Arm's Cortex-A76 Could Be The First True Challenger To x86 Chips On Laptops

[photonboy]

ARM vs x86:
Compatibility will remain the problem. Remember the ARM version of Windows 8.1? People bought those laptops and they looked the same but could only run curated programs from the MS Store.

Probably the ported game mentioned (x86 to ARM) was not only done poorly but there's also DRIVER support issues for the GPU. Lots of efficiency loss due to that alone.

Reminds me of Linux a bit. We have Linux for x86 so same hardware but it still has lots of challenges.

Of course ARM has a lot of backing and will continue to get its own ecosystem. MOBILE efficiency has really made the big difference there so it will be interesting to see ARM butt up against x86 in the desktop... I think we'll see a slow struggle but x86 may lose in the end (or a completely new hardware design will replace both).

I'm not talking two years though this will be a very slow process.

 

[mlee 2500]

Take a deep breath folks. Gaming is hardly the initial, targeted application for ARM based processors.

Rather think about the millions and millions of basic, commodity laptops office workers carry around everywhere to read email and open up spreadsheets, and for whom a quick screen wake-up and an always connected network is truly beneficial as they scurry around like rats from cubicle, to conference room, to the home dining room table.


Using x86 inside Laptops has long been the equivalent of using an 18-wheeler to drive down to the corner store and pick up milk for allot of these folks. For them, less heat, less power consumption, and more constant connectivity may be worthwhile trade-offs, especially as the performance delta between the two CPU Architectures get's smaller.

And for those bemoaning the lack of benchmarks...read bit_users initial post closely: This is an *announcement* regarding the ARM reference design and it's performance relative to previous reference designs (in an admittedly narrow and ambiguous sense).

 

[mlee 2500]

I don't think anyone using the ARM reference design is looking to compete with x86 on the Desktop nearly so soon.
And the specifically targeted Laptop consumers (Office Workers, Students, and very casual mom-and-pop home users) tend to all use the same handful of basic apps (Office Apps and Browsers), which mitigates the application portability and optimization issues you describe.

ARM vs x86:
Compatibility will remain the problem. Remember the ARM version of Windows 8.1? People bought those laptops and they looked the same but could only run curated programs from the MS Store.

Probably the ported game mentioned (x86 to ARM) was not only done poorly but there's also DRIVER support issues for the GPU. Lots of efficiency loss due to that alone.

Reminds me of Linux a bit. We have Linux for x86 so same hardware but it still has lots of challenges.

Of course ARM has a lot of backing and will continue to get its own ecosystem. MOBILE efficiency has really made the big difference there so it will be interesting to see ARM butt up against x86 in the desktop... I think we'll see a slow struggle but x86 may lose in the end (or a completely new hardware design will replace both).

I'm not talking two years though this will be a very slow process.