Terrh wrote:
... "X86 is dead" has been shouted for at least 30 years as well, but here we still are. The future is hard to predict.
True that. I just wonder how long intel can remain in the game. It’s not just performance alone anymore.
If these outsourcing agreements work out intel has bought themselves a few more years.
The Startup and Ars have both commented recently that “PC users are in denial” about the M1 specs.
In recently had the pleasure of using one of the development prototype 128-but HPs for 48 hours; which worked out to about 6 hours of actual use sadly.
Knowing it was coming I took a few days ahead of time to make some suggested modifications to 7zip (which are now in the Keka repository wiki). Expanding the pipelines for a massive parallelisation and to handle 2tb ram.
I used the same OC Thunderbolt 3/USB3.2 m2 dock on the Hap and the M1 Mac mini. In both cases I used 5 512GB m2 discs as a ram drive using rdsk.
The Mac with OS11.1 and the HP with the custom BSD4/nBSD9.8
I found in 7zip that they were surprisingly close.
I then tried throwing Big Buck into handbrake with the nightly source for Handbrake with AV1 enabled. I set the 1080/60 input at 1.6MBps in to AV1 1080/60 at 799Mbps out. In both cases I stripped the audio.
After 1 hour (not a complete conversion set) the Mac was the clear leader.
It took 12minutes per pass. Vs the HP which took 21minutes per pass.
This isn’t a surprise though. It’s well known risc is the better choice for video conversion.
I came to some personal conclusions though from this.
First is that Apple has just moved the entire tech industry forward two generations. The M1 is by far the most advanced ARM/RISC-V variant to reach the consumer level. A super-computer level chip is now in desktops.
Second 128-bit x86 computing is competitive here. Unfortunately unlike 64-bit x86 there is zero existing infrastructure for it. If the PC industry moves at its standard pace it will be a decade before anyone comes out with 86-128 and again it will likely be AMD to move the industry to a new ISA.
Third, that’s unlikely to happen. AMD has recently moved to testing a new chiplet design for their Graphics processors and ASICs. What this tells us is that they are moving away from focusing on x86. Not only would this be a potential GCU explosion moment; this design is easily ported to Risc. As such we may see a desktop level risc chip from AMD in the next year or two.
They are already a large supplier of risc formats.
AMD, not intel, has always been the innovator. Tithe rift with intel that started with the 386 was because AMD made their license chips better, and faster. And for less cost. The 5x86 matched the pentium the same year both were released. The K5 and K6 ran circles around the pentium counterparts.
When intel hit an innovation bottleneck AMD moved forward with AMD64. An expansion to x86.
Intel licensed it from AMD.
Intel currently is a low end budget risc supplier.
The largest buyer of intel risc chips is, intel. Lol. They make controllers for their own solid state drives.
AMD on the other hand remains in the top 5 risc suppliers making chips for iot devices. Optical drives. A/D converters. They’re a large supplier for the tape industry. One of three for LTO system controllers.
Qualcomm has a scale issue. They’re targeted on a single set of platforms and do massive volumes. It’s unlikely to see them move into a desktop processor market.
Raven, the risc branch of VIA, is locked into decade contracts. It’s unlikely they could even try to move in another market.
Intel is still a massive memory supplier. I honestly think the best thing they could possibly do right now is sell x86 outright to Apple or AMD.
Apple has long worked on JIT IA translation. It would be the end of x86 but it would make it likely we have comparability of x86 software on RISC for the near future. For all the Apple bashing hatred online, they are a “for the good” company. They have a good track record of open sourcing tech for the greater good. From Darwin OS to Bonjurno. Much of the original Rosetta is open source.
Or
They could sell x86 outright to AMD! AMD is one of the companies that has toyed with 128-bit instructions. They’re probably in the best position to make the innovative leap. That would put 86 back on a competitive level with RISC.
One thing that probably keeps some intel heads awake right now is the risk of Apple opensourcing M-Risc. Ouch.
Apple is no stranger to cross compatibility. They os’d low level code and opened the kernel specs for Power rather early. On Intel we had Rosetta and they worked directly with groups for translators. Fuse, parallels, etc. They are doing that again already with M1. Parallels has an alpha, fuse has partially made the move, LAMP is already up and running.
We’ve now seen many intel apps work better translated on M1 than on native intel Macs. Not all, but many. (MS Access sucks on M1)!
Everything else aside
this is an exciting time for tech. This is now the 4th major computing change of my lifetime and I’m happy to see it.
[list=We had the 8-bit explosion and the home computer.
The GUI revolution
AMD 64
Now M1 RISC[/list]
(And the failure of list on PHPBB. Lmao.
Despite COVID if you like sci-fi and tech this is a great time to be alive!