Technology

This entire article just to hype up Qualcomm releasing a new CPU? I havent seen any evidence to suggest that this new Qualcomm CPU won't be trash like all the other ones.

ARM on PC isn't happening any time soon. They're not more efficient than x86 CPUs at all.

Here's a speed comparison between Qualcomm and AMD's best cpus from last year. Same TDP.

https://www.cpu-monkey.com/en/compare_cpu-qualcomm_snapdragon_microsoft_sq3-vs-amd_ryzen_7_7840u

Here's Jim Keller, the father of both AMD Ryzen and the Apple M1, saying that ARM is not necessarily more efficient than x86:

https://chipsandcheese.com/2021/07/13/arm-or-x86-isa-doesnt-matter/

The only reason why Apple was able to make a successful ARM CPU was because they control the entire OS and the entire supply chain, and they have super expensive exclusivity contracts with TSMC. (because they literally make 50% of all phones in the world)

AMD's x86 CPUs are actually faster and more efficient than Apple's ARM CPUs on the same 5nm process node, but Apple is consistently 2 years ahead when it comes to silicon manufacturing, because of their TSMC deals.

Qualcomm doesn't have any of that, and there is no way their CPUs are going to be so much better than AMD's that people are going to be willing to put up with ISA incompatibilities. Windows on ARM has been a flop.

At least servers are more reasonable to see ARM chips, because all the software is open-source and all the major cloud vendors are making their own CPUs.

Nothing against ARM, or alternative ISAs in general, people just don't understand that x86 vs ARM is not about power efficiency at all, it's about supply chains and software compatibility.

It says it a few times about x86 being decades old...but so is ARM? I dont know whats supposed to be game changing about it.

This is a Qualcomm marketing piece.

And no, the most exciting 2024 tech won't be a CPU with similar or lower performance to other comparable CPUs on the market, with the added benefit of less software compatibility.

Can't wait. I recently bought a firewall that gets noticeably warm on idle, even with a little case that has a heat sink. We need more energy efficient PCs.

One of the hurdles to ARM is that you need to recompile and maintain a separate version of every piece of software for the different processors.

This is a much easier task for a tightly controlled ecosystem like Mac than the tons of different suppliers Windows ecosystem. You can do some sort of emulation to run non-native stuff, but at the cost of the optimization that you were hoping to gain.

Another OS variation also adds a big cost/burden to enterprise customers where they need to manage patches, security, etc.

I would expect to see more inroads in non-corporate areas following Apple success, but not any sort of explosion.

This is just a repeat of the same old pro-RISC myths from decades ago. There is very little performance difference between x86 and any RISC based CPU, at least when pertaining to the ISA itself. Apple merely has the advantage of having far more resources available for CPU development than their competitors.

It would be fascinating to see Qualcomm, NVIDIA, AMD, Mediatek, and possibly others all competing to build the best ARM SoCs for windows devices, especially after so many years of Intel stagnating and Apple eating their lunch with their ARM SoCs.

Wake me up when risc-v has performance parity and more software

2024 might be the year I win a million dollars.

Does anyone else worry that the rise of personal computers using super custom SOCs is going to have negative effects on our abilities to build our own machines?

"The most exciting tech isn't the thing that currently exists and is being improved and integrated daily, it's this other thing we don't even know for sure will maybe happen."

Omg the porting of games would be awfull

Ah yes, let's welcome one device - one operating system myth to the desktops, with people choosing hardware because of software feauture that could be installable. Welcome the expiration date on computers called "years of software support" and welcome overall unfriendlyness for alternative systems.

Performance and efficency is one side of the coin. But let me remind you that Qualcomm (among with Google) is the reason we cannot have lifetime updates for our phones, ROMs build needs to be specific for each model and making a phone with anything but Android is nearly impossible.

I'll take ARM over x86, but I'll take AMD/Intel over Qualcomm thousand times more.

AI is currently limited in application (and legislation). I think when we start seeing it in things like document ecosystems like Google Workspace or Microsoft Office, or in operating systems like Windows 12 and Android, that's when we'll start seeing what it's really capable of.

Also open-source applications that aren't necessarily limited by laws or corporate optics.

Thinks like creating helper bots that aid in troubleshooting or "assistants" that can draft/send emails, create calendar events, answer questions based on emails, etc.

But yeah in it's current state it is mostly just a glorified search engine.

I really hope so... Those x86 architecture chips are killing me.

But one detail that we cannot forget is that with the increase in ARM architecture in PCs and laptops we will probably see an increase in fully locked hardware. We don't need the expansion of the ARM architecture for PCs if it doesn't come with hardware and software freedom