Is this a continuation of the existing Grace Hopper SoC [0]? [0] - https://www.nvidia.com/en-gb/data-center/grace-hopper-superc...
A Grace Hopper workstation sounds cool but I would expect Nvidia PC chips to be an evolution of Orin.
Nvidia to make Arm-based PC chips in major new challenge to Intel
71–80 of 103 posts
Re: Nvidia to make Arm-based PC chips in major new challenge to Intel
#72Earlier quoted context omitted.
People are misunderstanding the source of Apple's advantage.
That's what I think but I'm assuming that I'm naive. Apple's advantage is the vertical integration, putting memory on-package, and buying the best node.
Even that is too clever IMO. I don't think there's much gain in integration or on-package memory.
Re: Nvidia to make Arm-based PC chips in major new challenge to Intel
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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
Anticipation of what? Microsoft has "supported" ARM as far back as Windows RT, but developers and integrators don't care. The hardware didn't (and still doesn't) sell, and every usable core design is either from the stone age or completely proprietary. Somehow, x86 SOCs are easier to iterate on.
Dotnet supports Apple Silicon for the same reason it supports AArch64-Linux; it's a real user platform. Windows-on-ARM is really not, and it won't get the attention it needs until attractive hardware is ready to ship.
Re: Nvidia to make Arm-based PC chips in major new challenge to Intel
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's what I think but I'm assuming that I'm naive. Apple's advantage is the vertical integration, putting memory on-package, and buying the best node.
Even that is too clever IMO. I don't think there's much gain in integration or on-package memory.
There are definitely gains with the on-package memory, but that's only the tip of the spear. The tight integration of hardware and software is also an advantage -- look at how Apple Silicon is optimized for faster retain/release of NSObjects, with less memory overhead. This is a function performed by every piece of software on the system, but executed several orders of magnitude faster than on x64 because Apple can customize the hardware to fit their model of computing. Earlier discussion of this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25203924
The only other designer of ARM chips at this scale is Qualcomm, and they stick to creating very general purpose designs (chips that conform to known designs and can be decent for all of their customers.) The exception being some minor one-off tweaks for Microsoft's ARM laptop. Intel and AMD are in the same boat -- they can do new and innovative things in hardware, but it doesn't really mean anything unless software is optimized for it. And if software is never optimized for it, was it worth the engineering investment?
Of course Apple is also offloading a lot of stuff from the CPU cores into specialized on-die units for machine learning, video CODECs, etc. Along with very decent GPUs. No, it's not all strictly CPU stuff, but it does all matter in the end.
Not all of what Apple is doing is everyone's cup of tea, and no it's not "the best performance in the world", but it's hard to find better performance in the same power envelope.
Re: Nvidia to make Arm-based PC chips in major new challenge to Intel
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
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
Anticipation of what? Microsoft has "supported" ARM as far back as Windows RT, but developers and integrators don't care. The hardware didn't (and still doesn't) sell, and every usable core design is either from the stone age or completely proprietary. Somehow, x86 SOCs are easier to iterate on. Dotnet supports Apple Silicon for the same reason it supports AArch64-Linux; it's a real user platform. Windows-on-ARM is r…
> Anticipation of what?
> it won't get the attention it needs until attractive hardware is ready to ship.
Dunno what to say!
Windows RT is the perfect example; software was not ready, and is still not
It's only been 11 months that Visual Studio can run on ARM
Re: Nvidia to make Arm-based PC chips in major new challenge to Intel
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Single threaded (best indicator of device responsiveness) Geekbench score: 2018 OnePlus 6T: 521 2017 iPhone 8: 1020 My older phone is literally twice as fast. From a performance perspective it will be usable far longer than the OnePlus.
I have a Redmi note 7 with a 351 single core score and I am perfectly happy with it. Just replaced the original firmware with lineageos.
Re: Nvidia to make Arm-based PC chips in major new challenge to Intel
#77Well, I have the first model of laptops using nVidia Arm chip, it's called Toshiba AC100, and rocked a nVidia Tegra 2 in 2010. It launched with Android, but I helped put GNU/Linux on it (got my first mainline author-ship with it), and daily drove it for a year at university (back then not everyone had laptops) It was a hell of a device, and to this day I'm still missing anything close to it. 10 inch, 900g, 10 hour ba…
The Tegra series is still ongoing, its just marketed at self-driving vehicles. You can get dev boards, but they are hilariously expensive, and I'd guess the idle/low load performance pales in comparison to other vendors these days.
It's also used in the Nvidia Shield, which is basically an overpowered Android TV stick.
Re: Nvidia to make Arm-based PC chips in major new challenge to Intel
#78Given how much I love my MacMini M2 Pro - its perfectly silent operation and its incredibly small form factor combined with great graphics performances, I can imagine that having similar machines available for Windows and Linux would be very attractive.
We can get that with x86. We just don't, because it's cheaper to clock the chips higher and burn more power, and to keep large graphics seperate from the CPU. Intel's/AMD's attempts at addressing this (Broadwell/Skylake with eDRAM, Vega M, AMD's Van Gogh and Dragon Crest) were universally shot down by laptop OEMs. I don't know why, but they were probably just being cheap.
Van Gogh is in the Steam Deck.
Re: Nvidia to make Arm-based PC chips in major new challenge to Intel
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
Let's not exaggerate here. I've got the M2 Pro Mac Mini, and it is nearly silent, but depending on your workload you still generate nontrivial heat and the fans do need to run to keep it cool. Maybe I notice more because I build a lot of software, but this is not some magic bullet that avoids the need for traditional heat management.
The fan never spins up for me (does the MacMini have a fan?), but then again I just do web development all day. I have my super powered machine (and hot and noisy) in the back room (Ryzen 5950X + NVIDIA RTX) that I remote into if I need to do a render.
I don't think web dev is particularly taxing. I never hear the fans go off while working (also a web dev), but try playing a game and it spins up after a minute or two, especially when playing recent games on GPT. Diablo IV makes them go whrrrr almost right after the menus.
On a M2 MacBook Pro with the lid closed.
Re: Nvidia to make Arm-based PC chips in major new challenge to Intel
#80Earlier 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.
The same can literally be said about M1/M2 Macs. Graphics performance compared to anything discrete is terrible. My 3090Ti wipes the floor with an M2, despite being last generation's model. M2's CPU performance only looks good when divided by power consumption. Whole categories of Intel and AMD chips outperform it, just at higher power usage.
It's way better than other integrated GPUs though. And performance per watt matters a lot for heat and noise. I eventually gave up my gaming PC because it was so loud and hot, switching to Geforce Now instead.