News AMD is allegedly working on Arm-based "Sound Wave" APUs for Microsoft's Surface laptops next year

[Admin]

AMD is reportedly planning to integrate Arm-based cores in its Sound Wave APUs, in a bid to secure design wins for Microsoft's Surface laptops next year.

AMD is allegedly working on Arm-based "Sound Wave" APUs for Microsoft's Surface laptops next year : Read more

 

[rluker5]

Isn't Microsoft already having enough issues with ARM? https://www.windowscentral.com/hard...rned-item-warns-buyers-to-check-reviews-first
People look for plug and play with stuff like Microsoft surface and Apple. They don't like having DIY projects.

 

[ezst036]

Sad that AMD will put this into a dedicated FF# socket.

 

[JamesJones44]

Isn't Microsoft already having enough issues with ARM? https://www.windowscentral.com/hard...rned-item-warns-buyers-to-check-reviews-first
People look for plug and play with stuff like Microsoft surface and Apple. They don't like having DIY projects.

The important thing is to actually read the reviews. While some are complaining about compatibility, it sounds like there are a lot of other issues. Keyboard, bad charger, bricking, track pad fails, etc.

It sounds like beyond compatibility, this thing has some serious quality issues.

 

[bit_user]

Sound Wave is reported to feature the Arm ISA and will likely leverage off-the-shelf Cortex cores.

I read that it would be based on Zen 6, which is kinda the point. Otherwise, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense for AMD to jump into this market.

These Sound Wave SoCs, if true, could be a foundation for the Steam Deck 2, but I must emphasize this is highly speculative.

Or, given Microsoft's new love for ARM, maybe they decided the next XBox needed to have ARM cores, leading AMD to develop its own ARM cores, in order to compete for that business.

I also think AMD wants to play in the the ARM server market, since it looks like that's near a tipping point.

 

[usertests]

I read that it would be based on Zen 6, which is kinda the point. Otherwise, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense for AMD to jump into this market.

That was a fail leak. It was leaked as ARM months ago.

Why bother making it? Because someone wanted it, apparently. Although off-the-shelf cores aren't exciting, they can use their graphics IP, which has already been paired with ARM before in Exynos.

Funnily enough, the "Bumblebee" 2+2+2 Zen 6 APU sounds like a more interesting chip, targeting similar low power devices. Both Sound Wave and Bumblebee were leaked by MLID.

 

[bit_user]

That was a fail leak. It was leaked as ARM months ago.

Now I'm sad.

 

[Notton]

Lunar Lake goes to show that x86 can do low power just fine, but it still sucks at ultra low power standby.
Where as ARM does both well.
Not that Microsoft has been able to capitalize on the efficiency gains because their OS is trash.

For example, my cheapo entry level android phone does about 5~7 days on a single charge.
I can only achieve 7 days on a Win11 laptop if I turn it off, and even then it's still no guarantee.

 

[usertests]

Lunar Lake goes to show that x86 can do low power just fine, but it still sucks at ultra low power standby.
Where as ARM does both well.

I'll be interested to see how AMD's rumored "LP" cores play out in desktop and mobile. Looks similar to Intel's LPE cores in that they are not located on a compute die, so the compute dies could be turned off completely during idle if managed properly.

 

[dalek1234]

.. I can only achieve 7 days on a Win11 laptop if I turn it off, and even then it's still no guarantee.

By default, Windows doesn't completely turn off when turned off. It continues to run some stuff in the background so that when you restart the laptop, it take less time to load because some stuff was unloaded.

Disable "turn off fast startup" in Windows Power Options.

 

[TerryLaze]

Or, given Microsoft's new love for ARM, maybe they decided the next XBox needed to have ARM cores, leading AMD to develop its own ARM cores, in order to compete for that business.

Heck no, first of all there will probably not be a next xbox.
Secondly game devs (including MS) still hurt from having to code games for both architectures, that's the only reason we have x86 in consoles now in the first place, so they can only make one version of games.

These Sound Wave SoCs, if true, could be a foundation for the Steam Deck 2, but I must emphasize this is highly speculative.

All of the above times infinite for the steamdeck, valve spend so much money on making games run on x86 linux they will not start that whole procedure again for arm.

 

[bit_user]

Secondly game devs (including MS) still hurt from having to code games for both architectures, that's the only reason we have x86 in consoles now in the first place, so they can only make one version of games.

A lot of games are also on phones or Nintendo Switch, which again puts you in the position of having to optimize for ARM. Plus, with Microsoft's push of Windows on ARM, having an ARM-based XBox would provide a ready supply of ARM-optimized games.

x86 would become the odd corner case!
: D

All of the above times infinite for the steamdeck, valve spend so much money on making games run on x86 linux they will not start that whole procedure again for arm.

Steam Deck could face competition from Mediatek/Nvidia. If Soundwave is good, that would be a natural option for Steam to answer them.

 

[TerryLaze]

A lot of games are also on phones or Nintendo Switch, which again puts you in the position of having to optimize for ARM. Plus, with Microsoft's push of Windows on ARM, having an ARM-based XBox would provide a ready supply of ARM-optimized games.

x86 would become the odd corner case!
: D

Eh, sure, but what would be the point from MS point of view?
I mean to make an actual console, the being able to play gamepass/xbox games on arm would be good for them but sinking money into a console seems like a fools errand.
They would be compared to phones and the switch and that's not going to make xbox look any better than it is now, and it already doesn't look great against sony.

Also the switch has been around for how many years now and it did nothing to provide more arm-optimized games.

x86 is gonna become the odd one out when GPUs on arm become as powerful as on PCs and with the same amount of gpu driver quality (or at least support) .
And even then it's only a possibility.

Steam Deck could face competition from Mediatek/Nvidia. If Soundwave is good, that would be a natural option for Steam to answer them.

Steam/valve isn't in the console market to be in the console market, they are in it to promote steam.
It's ok for them if the steamdeck doesn't sell well in the future as long as people know that they can use steamos devices and play almost all of the steam library.