News Nvidia and AMD to Develop Arm CPUs for Client PCs: Report

[Admin]

AMD and Nvidia Nvidia follows Apple, Qualcomm with Arm-based processors for client PCs.

Nvidia and AMD to Develop Arm CPUs for Client PCs: Report : Read more

 

[usertests]

There's not enough info to tell what AMD wants to do with ARM cores. If you want to get technical, they already ship an ARM Cortex-A5 core for the Platform Security Processor in Ryzen/Epyc chips. I didn't read the SemiAccurate article, is it paywalled?

Nvidia, on the other hand, definitely has ambitions of challenging Intel and AMD's CPUs or APUs. Whether or not they will make that dream a reality is another story. One thing's for sure, Nvidia never needed to acquire ARM to make that happen. It's entirely possible for one of the licensees to make custom ARM cores.

 

[setx]

Those ARM shills again... Part of plan to make ARM look more interesting for investment?

I see what MS wants from ARM (to threaten Intel), but what is there for AMD? Razor-thin margins? Paying more to ARM for nothing? Zen was developed as dual x86/ARM architecture but ARM part was abandoned later.

Developing something for ARM now looks really stupid unless you are Apple that has special relationship.

 

[JamesJones44]

Developing something for ARM now looks really stupid unless you are Apple that has special relationship.

I can't tell if you're joking or serious.

How exactly does Microsoft encourage bringing on more CPU suppliers by sticking with an ISA that can't/won't be licensed? That is the whole point of shifting to ARM.

As far as cost goes, what's the cost of sticking with exactly 2 vendors for every CPU that can run your software? Likely higher than licensing it from ARM who is getting pressured from RISC-V.

At any rate Microsoft has invested heavily on this. All of their developer tools can output both ARM and x86/x64 binaries as of two years ago. They've made it easy for developers on their platform to simply support both (they are working on adding RISC-V too btw, though it's sadly a few years off still).

 

[ivan_vy]

nextgen Xbox 2028 will be ARM64 or Zen6...looks like AMD want to throw its hat in the AMD ring too.

Leak Suggests Next-Gen Xbox Planned for 2028, AMD Zen 6 & RDNA 5 Considered

A comprehensive leak of documents—from a FTC versus Microsoft case—has exposed short and long-term plans in the world of Xbox. It seems that a relatively mild refresh of current generation Xbox Series X and S is lined up for the second half of 2024, but presentation material (dated April 2022)...

www.techpowerup.com

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

I can't tell if you're joking or serious.

How exactly does Microsoft encourage bringing on more CPU suppliers by sticking with an ISA that can't/won't be licensed? That is the whole point of shifting to ARM.

As far as cost goes, what's the cost of sticking with exactly 2 vendors for every CPU that can run your software? Likely higher than licensing it from ARM who is getting pressured from RISC-V.

At any rate Microsoft has invested heavily on this. All of their developer tools can output both ARM and x86/x64 binaries as of two years ago. They've made it easy for developers on their platform to simply support both (they are working on adding RISC-V too btw, though it's sadly a few years off still).

But so far, the majority of the customers want x86 because that's the dominant ISA.

nextgen Xbox 2028 will be ARM64 or Zen6...looks like AMD want to throw its hat in the AMD ring too.

Leak Suggests Next-Gen Xbox Planned for 2028, AMD Zen 6 & RDNA 5 Considered

A comprehensive leak of documents—from a FTC versus Microsoft case—has exposed short and long-term plans in the world of Xbox. It seems that a relatively mild refresh of current generation Xbox Series X and S is lined up for the second half of 2024, but presentation material (dated April 2022)...

www.techpowerup.com

That's speculation based on old leaked docs, things could have changed.
And not going with x86 would complicate backwards compatibility which is a major feature.

Those ARM shills again... Part of plan to make ARM look more interesting for investment?

I see what MS wants from ARM (to threaten Intel), but what is there for AMD? Razor-thin margins? Paying more to ARM for nothing? Zen was developed as dual x86/ARM architecture but ARM part was abandoned later.

Developing something for ARM now looks really stupid unless you are Apple

I'm expecting RISC-V to eat into all of ARM's market in the long term.

Everything that ARM had, RISC-V will eat up and take over gradually.

 

[JamesJones44]

But so far, the majority of the customers want x86 because that's the dominant ISA.

Customers don't care about ISAs. All they care is that it works, is fast and if on battery has long battery life. If they could get better performance and better efficiency they are not going to care if it's ARM, RISC-V, x86, PowerPC, etc.

 

[vern72]

I bet Microsoft is going to put in design elements that will make it difficult to run Linux on that platform.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

Customers don't care about ISAs. All they care is that it works, is fast and if on battery has long battery life. If they could get better performance and better efficiency they are not going to care if it's ARM, RISC-V, x86, PowerPC, etc.

When the software they want doesn't work on Windows on ARM, they'll abandon the platform for a x86 based Windows.

 

[setx]

I can't tell if you're joking or serious.

Of course I'm serious, but it looks you didn't understand my post at all. There are reasons for MS to like ARM, but there are no reasons for AMD to like and invest heavily in ARM.

Customers don't care about ISAs.

When they run browser sure they don't.
But when they want to run games full of DRM/anti-cheat e.t.c, specific software for work that doesn't work on emulators, some niche hardware... suddenly they care very much.

 

[ezst036]

My only question:

Will AMD bring ARM CPUs to the AM5 (and I suppose future AM6, 7, etc.) platforms?

ARM or any other isa needs motherboards. Being able to clip into a platform like the old Socket 7 days would be a huge boost.

 

[bit_user]

Entering the domain of CPUs for PCs marks a significant expansion for Nvidia, though not exactly unexpected since the company already tried to address tablets and smartphones with its Tegra offerings in mid-2010s (but largely failed).

Google's first Pixel-branded laptop used a Nvidia Tegra SoC in it! To this day, there are plenty of ARM-based Chomebooks, though not Nvidia-powered.

Anyway, Tegra didn't go away, but rather focused on embedded applications like robotics and self-driving cars, rather than client devices (Nintendo Switch being a notable exception).

AMD and Nvidia will be competing against established players like Apple and Qualcomm, which has been producing Arm-based chips for laptops since 2016 and 2020, respectively.

I think Mediatek looms large, in the Chromebook market. I know Samsung also sells Chromebooks, but not sure if they use their own SoC or others'. Both of these companies are using ARM-designed cores in the SoCs they make. So, they'll be conduits for that IP to reach the market, once Qualcomm switches to using Nuvia cores. It'll be fun to see, because ARM has some tasty P-cores in the pipeline that will make it anything but a walk in the park for Qualcomm, AMD, and Nvidia!

​

Arm Introduces The Cortex-X4, Its Newest Flagship Performance Core

Arm Introduces Its Newest Flagship Performance Core, The Cortex-X4

fuse.wikichip.org

​

Meanwhile, success in this endeavor involves overcoming substantial technical barriers. A key challenge lies in the existing heavy investments in the x86 computing architecture, which has been a staple in software development for PCs. Transitioning to Arm-based CPUs requires addressing compatibility issues, as code developed for x86 chips will not directly run on the Arm ISA, necessitating porting software from x86 to Arm.

Eh, Microsoft already tackled the emulation approach. Not as well as Apple, presumably, but it should be usable for everything except the latest games and other demanding apps.

As for the rest of the software out there, having Android and iOS (not to mention MacOS) being ARM-based means that most open source software already runs pretty well on ARM, including development toolchains.

 

[bit_user]

One thing's for sure, Nvidia never needed to acquire ARM to make that happen. It's entirely possible for one of the licensees to make custom ARM cores.

Nvidia already designed at least two generations of their own cores. However, I didn't think that design team was still intact, because they've been using licensed core designs for the past couple generations, in all of their SoCs and now Grace.

​

Project Denver - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

​

 

[bit_user]

But so far, the majority of the customers want x86 because that's the dominant ISA.

Amazon would beg to differ. Most of AWS is powered by their ARM-based Graviton CPUs.

And not going with x86 would complicate backwards compatibility which is a major feature.

Apple's Rosetta 2 can emulate at like 90% the speed of natively-compiled.

I'm expecting RISC-V to eat into all of ARM's market in the long term.

Could be. It'll be interesting to see how this plays out.

When the software they want doesn't work on Windows on ARM, they'll abandon the platform for a x86 based Windows.

MS spent years trying to make the x86 emulator good enough for that to be exceedingly rare.

 

[bit_user]

I bet Microsoft is going to put in design elements that will make it difficult to run Linux on that platform.

Oh, how times have changed! Microsoft has their own Linux distro for several years, already.

CBL-Mariner - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[bit_user]

There are reasons for MS to like ARM, but there are no reasons for AMD to like and invest heavily in ARM.

AMD likes ARM because it has inherent efficiency advantages over x86. Because of that, nobody can compete with Apple on perf/W and ARM represents a major competitive threat in the cloud.

 

[bit_user]

Will AMD bring ARM CPUs to the AM5 (and I suppose future AM6, 7, etc.) platforms?

ARM or any other isa needs motherboards. Being able to clip into a platform like the old Socket 7 days would be a huge boost.

I thought AMD already did that once, but maybe I'm misremembering because it's described as a SoC and appears to be BGA:

The Silver Lining of the Late AMD Opteron A1100 Arrival

www.anandtech.com

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

Amazon would beg to differ. Most of AWS is powered by their ARM-based Graviton CPUs.

Amazon has more than half of all Arm server CPUs in the world
So it's no surprise that they own a giant chunk of the server ARM market and use it for their proprietary API.

Apple's Rosetta 2 can emulate at like 90% the speed of natively-compiled.

The 2020 Mac Mini Unleashed: Putting Apple Silicon M1 To The Test

www.anandtech.com

There's ALOT more variability when emulating x86 performance via Rosetta than what you're stating.

Could be. It'll be interesting to see how this plays out.

Qualcomm Swaps Out Arm for RISC-V for Next-Gen Google Wear OS Devices
Qualcomm's first forray into RISC-V, I wouldn't be surprised if many parts of Android start getting ported over to support RISC-V.

I'm sure that once the software stack is fully setup for Android to support RISC-V on SmartPhones & Tablets, Qualcomm will go "All-IN!" on RISC-V and kick ARM to the curb.

MS spent years trying to make the x86 emulator good enough for that to be exceedingly rare.

And Apple managed to do a better job than MS at it.

And even Apple's Rosetta leaves many users to prefer the original hardware when running x86 Software.

 

[Thunder64]

My only question:

Will AMD bring ARM CPUs to the AM5 (and I suppose future AM6, 7, etc.) platforms?

ARM or any other isa needs motherboards. Being able to clip into a platform like the old Socket 7 days would be a huge boost.

I thought AMD already did that once, but maybe I'm misremembering because it's described as a SoC and appears to be BGA:

​

The Silver Lining of the Late AMD Opteron A1100 Arrival

www.anandtech.com

​

I think you guys are thinking of Skybridge. One socket that could accept x86/ARM. It was cancelled some time ago almost certainly due to budget concerns.

 

[bit_user]

I'm sure that once the software stack is fully setup for Android to support RISC-V on SmartPhones & Tablets, Qualcomm will go "All-IN!" on RISC-V and kick ARM to the curb.

Could be. I think it would be pretty easy for anyone designing their own ARM cores to switch over their designs. I think that transition should be a lot easier than going from x86 CPUs to ARM, because RISC-V and ARM are a lot more similar than x86 is to either of them.

And Apple managed to do a better job than MS at it.

True, but Apple had the benefit of being able to make a few key hardware tweaks that made their x86 mode a lot faster. ARM has taken at least one of those ideas onboard and now integrated it into the new ARMv9.1-A specification. So, MS' x86-on-ARM performance should still improve from where it's at.

And even Apple's Rosetta leaves many users to prefer the original hardware when running x86 Software.

It doesn't have to be perfect - just good enough to be usable for those things you can't get ARM versions of.

One disadvantage Apple had is they were still building ARMv8-A cores with only 128-bit NEON SIMD. So, that puts any AVX-heavy code at a disadvantage. Just imagine what happens when Apple embraces SVE2! The same applies to Windows' x86-on-ARM emulator, since Qualcomm has yet to ship any laptop SoCs with SVE.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

Could be. I think it would be pretty easy for anyone designing their own ARM cores to switch over their designs. I think that transition should be a lot easier than going from x86 CPUs to ARM, because RISC-V and ARM are a lot more similar than x86 is to either of them.

Yup, that's why I'm not surprised that Qualcomm decided to use a SmartWatch SoC as it's first "TestBed" to make a RISC-V SoC to work with Androids Wear-ables which has a tiny market compared to the larger SmartWatch market.

True, but Apple had the benefit of being able to make a few key hardware tweaks that made their x86 mode a lot faster. ARM has taken at least one of those ideas onboard and now integrated it into the new ARMv9.1-A specification. So, MS' x86-on-ARM performance should still improve from where it's at.

I'm sure AnandTech will review it and tell us how it performs in the newly updated ARM SoC's.

It doesn't have to be perfect - just good enough to be usable for those things you can't get ARM versions of.

One disadvantage Apple had is they were still building ARMv8-A cores with only 128-bit NEON SIMD. So, that puts any AVX-heavy code at a disadvantage. Just imagine what happens when Apple embraces SVE2! The same applies to Windows' x86-on-ARM emulator, since Qualcomm has yet to ship any laptop SoCs with SVE.

They're only on 128-bit SIMD still?

Even Intel is trying to move to 512-bit SIMD with AVX10

 

[vertuallinsanity]

The story makes a lot of sense with Microsoft heading that direction. I suspect Intel would follow suit if they aren't already.

Adding arm core(s) to an existing die complex would alow arm & x86 ISA on the same chip. Nvidia would be at a present disadvantage in anything other than ultra-low power laptops. AMD and Intel would not.

" Transitioning to Arm-based CPUs requires addressing compatibility issues, as code developed for x86 chips will not directly run on the Arm ISA, necessitating porting software from x86 to Arm. "

This would be resolved in a multi-core cpu with correct thread ID and scheduling. No transition or porting required (yet).

 

[ezst036]

I thought AMD already did that once, but maybe I'm misremembering because it's described as a SoC and appears to be BGA:

​

The Silver Lining of the Late AMD Opteron A1100 Arrival

www.anandtech.com

​

I've never heard of AMD bringing ARM to AM2/AM3/AM4 which became retail products or even available on eBay.

Note: Pretty much all Opterons do not fit into mainstream AMx sockets. I think I was pretty clear that I meant mainstream sockets.

As was mentioned above, there was Skybridge, but that wasn't released that I know of.

 

[bit_user]

I'm sure AnandTech will review it and tell us how it performs in the newly updated ARM SoC's.

I think they haven't done a phone review for a couple years, actually. Their main phone reviewer left in 2021.

They're only on 128-bit SIMD still?

Yes. Apple has so far only shipped ARMv8-A cores, and without the optional SVE. SVE2 is a mandatory part of ARMv9-A, so whenever they switch over, I guess that'll be when they embrace it.

Apple did make a proprietary matrix-multiply unit, which they confusingly called AMX, after Intel announced its AMX but before Intel shipped it. However, I think only software specifically written to use Apple's AMX engine will get a benefit from it.

Even Intel is trying to move to 512-bit SIMD with AVX10

Not in client CPUs. Those will implement AVX10/256, only. At least none of Intel's 2024 client CPUs will implement at 512-bit width.

 

[bit_user]

I suspect Intel would follow suit if they aren't already.

Intel seems to be trying to fend off ARM with a combination of E-cores and APX. They could theoretically build their own ARM cores, but the downside would be paying the architecture license fee. Perhaps they're holding out until they can embrace RISC-V, instead. That's open and royalty-free.

Adding arm core(s) to an existing die complex would alow arm & x86 ISA on the same chip.

Not impossible, but it would probably complicate the cache architecture, since ARM and x86 have different memory semantics.