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x86 is dead, long live x86

engineering.mercari.com

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Re: x86 is dead, long live x86

#71

Post by re-thc »

singhrac wrote: post #69

As a separate data point, I briefly switched one of our servers from an r6a.4xlarge (AMD Epyc) to a r6i.4xlarge (Intel Xeon) and saw a 30% speedup in our number-heavy compute task. I would love to find out why (MKL or AVX512? Do I need to recompile numpy?), but for the time being it pays to stay on Xeon. We eventually switched to m-instances since that fits our compute/memory usage better when we’re at limits.

If it's AVX512, you'll be excited to know that m7a, currently in preview has great support for this. AMD Epyc 4th gen i.e. genoa is a lot faster.

Re: x86 is dead, long live x86

#72

Post by Andrex »

arp242 wrote: post #29
Andrex wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I keep meaning to research this, and maybe this isn't the right place, but how are things going for Linux executables? Last I tried Linux on ARM it seemed like application-level support for ARM was very spotty. It doesn't seem like a Rosetta 2-like effort is making it into mainline Linux anytime soon, if ever.

For open source applications it's generally pretty good. Closed source: not so much. qemu-x86_64 is probably the closest there is to Rosetta; it works fairly well and I think conceptually it's identical or similar to Rosetta, but I don't really know what the performance is like, and it's of course not as integrated/automatic as Rosetta.

Hadn't heard of qemu (in this context), I'll take a look, thank you!

Re: x86 is dead, long live x86

#73

Post by Dylan16807 »

Gordonjcp wrote: post #60
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…

Stuff like 6502s and Z80s are a bit like little single-cylinder engines - the world will move onto all sorts of interesting new places, but something somewhere will always be powered by a wee Briggs & Stratton that starts first pull of the string, and we'll be glad of it.

We'll always need tiny cores, but it's worth noting that RISC-V can squeeze down to pretty small sizes and is so much nicer to use. Notably you can go smaller than a 68k or 8086.

Re: x86 is dead, long live x86

#74

Post by re-thc »

harpratap wrote: post #62
amusingimpala75 wrote: post #61

I would just like to point out that that is not how the saying goes. When Queen Elizabeth died it would have been “the queen is dead, long live the king”, as the dead thing is the predecessor and the living thing is the one that follows it

The dead thing is Intel (x86) and the successor is AMD (x86) as opposed to ARM in our case. Isn't it correct?

> Isn't it correct?

No. Intel isn't dead. They may be behind (for now) but they're definitely catching up and have in a way on the desktop.

It's not certain that Intel will die and AMD will for sure win. Competition is great.

Re: x86 is dead, long live x86

#75

Post by FirmwareBurner »

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…

>chips like the 6502 have still been in active use (almost 50 years now)

Also 8051 cores can still be found in modern products

Re: x86 is dead, long live x86

#76

Post by cthalupa »

jimmaswell wrote: post #7
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.

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.

MBP once again have HDMI ports and good keyboards. I wouldn't mind a single USB-A port but I don't particularly miss it, and 3 USB-Cs is plenty for my uses.

I haven't needed an ethernet port on a laptop since the mid 2000s troubleshooting why my newly installed stack of Cisco switches weren't working, and that sort of use cases is rare enough that having a dongle seems fine.

Conversely, about 80% of the people I know use Apple laptops for work.

Re: x86 is dead, long live x86

#77

Post by tabtab »

krylon wrote: post #70
sneed_chucker wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are 6502 chips still used? What's the application?

Tamagochis are running on 6502 compatible chips. Which makes me think it is used in other toys, too.

What are the top embedded usage chips and what is their typical niche?

Re: x86 is dead, long live x86

#80

Post by saghm »

re-thc wrote: post #74
harpratap wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The dead thing is Intel (x86) and the successor is AMD (x86) as opposed to ARM in our case. Isn't it correct?

> Isn't it correct? No. Intel isn't dead. They may be behind (for now) but they're definitely catching up and have in a way on the desktop. It's not certain that Intel will die and AMD will for sure win. Competition is great.

If we're going to be that pedantic, we might as well just say that because Intel and AMD aren't living entities so they can't be "dead". Or we could just accept that the original meaning of the phrase has evolved and is flexible enough to be used in situations where it's not absolutely literal.
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