm-based PC chips in major new challenge to Intel
#55I'm really curious if unified cpu/gpu chips are the future for laptop/desktop hardware. Mac is now unified across its product line, consoles are unified, phones are unified. My limited understanding though is that unified memory means giving up either high speed (for the cpu), or high bandwidth (for the gpu). Is that correct?
You can have your cake and eat it with a wide LPDDR5X bus. This is what Apple does, and its fine. Other specialized chips (like Tenstorrent's accelerators) do this too.
I think an AMD 7900-like approach where the memory controllers/cache are on tiny external chips is particularly practical. Its efficient and economical. I hope AMD (and others) repeat this with laptop CPUS.
GDDRX is not a good fit for laptops anyway because its so power hungry. GPUs and the Xbox/Playstation use it just because its the absolute cheapest bandwidth/$, at the cost of everything else.
HBM is very expensive and being hoovered up by the AI market. I wouldn't count on seeing it in consumer stuff again.
Re: Nvidia to make Arm-based PC chips in major new challenge to Intel
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because faster CPU on phones mostly doesn't matter. I have a midrange Android phone that I use to watch videos, listen to music and podcasts, internet browsing, chat, banking. The only thing I don't do on my phone is play games. I never once caught myself thinking "boy, this phone is slow, a faster CPU would do wonders here". It doesn't ever even feel hot to the touch. I bet it can run just fine most mobile games ava…
The fact that my 6yo iPhone 8 is still as fast as a 3yo Pixel phone definitely is part of why I can keep my iPhones far longer than another other phone I've ever had. You rarely see 6yo Android phones still in use, because it'd be as slow as a 9yo iPhone.
I have a OnePlus 6T acquired in 2019 that is absolutely fine to this day. I only replaced it because they dropped support for new OS updates.
I installed DivestOS on it and use it as a backup phone (i.e.: I take it with me to the gym, and keep my main phone at home). If they had kept support, I wouldn't even have replaced it.
Re: Nvidia to make Arm-based PC chips in major new challenge to Intel
#57Prior to switching to Apple Silicon, Apple prepared the path with their effort to push for universal binaries by default Software made yesterday were already prepared to run on their new silicon Rosetta was only a transition helper, not meant to be a permanent solution Microsoft didn't do any of that, and still doesn't, their leadership is clueless and dangerous If Microsoft doesn't put in the effort, it'll never wor…
> Microsoft didn't do any of that, and still doesn't, their leadership is clueless and dangerous It did with .NET but most software isn't .NET I think.
dotnet supported Apple Silicon way before ARM for Windows, this behavior shouldn't be overlooked, this is part of the issues with Microsoft, their lack of care/anticipation
Re: Nvidia to make Arm-based PC chips in major new challenge to Intel
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
> gaming will likely never move to arm. Oh, it can if Nvidia, AMD and Microsoft push it. Most of the back catalog can probably run fine emulated, though you may want to stick to x86 for those older CPU bound sim games that aren't going to get a recompile.
You missed the part after it. The first problem is software, which given what Apple managed with Rosetta I think will be able to be addressed. But the big problem is hardware. Are we going to see customizable ARM systems or are all ARM systems going to be basically SOC's and basically just be a console. Maybe with an expansion port for something other than graphics? I am asking because to my knowledge we have not see…
> But upgradability and building your own computer is a big reason that people choose a PC vs a console.
I hate to break it to PC builders, but DIMMs are starting to max out, signal integrity over those pins is becoming a problem. Before long, CPU RAM is probably gonna be soldered and packaged with the CPU anyway.
The architecture won't necessarily be like Apple though. The CPU/GPU could be their own tiles, meaning we could have GPU-less SKUs that still use PCIe GPUs. And the SoCs or whatever they are can still be socketed.
Re: Nvidia to make Arm-based PC chips in major new challenge to Intel
#59Anyone remember xScale? Intel once upon a time had an arm division. They (foolishly) sold the entire division Marvell.
Yeah, Intel got xScale (née StrongArm) from Digital Equipment Corp as part of a settlement after the Alpha lawsuit for infringing on Pentium patents. Intel bought StrongArm which maybe meant Intel didn't really want it and sold it to Marvell. Intel didn't want Alpha either which was sold to Compaq, the last resort and buyer of all things great and small.
Re: Nvidia to make Arm-based PC chips in major new challenge to Intel
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
The problem with the current Qualcomm cores is that they are cheap and low power, but the new Nuvia cores should alleviate this. ...But be careful what you wish for. There have been some promising ARM core designs (Samsung's Mongoose series, Nvidia's Denver/Carmel) that all ended being worse than tweaked ARM-designed cores. Others (Marvell's SMT ThunderX series, Fujitsu's HPC A64FX) were too niche, and ultimately dis…
Didn't they also lose one of their key employees? That was arguably in 2019, before the M1 came out, so I don't know how much of an impact Gerard Williams actually had, but I do wonder if they can keep the team together. (Edit: Just googled, Gerard Williams is now at Nuvia and in the middle of a lawsuit with Apple)
Yeah, and Nuvia (now Qualcomm) aren't the only ones who sniped them.
Apple's effort to make a good modem also reportedly failed, so its not like their chip team are miracles workers.
Not that I am skeptical. Apple has a long history of making good premium SoCs.