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ARM Makes Its CPU Roadmap Public, Challenges Intel in PCs With Deimos and Hercules Chips (pcworld.com)

With PC makers like Asus and HP beginning to design laptops and tablets around ARM chips, ARM itself has decided to emerge from the shadows and unroll its roadmap to challenge Intel through at least 2020, PCWorld writes. From a report, which details ARM's announcement Thursday: ARM's now-public roadmap represents its first processors that are designed for the PC space. ARM, taking aim at the dominant player, claims its chips will equal and potentially even surpass Intel's in single-threaded performance. ARM is unveiling two new chip architectures: Deimos, a 7nm architecture to debut in 2019, and Hercules, a 5nm design for 2020. There's a catch, of course: Many Windows apps aren't natively written for the ARM instruction set, forcing them to pay a performance penalty via emulation. Comparing itself to Intel is a brightly-colored signpost that ARM remains committed to the PC market, however.

ARM-powered PCs like the Asus NovaGo offer game-changing battery life -- but the performance suffers, for two reasons: One, because the computing power of ARM's cores has lagged behind those of the Intel Core family; and two, because any apps that the ARM chip can't process natively have to be emulated. ARM can't do much about Microsoft's development path, but it can increase its own performance. Finally, if you were concerned that ARM PCs will be a flash in the pan, the answer is no, apparently not.
Further reading: ARM Reveals First Public CPU Roadmap - Targeting Intel Performance (PC Perspective); and ARM Unveils Client CPU Performance Roadmap Through 2020 - Taking Intel Head On (AnandTech).

158 comments

  1. Ohio, Leon Chen by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Intel is still struggling to make 10-nanometer chips at the same time as ARM is talking about 7nm and 5nm parts.

    1. Re:Ohio, Leon Chen by TheCycoONE · · Score: 2

      Would be interesting, except 10nm, and 7nm are marketing terms with no basis in reality, and are actually the same. https://www.eejournal.com/arti...

    2. Re:Ohio, Leon Chen by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      For the more lazy users there's also a youtube video they can listen to. Doesn't contain 100% the same info, but should cover the essentials.

    3. Re:Ohio, Leon Chen by Tough+Love · · Score: 1

      Intel is still struggling to make 10-nanometer chips at the same time as ARM is talking about 7nm and 5nm parts.

      Let's be fair. 1) Intel 10nm is roughly equivalent to TSMC/GF/Samsung 7nm. 2) "Struggling to make" is roughly equivalent to "talking about".

      As nearly as I can tell, Intel bit off just a bit too much this node with a metal pitch that is just about 10% finer than deep UV multipatterning alone can do reliably, so they had to bulldoze their fab line for a do-over and never got into their precious copy-exactly zone. Meanwhile, the "bunch" went ever so slightly more conservative and are now supposedly starting 7nm production ramp, but nobody has seen these chips actually arrive in channel. Nobody seems to have clear intelligence on whether the "bunch" also has yield problems this node. Maybe just a few more weeks until we get answers?

      --
      When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
    4. Re:Ohio, Leon Chen by viperidaenz · · Score: 1

      ARM still doesn't actually make chips, so all they can ever do is talk about process nodes.

    5. Re: Ohio, Leon Chen by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Plus, ARM's comparison is single threaded int, but they use Intel's vector FP power draw. Here's a quote from Anandtech:

       

      Iâ(TM)m not too happy with the power presentation done here by Arm as we kind of have an apples-and-oranges comparison; the Arm estimates here are meant to represent actual power consumption under the single-threaded SPEC workload while the Intel figures are the official TDP figures of the SKU â" which obviously donâ(TM)t directly apply to this scenario.

      If you look closely at the newest hottest ARM architectures, you'll see register renaming, instruction reorder buffers, multi-level caches, pipelined execution units, etc. In short, ARM has had to adopt almost the full circus of non-RISC features that keep an old instruction set architecture viable. That's all fine with me, just don't mistake it for anything remotely RISC.

    6. Re: Ohio, Leon Chen by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      RISC is about instruction set size and doesn't exclude register renaming and pipelining at all.
      At the end of the day what really matters for mobile is power efficiency, and ARM is HEAD and SHOULDERS above Intel on that matter.

    7. Re: Ohio, Leon Chen by negRo_slim · · Score: 1

      Why no links to back up your assertions friend?

      --
      On the Oregon Cost born and raised, On the beach is where I spent most of my days
    8. Re: Ohio, Leon Chen by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Actually, Anandtech's point about "an apples-and-oranges comparison" is that ARM completely failed to show any such thing. And that "whole circus of tricks" sucks up a lot of power on its way to keeping the beast fed with instructions.

    9. Re: Ohio, Leon Chen by Megol · · Score: 1

      Please read about the differences between architecture and microarchitecture. RISC is part of the (instruction set) architecture and out-of-order execution etc. are part of the microarchitecture.

    10. Re:Ohio, Leon Chen by Shirley+Marquez · · Score: 1

      It's a little more complicated than the feature size. Intel's 10nm process is about as dense as the 7nm processes at Samsung or TSMC. But that doesn't change the fact that Intel isn't shipping its 10nm in quantity yet, while those others are shipping 7nm. GlobalFoundries will probably also be shipping 7nm before Intel has its 10nm going.

      Intel has fallen behind in process technology. That's an unaccustomed position for them; their ability to manufacture (as opposed to design) chips better than anybody else has been a key part of their success for many years. I'm not writing off Intel, but they've got some work to do.

    11. Re: Ohio, Leon Chen by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      RISC vs CISC is tired old, ARMs probably have hundreds of instruction for SIMD, encryption and so on (various bit twiddling?) and I don't want to know all what's in IBM enterprise CPUs.

      wikipedia :

      The specification for Power ISA v.2.04[10] was finalized in June 2007. It is based on Power ISA v.2.03 and includes changes primarily to the Book III-S part regarding virtualization, hypervisor functionality, logical partitioning and virtual page handling.
      (...)
      The specification for Power ISA v.2.07[31] was released in May 2013. It is based on Power ISA v.2.06 and includes major enhancements to logical partition functionality, transactional memory, expanded performance monitoring, new storage control features, additions to the VMX and VSX vector facilities (VSX-2), along with AES[31]:257[32] and Galois Counter Mode (GCM), SHA-224, SHA-256,[31]:258 SHA-384 and SHA-512[31]:258 (SHA-2) cryptographic extensions and cyclic redundancy check (CRC) algorithms.[33]
      (...)
      The specification for Power ISA v.3.0[28][35] was released in November 2015,[36] It is the first to come out after the founding of the OpenPOWER Foundation and includes enhancements for a broad spectrum of workloads and removes the server and embedded categories while retaining backwards compatibility and adds support for VSX-3 instructions. New functions include 128-bit quad-precision floating point operations, a random number generator, hardware assisted garbage collection and hardware enforced trusted computing.

      We may just talk of load-store architectures (what the RISCs do) and those that are not i.e. x86 operates on values in memory and ARM loads them into registers / write from register to memory.

  2. If ARM "really" wants to compete with Intel by mandark1967 · · Score: 5, Funny

    They need to get off their lazy ass and introduce several major vulnerabilities into their CPUs as they are seriously lacking in that category...

    --
    Sig Follows: "Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself." -- Mark Twain
    1. Re: If ARM "really" wants to compete with Intel by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The desktop class designs have already reached parity in this. The A76 is vulnerable to both meltdown and spectre.

    2. Re:If ARM "really" wants to compete with Intel by Megol · · Score: 1

      They already did! Their chips are vulnerable to Spectre and some even to Meltdown. AMD on the other hand... :(

  3. Forget Windows - Mac is where this will shine by JoeyRox · · Score: 2, Interesting

    There are already rumors Apple is developing a desktop version of their iPhone ARM processors, which have larger dies and much better performance than nearly every other ARM implementation..

    1. Re: Forget Windows - Mac is where this will shine by peragrin · · Score: 1

      Why do you think arm is publishing this? Apple takes the basic arm and tweaks it for it's desired specs.
      Though arm 7 and 5nm are in truth closer to Intel 10 and 7nm.

      --
      i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
    2. Re:Forget Windows - Mac is where this will shine by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 1

      There's also rumours of an inexpensive laptop that will replace the MacBook Air. One of the most expensive component of a laptop is the "Intel Tax Inside".

      Given all the security holes we keep discovering in their CPUs I don't see why they're still selling at a premium price. And given Apple's love of control from top to bottom, they'll switch to their own ARM processors instead of going with AMD.

      --
      #DeleteFacebook
    3. Re:Forget Windows - Mac is where this will shine by serviscope_minor · · Score: 2

      There are already rumors Apple is developing a desktop version of their iPhone ARM processors, which have larger dies and much better performance than nearly every other ARM implementation..

      I expect they can succeed without too much trouble. What the mobile ARMs lack which the desktop CPUs have is wide, fast memory busses and large caches with wide, fast internal busses. Those things suck power though.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    4. Re:Forget Windows - Mac is where this will shine by Tough+Love · · Score: 1

      Well, Microsoft is going to jump on this bandwagon too. The mistake they made last time round with Windows 8 is unlike to be repeated: this time Windows on ARM will be as much like the reigning Wintel version as they can possibly make it. I'm actually hoping for this because I don't perceive any other path at the moment to getting a decent ARM Linux laptop.

      Of course there's always the possibility that they might lock down the bootloader just to freeze out Linux. Sigh. So in that case I stick with Wintel, or more probably, WinAMD.

      --
      When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
    5. Re:Forget Windows - Mac is where this will shine by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Re: "...an inexpensive laptop ..."

      Wow, you really don't get Apple, do you? And neither do your rumour sources either. Apple doesn't do "inexpensive". Apple likes being a premium computer brand and their customers like that too, or are at the very least OK with the premium pricing.

      Without some forcing mechanism, Apple isn't going after the low end, low margin device market. And I don't see any forcing mechanism anywhere on the horizon.

    6. Re:Forget Windows - Mac is where this will shine by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 1

      Apple can do inexpensive. They've done it in the past (iPod shuffle, iPhone SE, Mac mini) and they're still doing it right now (Mac mini).

      Apple's "inexpensive" is going to be the same price as the other guys' "middle range" though.

      --
      #DeleteFacebook
    7. Re:Forget Windows - Mac is where this will shine by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And Chromebooks, too, I'd imagine.

    8. Re: Forget Windows - Mac is where this will shine by c6gunner · · Score: 2

      Apple can do inexpensive. They've done it in the past (iPod shuffle, iPhone SE, Mac mini) and they're still doing it right now (Mac mini).

      All of those products were more expensive than competing products in their class. If apple sells something for $5 that might fit your definition of "inexpensive", but when competing products only cost $2 then no, in the context of the discussion it's not at all inexpensive. Apple charges a premium, and that premium exists refuardles of whether the specific product we are talking about costs $5 or $5,000.

    9. Re:Forget Windows - Mac is where this will shine by movdqa · · Score: 1

      The rumors come out every year. I have my eye on the 32 GB Core i9 MacBook Pro. Where's the ARM equivalent? Can it run Solaris, Linux, Windows? The margins have to be great for the 8th gen i7 and i9 models.

    10. Re:Forget Windows - Mac is where this will shine by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Of course there's always the possibility that they might lock down the bootloader just to freeze out Linux.

      They already did.

      System.Fundamentals.Firmware.UEFISecureBoot:

      "Enable/Disable Secure Boot. On non-ARM systems, it is required to implement the ability to disable Secure Boot via firmware setup. A physically present user must be allowed to disable Secure Boot via firmware setup without possession of PKpriv. A Windows Server may also disable Secure Boot remotely using a strongly authenticated (preferably public-key based) out-of-band management connection, such as to a baseboard management controller or service processor. Programmatic disabling of Secure Boot either during Boot Services or after exiting EFI Boot Services MUST NOT be possible. Disabling Secure Boot must not be possible on ARM systems."

      Emphasis mine.

      I'm actually hoping for this because I don't perceive any other path at the moment to getting a decent ARM Linux laptop.

      Keep dreaming, it won't happen anytime soon unless some startup wants to manufacture hardware for linux specifically, or Windows implodes.

    11. Re:Forget Windows - Mac is where this will shine by Tough+Love · · Score: 1

      Yes, lock down the boot loader and ship it with Windows 10S = fail = this is not the PC you are looking for.

      If Microsoft wants this product to not fail like the last time then it needs to be as much like a PC as it possibly can be, except for the processor. That includes the boot loader.

      --
      When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
    12. Re:Forget Windows - Mac is where this will shine by jon3k · · Score: 1

      Not to mention Windows 10 on ARM and of course broad Linux support.

    13. Re:Forget Windows - Mac is where this will shine by jon3k · · Score: 1

      They might get there eventually, but early reports show a number of limitations.

    14. Re:Forget Windows - Mac is where this will shine by Shirley+Marquez · · Score: 1

      That's version 1. Version 1 of any Microsoft product has problems. If it follows past history, Windows on ARM won't really hit its stride until version 3, except that it won't be called that because we now have Windows 10 everywhere and forever.

    15. Re:Forget Windows - Mac is where this will shine by sad_ · · Score: 1

      me thinking ARM already shines on Linux, so much so that it is the most used OS for that CPU.
      ARM obviously wants to expand their market reach, that would include Windows, the most use desktop OS.
      the usage numbers of those two markets combined makes Apple look like small fish.

      --
      On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.
    16. Re:Forget Windows - Mac is where this will shine by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's terrible to see this finally happening. But this also must mean that a signed linux kernel will work. I think it has to boot signed stuff (and Microsoft upgrades your OS and reinstall it every six months)

      Alternately, a board manufacturer or OEM could simply ignore the Windows cert program. Namely System76 and Librem.
      Still, even if this were almost harmless to users such that they could boot most linux distros that even have an ARMv8 version, I'm thinking it would fuck up with devs who need to reverse engineer the hardware and get drivers working.

    17. Re:Forget Windows - Mac is where this will shine by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The iPhone 6.1" was said to be "inexpensive" and now it's rumored at like $700 for the base model

  4. Deimos and Hercules? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Missed the opportunity to call them Phobos and Deimos

    1. Re:Deimos and Hercules? by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 4, Funny

      Not to mention that all computers using Hercules will be stuck in monochrome 720×350.

      --
      #DeleteFacebook
  5. how meny pci-e lanes / other io does it have? by Joe_Dragon · · Score: 3, Interesting

    how meny pci-e lanes / other io does it have?

    1. Re:how meny pci-e lanes / other io does it have? by Gravis+Zero · · Score: 4, Informative

      ARM is fabless and therefore only designs CPU cores. This means it's up to the chip maker to include a PCI-e interface. So far, everyone making ARM chips cares fuckall about PCI-e and therefore they don't add any too their chips because all they care about is making smartphone chips.

      --
      Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
    2. Re:how meny pci-e lanes / other io does it have? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      this is a core, It will have how ever many lanes broadcom/nxp/apple/... bolt up to in in their implementation.

    3. Re:how meny pci-e lanes / other io does it have? by viperidaenz · · Score: 1

      Some chips have 4 PCIe lanes (RK3399 for example)... That's 1/4 of what a modern GPU uses. And a generation behind too.

    4. Re:how meny pci-e lanes / other io does it have? by Gravis+Zero · · Score: 1

      A single PCIe port, nice. Sure, keep holding your breath for rockchip to release a chip with better PCIe support.

      --
      Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
    5. Re:how meny pci-e lanes / other io does it have? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You should look at NXP QorIQ chips, Marvell, and NVIDIA. All have lots of PCIe

    6. Re:how meny pci-e lanes / other io does it have? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      fabless, lockless, shitless, etc.

    7. Re:how meny pci-e lanes / other io does it have? by viperidaenz · · Score: 1

      There's the Marvell Armada series, but the good ones are expensive.
      Their 8K series has 12 SERDES lanes that can provide PCIe lanes.

      1 port PCIe x4 + 1 ports PCIe x2 +4 ports PCIe x1

      The 12 lanes must then be shared with USB3, SATA, GbE, etc.

      The nVidia Tegra SoC's also have PCIe

    8. Re:how meny pci-e lanes / other io does it have? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Apple doesn't license cores, they are an architecture licensee.

  6. I've seen this movie before. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It's called PowerPC, and we all know how that ended.

    1. Re:I've seen this movie before. by known_coward_69 · · Score: 1

      except now apple controls the compiler, an optimized programming language and it's own GPU with a graphics API for gaming

    2. Re:I've seen this movie before. by Tough+Love · · Score: 1

      That was the PowerPC movie, you haven't seen the ARM movie yet.

      --
      When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
    3. Re:I've seen this movie before. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Control over everything. Apple. What could possibly go wrong? Consumers will certainly benefit from this.

  7. Overall not impressed so far by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I just donâ(TM)t see ARM really doing a lot of good running Windows. I am sure we will see more ARM based laptops but so far they are not very good and certainly not inexpensive. So far their claim to fame is better battery life and LTE built in. But performance wise the layering to get Windows based stuff to work with ARM is a big handicap.

    1. Re:Overall not impressed so far by higuita · · Score: 2

      who cares about windows, linux runs fine! :D

      --
      Higuita
    2. Re:Overall not impressed so far by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 1

      That tells us more about Windows than it does about ARM processors. :D

      --
      #DeleteFacebook
    3. Re:Overall not impressed so far by MightyMartian · · Score: 1

      The chief problem for Microsoft is that a large part of the Windows ecosystem is still dominated by x86/64 applications. Despite 15 years of pushing .NET, and now with .NET beginning to look like an at least credible cross platform environment, even Microsoft's own flagship apps are pretty entrenched in the x86/64 world. Yes, they're making big efforts, but the fact is that there are a whole host of Windows apps that won't run. This is a re-run of Windows NT's early days, where the OS could boot up on multiple architectures, but the suite of apps that could run on anything but x86 was too small to sustain those ports of the operating system. And x86 emulation isn't going to cut the mustard either. It's a useful stopgate at best. Sooner or later Microsoft is going to have to push developers away from native x86 compiled, or they're going to find themselves at a disadvantage even on the desktop.

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    4. Re:Overall not impressed so far by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Whoever makes a windows app, can compile it for different architectures (x86, arm, whatever ms supplies windows for). This is not hard - the open-source world do it all the time, and they don't even get paid to support multiple platforms.

    5. Re:Overall not impressed so far by MightyMartian · · Score: 1

      It was pretty much that easy 20 years, and yet the Alpha and PowerPC ports of Windows NT shriveled on the vine because developers weren't interested. Getting past four decades of x86 momentum is clearly harder than compiling a new binary.

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    6. Re:Overall not impressed so far by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Did you know that there was OS/2 for PowerPC.. and that OS had failed to get native applications on x86 even.

      Windows does have their "UWP" don't-call-me-Metro applications and the store, and they could in theory get much software to switch to that (including UWP outside the store, maybe). Ignoring the burden on all software vendors to change their GUIs or even do a complete rewrite, the fatal weakness in that plan is the hundreds millions users running Windows 7 and 8.x, who can't run Windows 10-only applications.
      So.. maybe Windows 10 is the new OS/2 :)

  8. Now is the time for the Linux Desktop... by Hydrian · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If ARM is going to start making desktop class CPU/SoCs, this is where Linux can show off. Window doesn't have good ARM application support. The open source community has been supporting ARM for years. Instead of being behind the game in available software compared to Windows, Linux can ahead of the game in available software.

    This could also help push more 3rd party binary software developers to port their software to ARM + Linux.

    --
    No good deed goes unpunished.
    1. Re:Now is the time for the Linux Desktop... by Tough+Love · · Score: 1

      Where are you going to get your ARM laptop to run Linux on?

      As I see it, there are only two plausible paths:

      1) Chromebook manufacturers start offering usable amounts of storage and Google lays off their FUD game with developer mode boot warnings.

      2) Microsoft takes another run at the ARM laptop market, with for-real Windows this time instead of Windows-trying-to-be-a-phone.

      --
      When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
    2. Re:Now is the time for the Linux Desktop... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Linux doesn't have good ARM application support either when it comes to desktop.

    3. Re:Now is the time for the Linux Desktop... by tepples · · Score: 1

      Where are you going to get your ARM laptop to run Linux on?

      Pinebook should help answer that soon.

    4. Re:Now is the time for the Linux Desktop... by Tough+Love · · Score: 1

      Yaaaaas. If they deliver, I will send them my money. GPU could be a sticking point.

      --
      When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
    5. Re:Now is the time for the Linux Desktop... by Tough+Love · · Score: 1

      Whoops, they already deliver. I'm getting one :)

      --
      When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
    6. Re: Now is the time for the Linux Desktop... by c6gunner · · Score: 1

      Those 2 gigs of ram will do wonders when I open up Firefox with 30+ tabs. I'll get to relive the good old days with my pentium computer and 56k modem.

    7. Re: Now is the time for the Linux Desktop... by tepples · · Score: 1

      I used Firefox on a netbook with 1 GB of RAM for years before maxing it out at 2 GB. Here are some tips for using Firefox with low memory:

      - Limit yourself to 10 tabs and use bookmarks for the rest.
      - Turn on Tracking Protection so that ads get loaded only if they don't stalk you from one website to another to build an interest dossier.
      - Don't use a heavy desktop like GNOME 3. Use Xfce instead.

    8. Re: Now is the time for the Linux Desktop... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Have u tried puppylinux on arm...

    9. Re:Now is the time for the Linux Desktop... by sad_ · · Score: 1

      we've been there before, but nothing much happened.
      linux was 64bit ready even before 64bit x86 cpu's were available, how long did it take for Windows to catch up?

      not to mention that desktop ARM computers have been available for/with linux on them for a while already, they're called chromebooks.

      --
      On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.
    10. Re: Now is the time for the Linux Desktop... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Bookmarks features / GUI have seemingly not changed since version 1.0

      Is there a good extension that gives you useful management of hundreds/thousands boomarks without endless right-clicks and drag'n'drops? Plus it should be in a tab, to be consistent with other features (preferences, etc.)
      The current window, separate, even has a search bar tucked away in the top-right corner so you have to move the cursor all the way there while the folders are on the opposite side of the monitor.
      The side bar is a joke, and a waste of space on a laptop monitor.

      But if they redesigned the GUI they would probably fuck it up with huge fonts and spacing. Some many versions ago they did this to the "check the tabs you wish to recover" screen. A cartoonish message takes over half the screen and what's left only displays a few tabs at a time with giant white space between lines. So you have a scroll window that shows you like 5 tabs to deal with 400 tabs you need to review and prune.

      (there was a useful extensions called Too Many Tabs but it doesn't exist anymore and was replaced by a homonym. It was a window, that can be maximized, with an all-wide search bar on bottom to filter open tabs, which you could then switch to or close)

    11. Re: Now is the time for the Linux Desktop... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Even XFCE, Mate are getting a bit heavy with more bloat in the libraries and the move to 64bit. Nothing too bad still, you still have a "basic usage system" even w/ 1GB that doesn't shit the bed like Windows does.
      LXDE will buy you around 100MB if you need them.
      You might use wicd instead of network-manager if you don't need the VPN and 3G/4G support but well, don't do too much surgery it's not much worth it..

      The lazy solution is if you're at home and have a desktop with gigs of RAM, ssh -X into it.

  9. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 1

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  10. Re:the time of the desktop has passed by Stolovaya · · Score: 1

    Talk about out-of-touch.

    Phone and tablets are great for consuming. Reading something on an ereader, listening to a podcast, watching stuff like Hulu or YouTube. They're not great for creation (aside from home video).

    Desktops/laptops have keyboard and mouse (not to mention all the other stuff like sheer power). I (and many others) loathe writing an email on a touchscreen keyboard. And anything more complicated than an email will be far easier and faster to create on the desktop than on a phone/tablet.

    Sure, less people are putting together their own PCs or even buying new ones, but we have a long way to go before the desktop is dead.

  11. Re:ARM: Slow your roll bro by bettodavis · · Score: 1

    Yep. They are getting inside PC's turf and there their winning mobile platform attributes don't make them insta-winners.

    Apple could try and do it better, considering they have a captive market share of luxury/vanity computer users.

    But even among those, they won't like if the PC nerds are getting more fps from their uncool but powerful pumped-up PC rigs.

  12. Sign me up by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If you had the opportunity to purchase a laptop with slower performance (say around Intel 5th or 6th gen) but with 2 or 3 day battery life, would you do it?

    1. Re:Sign me up by viperidaenz · · Score: 1

      With what they claim to be higher single thread performance, I doubt it will be lower power.
      They would have said higher overall performance if they didn't have power/thermal limits with an equivalent number of cores.

  13. qualify, qualify, qualify by shaitand · · Score: 1

    I'd be more impressed if they were targeting AMD's overall performance and cost. Intel's qualifier of single thread performance doesn't become any less a way to avoid admitting they are behind just because ARM is repeating it.

    1. Re:qualify, qualify, qualify by DamnOregonian · · Score: 1

      I'd be more impressed if they were targeting AMD's overall performance and cost.

      Yes, but I don't think their shareholders would.
      AMD's overall performance is hinged upon building processors with a very large number of cores, processors that are currently being outsold by top of the line consumer-grade Intel desktop processors by a factor of 3 to 1, depending on the source.

      Not trying to get involved in the processor holy war, but I feel like the market is making it pretty clear that the path of ridiculous single-threaded performance is more valuable than the aggregate performance of 32 cores.

    2. Re:qualify, qualify, qualify by shaitand · · Score: 1

      You might be right about their shareholders but not the technology. The market is just slow to shift. AMD's gains are because like Apple through the dark years there remain a number of people in technology who remember the last time AMD was on top. But the fact is, that last time was a very long time ago and comparatively AMD's superior chips have only held the lead for a short time. Intel's brand and reputation as the market leader combined with the entrenched optimization for their chips that has built up while they were in the lead is what drives their sales at the moment.

      AMD is competitive with them on single thread and beats them hands down overall at dramatically lower prices. They'll need to maintain or improve on that in subsequent generations to win the show and Intel is beloved of institutional investors who love to play games with destabilizing AMD stock. That said, they already hold 6 of the top 10 spots on Amazon. https://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Electronics-Computer-CPU-Processors/zgbs/electronics/229189

    3. Re:qualify, qualify, qualify by jon3k · · Score: 1

      AMD's overall performance is hinged upon building processors with a very large number of cores, processors that are currently being outsold by top of the line consumer-grade Intel desktop processors by a factor of 3 to 1, depending on the source.

      Because AMD has produced awful processors for years. Zen is a brand new architecture and the first real offering from AMD in a very long time. The question is how long can they continue the momentum and catch up to Intel. It's not going to happen overnight, even if they produce a better product.

      Not trying to get involved in the processor holy war

      [Ed: That's an awfully funny way to go about it...]

      but I feel like the market is making it pretty clear that the path of ridiculous single-threaded performance is more valuable than the aggregate performance of 32 cores.

      Single-threaded performance is certainly incredibly important, but again, this is a brand new fight between Intel and AMD with a new architecture. The market was just buying the "fastest" CPU avialble. We will see over the next few years if AMD strategy pays off. I think we can both agree it's certainly been very successful so far, given the increase in revenue. Time will tell how much marketshare they can take from Intel with this strategy.

    4. Re:qualify, qualify, qualify by DamnOregonian · · Score: 1
      I don't think the market is shifting.
      I've been watching adoption on Steam, and while there was a pretty incredible initial bump for the 2700X, adoption growth then essentially dropped to zero, and has remained there.

      AMD is competitive with them on single thread and beats them hands down overall at dramatically lower prices.

      Depends how you define competitive, I suppose. Let's take the 2700X for example. Their flagship desktop chip. Cheaper than the 8700K, 2 more cores, giving the expected performance boost in applications that use all 8 cores...
      It loses out in single-threaded benchmarks by between 15-30% depending on the benchmark, and for games benchmarks, in non-GPU bound tests, the 8700K wins very conclusively in pretty much every case.
      My latest purchase was an 8700K. It was down to between that and a 2700X. At the end, single-core performance was what made the choice for me. The performance of all cores loaded just isn't important to me. Of the time my desktop spends with 1 or more core completely loaded, 99.9999999999999% of that time is just one core loaded. Single-threaded performance is what matters.

      Now, you could argue that I'm not the target, but I *am* representative of the market- says the market.

    5. Re:qualify, qualify, qualify by DamnOregonian · · Score: 1

      Also- look at that Amazon list.
      Their flagship processor comes in at #4, beaten out by their value processors, while the Intel performance king is #1.

      I don't think anyone in the universe could make a credible argument that value processors aren't where AMD is king. I'm certainly not. But the revenue of the 8700K and the 8600K are more than every AMD processor sold in the couple of retailer breakdowns I've seen.

    6. Re:qualify, qualify, qualify by DamnOregonian · · Score: 1

      even if they produce a better product.

      This is the point I'm trying to make. I don't think the market finds high-core-count processors to be the better product.

      [Ed: That's an awfully funny way to go about it...]

      By giving a reasonable hypothesis for why AMDs market share has been stagnant for months, while Intel's has grown?

      Single-threaded performance is certainly incredibly important, but again, this is a brand new fight between Intel and AMD with a new architecture. The market was just buying the "fastest" CPU avialble.

      My argument is that the market still is.
      AMDs performance lead requires a * next to it that says, 'In highly parallel applications'
      I'm not sure if that's a winning strategy.
      I'm hoping AMD starts focusing on their single-threaded performance, because this whole thing is starting to smell, to me, like an attempt winning market share with misleading performance metrics.

      We will see over the next few years if AMD strategy pays off. I think we can both agree it's certainly been very successful so far, given the increase in revenue.

      We definitely agree on that point. I just think they've saturated their market for the people who are looking for the aggregate performance of core counts that the average high-end computer purchaser has precisely zero need for.

      Time will tell how much marketshare they can take from Intel with this strategy.

      Agreed. But I'm betting not much more than they have before growth went stagnant.

    7. Re:qualify, qualify, qualify by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's true but I've seen like +10% in game benchmarks, maybe +15%. Not 30% in these. It's down to latency and at least AMD fixed the little problem 1700X/1800X had there, hence the 2700X doing not bad (it's not the curb stomp of Sandy Bridge vs Phenom II or Haswell vs FX8350)
      While Intel can't beat their own 8700K, ever, nothing to squeeze, AMD might improve the internal interconnect on Zen 2 (Ryzen 3000 series) a little bit. I predict it'll be a few % faster than Zen+ (2000 series) with 8700K still on top and Intel Ice Lake about identical to 8700K but with AVX-512 - mostly irrelevant here.

  14. Re:ARM: Slow your roll bro by shaitand · · Score: 1

    Depends on how you define PC chip dominance. AMD is second in marketshare, they are currently in first place in actual cost and chip performance.

  15. and they need to drop the store only idea by Joe_Dragon · · Score: 1

    and they need to drop the store only idea

  16. Re:ARM: Slow your roll bro by Tough+Love · · Score: 2

    Yah. I'm pretty sure my next laptop will be AMD APU. The one after that might be ARM.

    BTW, where is the GPS in my laptop? 4G modem? Bluetooth? Just asking.

    --
    When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
  17. Re:the time of the desktop has passed by viperidaenz · · Score: 1

    you said:

    They're not great for creation (aside from home video).

    but they actually said:

    eaten at one end by the "creative workstation"

    There was no assertion that phones/tablets are any good at content creation.

  18. Linux on Arm by bigtreeman · · Score: 2

    Another good reason to switch from Windoze to Linux

    --
    Go well
    1. Re:Linux on Arm by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      By virtue of the fact you troll by using the label "Windoze", fanboys like you are a good reason NOT to switch to Linux.

    2. Re:Linux on Arm by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, it's Winblows! As in, worse than sucks.

    3. Re: Linux on Arm by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So you base your decision off of other people's trash talk?

      Good to know.

  19. Quit thinking with an American mindset by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I believe this is collaboration with Russia and China along with other countries that don't trust silicon with potential NSA backdoors. That's why ARM is willing to take on the Intel powerhouse, they have a captive audience. They know once they have chips "good enough" countries will start pushing this domestically for national security concerns along with nudges in the form a tariffs. A Russian company can license the ARM IP review it for security purposes, design a chip, and feel confident putting it in sensitive equipment (computer used by government officials, military equipment, ...).

  20. Not relevant by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ARM doesn't make processors. They can talk about new designs and process nodes all they want, but it doesn't make a bit of difference if someone isn't making them.

    They talked about ARMv8 for years before you could actually buy such a chip, and I'm pretty sure the same thing will be happening with this.

    At this point, it looks like it's Qualcomm who is at least attempting to make a desktop (well, laptop anyway) ARM processor, and nobody else.

    Maybe Apple will finally flip the switch, given that they are actually in a position to do that.

  21. Faster production! RISC-V is the future. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    RISC-V set + several PCI-e lanes + only 1 single-threaded core + 5nm process => smaller die SoC.

    It maybe the competitive and faster to produce industrially these chips.

    1. Re:Faster production! RISC-V is the future. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Richard "Little Ricky" Stallman heartily approves this message.

    2. Re: Faster production! RISC-V is the future. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hey joe, how are you? ;)

    3. Re:Faster production! RISC-V is the future. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You'd be pad limited? i.e. lots of empty surface on the die, because you need to put all the I/O on the sides.
      They put quad core CPUs in every little things they don't belong to now like watches, car dash, and I don't know what (maybe the goddamn Internet fridge they're busy reinventing every year for the last 20 years)

      You'll fit a 16bit (bus width) memory interface, one PCIe 1x lane, (some CPU internal crap like SRAM and timers) (some debug/init I/O shit) and then use a giant chipset made on 28nm or say the new low cost 22nm process to break out the PCIe into multiple lanes and add all the random shit you miss.

  22. PC is ARM's last frontier by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    ARM (which comes from the long forgotten British Home Computer revolution - which saw the UK produce more homegrown personal computer designs than any other nation) faces one final mountain to conquer, the x64 CPU space.

    ARM went for the x64 server jugular and fell flat on its face. Now ARM understands that the road to all x64 markets runs thru the HOME x64 computer space.

    But sadly for ARM, AMD's Zen has arisen to reinvigorate a space Intel's complacency had previously ruined for at least the last TEN years. ARM expected to go against a competitor that was reluctantly selling 6-core x64 parts at a very inflated price. Instead it finds itself against AMD, who will be selling brilliant 16-core desktop parts next year (Zen2).

    ARM thought its one advantage was lots of cheap cores- AMD beat them to this punch.

    Meanwhile ARM's grand GPU (graphics) initiative has been an awful failure. Only the worst Android phones rely on ARM's graphics (Mali). And ARM's recent (last 4 years) new ARM designs have been far from spectacular.

    ARM's entire strategy was based on the assumption that the failed entity known as Intel was its only real competition. But now there is a core, clock, and IPC war back in the x64 space. And at the bottom of AMD's and Intel's ranges (moreso AMD) there are ever cheaper good enough parts for basic PC use. Indeed the No.1 problem with PC builds today is the horrific cost of RAM- RAM is totally out of wack with current CPU prices.

    ARM can offer eight cruddy cores at a hyper low price- which AMD can match with 4-cores and 8-threads next year at a similar price.

    If RAM prices collapse (as many predict for 2019) a race to the bottom can begin. But many pretenders have tried to get a slice of the x86/x64 biz (at least 3 multi-billion challengers to AMD and Intel) and all failed badly cos of poor performance and compatibility.

    All of the coming AAA next-gen game consoles are Zen AMD CPU based. Apple doesn't think it worth going ARM in its dwindling traditional computer divisions. Microsoft now supports ARM fully in its dev tools and OSes, but all ARM based windows devices to date have been mega flops.

    ARM should have made its move 6 or so years back when AMD had fumbled the ball and Intel was showing clear signs of its senility to come. Too late now.

    1. Re:PC is ARM's last frontier by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'd figure ARM had a better chance on servers than on desktop. A big organization can deploy thousands of servers for whatever task they are performing. It can actually be cost effective to have a dev team recompile/modify sources to better work with all that hardware. The end user won't see what's going on, whether those servers run x86, PowerPC, ARM, or whatever else.

      Desktop seems much harder since developers won't know what platform to code for. It might work fine for generic tablets/laptops, but not so well for higher-end machines.

    2. Re:PC is ARM's last frontier by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's now price vs. performance/power consumption/density. How tightly you can pack server CPU's into the smallest space while requiring the least amount of power consumption.

  23. Re:ARM: Slow your roll bro by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If you go with an apple laptop, an iphone will provide all those for your laptop. This factor alone is what a lot of people call it just works and keeps people in the ecosystem.

  24. Re:ARM: Slow your roll bro by Tough+Love · · Score: 1

    If you go with an apple laptop, an iphone will provide all those for your laptop.

    I would rather gouge my eyes out than go with an Apple laptop. I have one, by the way, it was given to me. It's off. Used it for a while, enough to know to know exactly why the "Apple way" leaves me cold, let alone the lock-in, and the utter embarrassment of being seen with these things in public.

    Clear?

    --
    When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
  25. Returning to desktop by GreatDrok · · Score: 5, Informative

    It would be more accurate to say ARM is returning to the desktop market. The original ARM (Acorn RISC Machine) based Archimedes was a very fast 32 bit desktop machine released in the mid 1980's and I remember being amazed at the performance which utterly trounced anything Intel could produce at the time. I even used an Acorn R540 in 1990 which was running a nice UNIX environment and could even run a software PC to emulate both DOS and Windows on top of that. It took years before Intel was even in the same ballpark as the ARM from those days and even through the 90's there were plenty of chips that were much faster than anything Intel could make (Alpha for instance, what a joy!) and it is a shame that in the last 20 years or so we've seen most of these die off. Time for some new blood.

    --
    "I have the attention span of a strobe lit goldfish, please get to the point quickly!"
    1. Re:Returning to desktop by squiggleslash · · Score: 2

      I agree with you ARM performance was great at the time, but I would point out that pretty much everyone had chips that were faster and more pleasant to program for than Intel at the time. Motorola, IBM...

      --
      You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
    2. Re:Returning to desktop by DamnOregonian · · Score: 1

      Motorola, especially. The 680x0 chips had a solid showing on the personal computer market, and Intel based offerings didn't catch up with them until long after the companies making those machines went bankrupt, or fell into relative obscurity. Bad business decisions by non-Intel personal computer manufacturers can explain most of why Intel became the dominant PC processor.
      In the end, it's all good and fine. I doubt we'd really be any further ahead today if Intel hadn't won the processor architecture war.

    3. Re:Returning to desktop by iampiti · · Score: 1

      Also the 68000 family chips were very popular in arcade boards. Look at the MAME hardware info for games and you'll see they were used in tons of arcades.

    4. Re:Returning to desktop by DamnOregonian · · Score: 1

      It sure was. It was also my favorite pet processor at the time. I had one of those massive 64-pin DIPs that I used for my hobby fun.
      I was so disappointed to see it replaced on the market by such inferior parts.

    5. Re:Returning to desktop by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Actually it was a 26bit CPU at the time - ARM2, 3, 610, etc, (32bit came *MUCH* later)

    6. Re:Returning to desktop by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Oh, and there's an A540 sitting under my desk right now, complete with 16MB RAM, FPU(older version, alas), aleph one PC card, colourcard gold, etc, etc. (There's an R140 in my shed as well, that still has a unix image on it's Rodime disk, though I suspect the disk may need some attention by now)

    7. Re:Returning to desktop by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I remember reading that the Archimedes had DMA and the ability to show window content when moving them, while even high end PC back then were limited to dumb blitting and redrawing the window if you did that. So I assume the CPU was not the only thing good.

      I only saw an Achimedes once in the "Amiga 1000" form factor, turned off, in a store that sold junk surplus from businesses (they had the Macs with color screen turned on, pretty)

      In the 90s I read about RISC PC in the press, but the PC clones with 486 and VLB, Pentium and PCI killed off everything anyway except Macintosh.

    8. Re:Returning to desktop by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      386SX and 386DX had an MMU built-in, although they were mostly used to run 8086 DOS software, some 286 games and some Windows 3.1 software. It allowed even Windows 3.0 to swap to hard drive. I don't know if Amiga and Mac could do that but I think all these 68K variants with MMU, with no MMU, with external MMU didn't help.
      You always ended with MMU on Unix workstations, and no MMU on personal computers.
      I've just read that Apple's System 7 introduced virtual memory support, which won't work on 68020 without MMU.

      Here am I arguing about the superiority of memory management in Windows 3.0 and 3.1, how puny is that :D
      BUT, imagine if Linus had a 68020 or low cost version 68030.

  26. Re:ARM: Slow your roll bro by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 1

    Which MacBook did you receive? What lock-in are you talking about and compared to what? Windows 10 is the worst by comparison.

    And if you're not using it, give it or sell it to someone who will.

    --
    #DeleteFacebook
  27. Re:ARM: Slow your roll bro by Tough+Love · · Score: 1

    Great post, makes me feel like I just criticized Scientology. That's another thing I don't like about Apple.

    --
    When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
  28. Re:ARM: Slow your roll bro by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    arm may never 'win' or even just compete in the desktop space.. but if they can produce chips with decent single-threaded performance, they could slap 8 cores onto an energy efficient chip with an nvidia graphics core and wipe amd off the face of the earth. because amd essentially relies upon console chip sales to stay afloat, all it would take is one generation of consoles to use something else and amd would be over. dead-and-buried over.

  29. Watch for Thanoss by tepples · · Score: 3, Funny

    You should look at NXP QorIQ chips, Marvell, and NVIDIA.

    The problem with Marvell is that half of your data could disappear with the snap of a fingerr.

    1. Re:Watch for Thanoss by iampiti · · Score: 1

      Care to clarify? Do you mean they're very buggy or what?

    2. Re:Watch for Thanoss by tepples · · Score: 2

      That was a joke son.

      Marvell's name happens to resemble that of Marvel, a superhero comics publisher that Disney bought a few years back. The most recent film in Marvel's cinematic universe, Avengers: Infinity War, had a character wipe out half the life in the universe by assembling a magic glove and snapping his fingers. Hence the doubling of the final letter in "fingerr" and "Thanoss" to parallel "Marvell".

    3. Re:Watch for Thanoss by iampiti · · Score: 1

      I didn't read the post title :).
      Good one anyway

  30. Re:the time of the desktop has passed by tepples · · Score: 1

    the desktop is dying, eaten at one end by the "creative workstation"

    The desktop is the creative workstation.

  31. Which apps break in ARM? by tepples · · Score: 1

    Debian calls 64-bit ARM "a first-class release architecture in Stretch, with almost all packages built, and the standard installer working on various machines, and quite likely to work on new ones." Among those few applications in Debian's repository that fail on ARM, which are most critical? Or by "application support" are you specifically referring to Wine, Steam, and Steam Wine?

    1. Re:Which apps break in ARM? by jon3k · · Score: 1
  32. And that means only one thing... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ... You control nothing.

  33. "Expensive" is relative. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The Mac Mini is overpriced for what it provides.

  34. return to the network... by johnjones · · Score: 1

    The real money is in mass market silicon (silicon chips are ideally sold in the many millions) for that you need vendors such as Nokia networks, Cisco etc

    Mass market previously was mobile phones but that has matured now its about the networks which need more processing power and for that to be distributed.

    regards

    John Jones

  35. Re:ARM: Slow your roll bro by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Notice this ball-licking kike couldn't even give you one valid answer, just proceeded to mock *your* post for being uninformative. This asshole must be a fucking Jew.

  36. Re:the time of the desktop has passed by negRo_slim · · Score: 1

    The term "creative workstation" is meaningless, something pulled out of someone's rear to sound like they have insight.

    --
    On the Oregon Cost born and raised, On the beach is where I spent most of my days
  37. Re:ARM: Slow your roll bro by negRo_slim · · Score: 1

    BTW, where is the GPS in my laptop? 4G modem? Bluetooth? Just asking.

    Bluetooth is pretty standard fair these days, I can't really understand why you would need GPS in a laptop unless you don't carry a smart phone or for some reason have some sort of mission critical apps that require precise location. As for 4G, I could see that just as I could also see a USB device for the same functionality- a device that can be updated independently of the computer or network.

    --
    On the Oregon Cost born and raised, On the beach is where I spent most of my days
  38. Re: the time of the desktop has passed by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So, just like the term "personal computer".

  39. How About a High Security Chip Design Instead by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    In the post-Snowden world full of meltdowns and specters it's time to stop the fetishizing over performance benchmarks at the expense of basic security. How about a chip that doesn't suck in the security department? Is that too much to ask?

  40. Re:ARM: Slow your roll bro by Tough+Love · · Score: 1

    I can't really understand why you would need GPS in a laptop unless you don't carry a smart phone

    Maps. The full size screen is really so much better than a phone.

    --
    When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
  41. Re:ARM: Slow your roll bro by DamnOregonian · · Score: 1
    Depends how you measure it...

    ARM, taking aim at the dominant player, claims its chips will equal and potentially even surpass Intel's in single-threaded performance.

    The given context of ARM providing chips to beat Intel's current offering was specifically regarding single-core performance, an area where Intel still dominates AMD with a significant lead.
    If ARM succeeds in that goal, they beat AMD in their given performance metric by default.

  42. hooray for competition by drewsup · · Score: 1

    while ARM chips have their place in the market, tablets, cheap laptops, i cant help but use the car analogy on them, ya i can make a 2 cylinder car engine with 200bhp, but how long will it last against a decent 4 or 6 cylinder running heavy work for hours at a time? They just feel anemic under load compared to a low end X86 processor...

    1. Re:hooray for competition by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      True but you don't see them all that often with both heatsink and fan.

  43. Re:ARM: Slow your roll bro by Megol · · Score: 1

    GPS and 4G modem is on the WWAN card , if you choose a laptop with that functionality.
    Bluetooth is integrated with the WiFi card.

  44. Re:ARM: Slow your roll bro by shaitand · · Score: 1

    "significant lead"

    That's a strong term, more of a modest lead. It also isn't a metric that is likely to remain especially relevant going forward though its relevance will probably last longer than the current generation chips it isn't likely to last long enough for ARM to catch up with either.

  45. haha by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    very fuckin good! I'm rooting for arm!

  46. Re:ARM: Slow your roll bro by fuzznutz · · Score: 1

    If you go with an apple laptop, an iphone will provide all those for your laptop.

    I would rather gouge my eyes out than go with an Apple laptop. I have one, by the way, it was given to me. It's off. Used it for a while, enough to know to know exactly why the "Apple way" leaves me cold, let alone the lock-in, and the utter embarrassment of being seen with these things in public.

    Clear?

    For me, I will not use Apple (Mac) because: It just works wrong. Everything I do on OSX seems counter intuitive. I've been behind a keyboard for a very long time now and every time someone shoves a Mac in front of me because they can't figure something out, I shake my head at how Apple decided to do things their way. Case in point: when Apple brought out inverted scrolling as default. Yes, I know it's configurable and I would fix the problem on it were it my machine, but that's not the point. It's frustrating for the entirety of EVERYONE else for Apple to make such a boneheaded change to the default after years of precedent. My laptop/desktop is not a phone! I guess that's more of that courage they point out.

  47. Re:ARM: Slow your roll bro by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    No one cares, smartphones work great. Are you going to put your laptop in the car next to you? Why not use your smartphone to determine where you are? No one wants this, that's why it is so rare it is essentially nonexistant. The use case is negligible.

  48. Re:ARM: Slow your roll bro by DamnOregonian · · Score: 1
    I'd call 15-30% in single-threaded application benchmarks significant. Wouldn't you?

    It also isn't a metric that is likely to remain especially relevant going forward

    Oh I disagree with you very strongly right there.
    I think the market for people who want 8 or 16 cores on their machine is very different than the market that wants higher performing single-to-6 core performance.
    The current generation Ryzen chips don't beat current generation Intel chips in any benchmark except in aggregate performance utilizing more cores than the tested Intel has.

    I, for one, will continue to buy Intel until AMD is more competitive core-for-core.

    I'm also pretty sure I'm representative of the market.

  49. Re:the time of the desktop has passed by Stolovaya · · Score: 1

    I think you need to re-read what anon wrote.

    the desktop is dying

    the desktop has no actual application

    A desktop and a "creative workstation" are basically the same thing these days...unless you have a different definition?

  50. Re:ARM: Slow your roll bro by Tough+Love · · Score: 1

    Are you going to put your laptop in the car next to you?

    I take it you have never gone on a business trip. You get to the hotel room, you set up your laptop and connect to the hotel wifi. How much does it suck to now have to tell your laptop where you are? It should already know.

    Never confuse "no one cares" with "I don't care because I don't have that use case". You might never have a laptop, you might never go on a business trip. That's you. Because of the volume in handsets, the cost now to include GPS is roughly zero.

    --
    When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
  51. Re: the time of the desktop has passed by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Ive been in the computer science field for 15 years and have never heard someone use the word "creative workstation".

    If it's a normal PC then it's a desktop. If it's for more hardcore work, we call it just a workstation.

  52. Re: ARM: Slow your roll bro by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You are paying an extra 40% for that 15% performance boost. Is it worth it?

  53. Re: ARM: Slow your roll bro by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You don't like being called out for your lies? Got it.

  54. Re: ARM: Slow your roll bro by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If I'm not using maps to find my way around, why does my computer need to know where I am?

    Hint: it doesn't. Now we know why you love windows so much. Thanks.

  55. Re:Unmistakable Stench of Death by Shirley+Marquez · · Score: 1

    Besides Apple, it's also inside FreeNAS and pfSense. It's not as big a success as Linux but that is not equal to failure.

  56. Re: ARM: Slow your roll bro by DamnOregonian · · Score: 1

    While I agree some of the product spreads where AMD really wins in the value department, it is that bad, however in the case of the 8700K and the 2700X, it's only $20 more processor vs. processor. That's only part of the story though, since you have to purchase a cooler for your Intel, while the AMD comes with one, so realistically, you're looking at a minimum of probably $50 more, which is really only a 15% high total price for the Intel.
    15% more money for 15-30% more performance?
    Ya, seems like it's worth it.

  57. Re:ARM: Slow your roll bro by Shirley+Marquez · · Score: 1

    AMD currently has nothing to offer for the ultralow power niche (equivalent of Intel Y series processors). It is also behind the performance curve in the mainstream laptop niche (Intel U series); Mobile Ryzen isn't terrible but it's not yet a serious challenger to a mobile i7. Finally, they don't have anything to go up against the high power H-series; the best they could do is a down-clocked variant of a desktop Ryzen but then you would also need a separate GPU. I don't expect AMD to launch a serious challenge to those markets until Zen 2 and its accompanying 7nm process tech are ready next year; they just aren't yet where they need to be on power consumption.

    AMD has solid offerings for the desktop and server markets. It's nice to see real competition in the market for PC processors again. But they've still got work to do. The good news is that they have a road map in place for doing it, and the company has been executing its plans well in recent years.

  58. Re: ARM: Slow your roll bro by Tough+Love · · Score: 1

    Idiot.

    --
    When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
  59. Re: ARM: Slow your roll bro by Tough+Love · · Score: 1

    If I'm not using maps to find my way around blah blah blah

    According to you, this market [lifewire.com] does not exist.

    Repeat this to yourself as you fall asleep: "I am a self centered prat with an inflated estimation of my own life experience who thinks the world revolves around me and my needs." "I am a self centered prat with an inflated estimation of my own life experience who thinks the world revolves around me and my needs." "I am a self centered prat with an inflated estimation of my own life experience who thinks the world revolves around me and my needs." "I am a self centered prat with an inflated estimation of my own life experience who thinks the world revolves around me and my needs." "I am a self centered prat with an inflated estimation of my own life experience who thinks the world revolves around me and my needs." "I am a self centered prat with an inflated estimation of my own life experience who thinks the world revolves around me and my needs." "I am a self centered prat with an inflated estimation of my own life experience who thinks the world revolves around me and my needs." ...

    --
    When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
  60. Re: ARM: Slow your roll bro by Tough+Love · · Score: 1

    Correction: this market. (GPS addons for laptops)

    --
    When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
  61. Re: the time of the desktop has passed by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If it's a desktop it's a workstation, given that every piece of shit as long as it's not an Atom will run CAD software, 3D rendering, video editing ; come with a rather high quality 3D driver, can take 8GB hard drives and 2TB SSDs and up to 32GB memory currently on the low end. (this will double)

    It started to be that way with "Windows NT 4.0 for Workstation" and then Windows XP which brought the workstation OS to mum, dad and grandma. All the professional software moved from SGI, Sun, HP to the same hardware and platform used to run solitaire and internet explorer.

  62. Re:ARM: Slow your roll bro by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I prefer using maps on a desktop/laptop, zoom using a scroll wheel house until finding where I am thanks to having an idea of where I am in the first place. Or you can do an address search. I understand that openstreetmaps is bad at this though, and anyway there's nothing wrong in wanting a GPS. Plus, I use the desktop is at home or at a friend's place etc., not in a stopped car or some place random.

    4G modem in an x86 laptop is not unheard of or (even a decade ago) 3G modem.
    Handsets have (perhaps) a more constrained and known environment for the antennas and radio signals. More chance for the GPS to be useful at least some of the time i.e. if GPS signals are blocked and unusable indoors it's not such a big deal as you'll be moving outdoors with the phone.
    Your laptop will probably be able to use wifi and 3G/4G signals to locate you, but using an "evil" service. Windows 10's last version should be able to do that [*].

    I think even the Windows 10 ARM laptop on its cell carrier and Microsoft leashes would find your hotel room.

    [*] : This is done by sending all your money to Microsoft.
    There may be some Free wifi and cell tower databases around, so I wonder if it's possible to do it with Free software and offline tho coverage would vary quite a bit.

  63. Re:ARM: Slow your roll bro by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Another rebuttal : what if you decide to have no smartphone?
    Imagine you have a 13" low bezel fanless laptop or similar, compatible with 3G/4G such that it can even do regular calls and SMS.
    Or you use a dumb phone (just need to back up the contacts to the laptop, by hand at worst). Even if you need some Android shit for reason X it might run on the laptop in an Android emulator (even if the laptop is an ARM, they come with 8GB RAM. one reason why the current ARM Windows laptops are "luxury" priced around $500 rather than $199 piece of shit)

  64. Some 2 GB systems may benefit from 32-bit by tepples · · Score: 1

    Even XFCE, Mate are getting a bit heavy with more bloat in the libraries and the move to 64bit.

    I've recommended using 32-bit on machines with 1 GB or less or 64-bit on machines with 4 GB or more. For machines with 2 GB, it sort of depends on the rest of the system. With a conventional HDD, you need to keep more in disk cache, so the reduction in disk misses from keeping pointers small and not loading two sets of libraries (multiarch) outweighs the faster CPU execution from more registers. But with an SSD, you don't have to keep quite as much in disk cache, so you can afford to waste some RAM on the larger pointers inherent in the standard 64-bit ABI* and two copies of many system libraries.

    * I'm excluding oddball ABIs like x32. In practice, an oddball ABI requires require 3-way multiarch (standard 32-bit, standard 64-bit, and oddball) if you want to run any proprietary software or even free software built for a more popular ABI.