Well yes, but not just because they’re cheaper. x86 is ancient and bloated. Computers could be just as fast but use way less power with a more modern ISA like Arm
I just gotta pour water on this. I’m sorry. It bothers me.
Apple did some amazing marketing around their chip to make people think its arm that made it so good. I’m sorry, it’s not. The Intel chips that came out the next year were even better.
Do you know what the secret sauce is? Tsmc. They constantly buy the latest and greatest chip fab tech, and if you use them, your stuff is gonna be next level by default. Intels fabs upgraded their tech the year after tsmc did, and well that solved that problem, suddenly just as good or better.
Apples’ secret sauce wasn’t arm. It was buying TSMC an entire factory. They literally bought the company an entire new factory for a deal that would guarantee apple a minimum number of fab time per year in TSMC fabs.
And of course the kicker is that none of these cpus actually run x86 or arm. Haven’t done for decades, the machine code is compiled down to a chip specific bytecode at execution time. Bloat isn’t a problem because the cpu doesn’t run x86.
Yes there are a lot of factors that make the M series chips so impressive and their incredibly small node size (which is what they get from tsmc) is one of them. The choice of arm is another huge one.
And of course the kicker is that none of these cpus actually run x86 or arm. Haven’t done for decades, the machine code is compiled down to a chip specific bytecode at execution time. Bloat isn’t a problem because the cpu doesn’t run x86.
Are you talking about microcode? Because that is not at all analogous to compilation. I don’t think you have a good grasp of the hardware that you’re talking about.
At the end of the day, the processor does still “run x86”. The implementation detail of most instructions being microcoded doesn’t change that. The x86 isa is large, complex, and old. It has compatibility decisions that date back all the way to the Datapoint 2200.
the choice of arm is not impactful at all. you can try to explain why you think, i suggest avoiding the terms “large”, “complex”, “old” because none of that means anything. arm isn’t a spring chicken itself you know.
it also does nothing to explain why suddenly intel cpus are just as fast or faster magically as soon as they upgraded their chip fabs. are you :O suggesting that arm is as “large”, “complex”, “old” as x86 and that’s why it wasn’t able to compete with the young upstart x86 cpus that year?!
x86 could always compete in raw performance, but never in efficiency. If we were to compare two hypothetical cpus on the same node size, one arm and one x86, that can both run a program at the same speed; I guarantee you the arm one will use less power.
We can argue the pros and cons of x86 vs arm all day long but suggesting that the choice isn’t impactful is just wrong.
arm IS more efficient on the instruction level (faster conditions directly in the instructions, better prediction, it’s overall more efficient)
even armv4 is technically more efficient thrn modern x86, assuming identical node size
oh yeah and x86 has a billion extensions that requires multiple arm instructions to execute. but non of this matters as none of the arm or x86 chipsets actually execute arm or x86 machine code, it’s all transformed (sorry i can’t use the word compile here people get mad) into processor specific microcode making the whole thing moot
Its 100% because they’re cheaper and the company can make more profit by forcing everyone to switch. Any perceived benefit is only a consequence. Nobody can convince me otherwise.
It is strictly due to power efficiency. ARM is insanely power efficient when put up against x86. Our phones run it, laptops are starting to run it (ever wonder why MacBooks have 20+ hour battery lives now?), hell AWS is switching their data centers to ARM because of the energy savings. It’ll save the world a lot of energy since 10% of our electricity is used for computers.
No one is forcing you to run out and buy an ARM system, and x86 is gonna be supported for a very long time. Software will be developed for both platforms in parallel as it’s going to be at least a decade before it reaches dominance.
Did you feel this was when we went from 32 to 64 bit computers? If so, we still write software for them even though many people, myself included, haven’t used a 32 bit computer since the 2000s.
The future is Arm!
If by ARM you mean “phasing out all x86 chips and forcing everyone to buy ARM chips because they’re cheaper to produce than x86 chips,” then I guess.
Well yes, but not just because they’re cheaper. x86 is ancient and bloated. Computers could be just as fast but use way less power with a more modern ISA like Arm
I just gotta pour water on this. I’m sorry. It bothers me.
Apple did some amazing marketing around their chip to make people think its arm that made it so good. I’m sorry, it’s not. The Intel chips that came out the next year were even better.
Do you know what the secret sauce is? Tsmc. They constantly buy the latest and greatest chip fab tech, and if you use them, your stuff is gonna be next level by default. Intels fabs upgraded their tech the year after tsmc did, and well that solved that problem, suddenly just as good or better.
Apples’ secret sauce wasn’t arm. It was buying TSMC an entire factory. They literally bought the company an entire new factory for a deal that would guarantee apple a minimum number of fab time per year in TSMC fabs.
And of course the kicker is that none of these cpus actually run x86 or arm. Haven’t done for decades, the machine code is compiled down to a chip specific bytecode at execution time. Bloat isn’t a problem because the cpu doesn’t run x86.
Oh boy!
Yes there are a lot of factors that make the M series chips so impressive and their incredibly small node size (which is what they get from tsmc) is one of them. The choice of arm is another huge one.
Are you talking about microcode? Because that is not at all analogous to compilation. I don’t think you have a good grasp of the hardware that you’re talking about.
At the end of the day, the processor does still “run x86”. The implementation detail of most instructions being microcoded doesn’t change that. The x86 isa is large, complex, and old. It has compatibility decisions that date back all the way to the Datapoint 2200.
the choice of arm is not impactful at all. you can try to explain why you think, i suggest avoiding the terms “large”, “complex”, “old” because none of that means anything. arm isn’t a spring chicken itself you know.
it also does nothing to explain why suddenly intel cpus are just as fast or faster magically as soon as they upgraded their chip fabs. are you :O suggesting that arm is as “large”, “complex”, “old” as x86 and that’s why it wasn’t able to compete with the young upstart x86 cpus that year?!
x86 could always compete in raw performance, but never in efficiency. If we were to compare two hypothetical cpus on the same node size, one arm and one x86, that can both run a program at the same speed; I guarantee you the arm one will use less power.
We can argue the pros and cons of x86 vs arm all day long but suggesting that the choice isn’t impactful is just wrong.
oh x86 has nothing to do with that, there have been terrible power efficiency arm cpus and efficient x86 cpus too.
but it’s nice to see the goalpost change suddenly ;) at least we agree that x86 and arm are effectively the same performance and demonstrable evidence
The goalpost never moved, you just didn’t understand what we were talking about :)
Why are you so confident about a subject you clearly know nothing about?
arm IS more efficient on the instruction level (faster conditions directly in the instructions, better prediction, it’s overall more efficient)
even armv4 is technically more efficient thrn modern x86, assuming identical node size
oh yeah and x86 has a billion extensions that requires multiple arm instructions to execute. but non of this matters as none of the arm or x86 chipsets actually execute arm or x86 machine code, it’s all transformed (sorry i can’t use the word compile here people get mad) into processor specific microcode making the whole thing moot
You don’t understand what microcode is, it’s not a magic spell that can hide all problems of an instruction set.
Its 100% because they’re cheaper and the company can make more profit by forcing everyone to switch. Any perceived benefit is only a consequence. Nobody can convince me otherwise.
It is strictly due to power efficiency. ARM is insanely power efficient when put up against x86. Our phones run it, laptops are starting to run it (ever wonder why MacBooks have 20+ hour battery lives now?), hell AWS is switching their data centers to ARM because of the energy savings. It’ll save the world a lot of energy since 10% of our electricity is used for computers.
No one is forcing you to run out and buy an ARM system, and x86 is gonna be supported for a very long time. Software will be developed for both platforms in parallel as it’s going to be at least a decade before it reaches dominance.
Did you feel this was when we went from 32 to 64 bit computers? If so, we still write software for them even though many people, myself included, haven’t used a 32 bit computer since the 2000s.
Okay buddy, stay ignorant
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