Former Mac boss predicts PC makers will have to dump AMD and Intel to ‘go ARM’

[DrFacecage]

 

Summary

 Jean-Louis Gassée has stated that since Apple have decided to move to ARM, all current X86 based processor manufacturers will have to scramble to play catch-up and make the switch to ARM too. While he does state it will be a slow transition, he seems to see it as an inevitability 

 

Quotes

Quote

 If you doubt Gassée's prediction, consider his anecdotal evidence—his MacBook Pro "gets hot...really hot." But the iPad Pro? That thing is cherry with its "significantly lower TDP" and superior Geekbench test results.

 

My thoughts

 I'm not wholly convinced by his reasoning for this, he seems to cite the fact that his MacBook runs hotter than his iPad as his reasoning for ARM superiority. I think it's largely due to it being an Intel chip, which given their run until recently were more than happy to run hotter to get better performance instead of trying to optimise and improve the hardware. I am so far from being an expert on these matters so I could be completely missing the mark with my take, but I was curious to see what the community had to say on it, maybe set me straight if I'm just plain wrong.

 

But it would play nicely into Linus' recent conspiracy theory about Apple, where they're designing their cooling solutions poorly on purpose to make the jump to ARM seem even better by comparison.

 

Sources

 https://www.pcgamer.com/former-mac-boss-predicts-pc-makers-will-have-to-dump-amd-and-intel-to-go-arm/

[kuddlesworth9419]

Jean-Louis Gassée is retarded.

[Mateyyy]

Meh, he must have one hell of a crystal ball with that bold of a "prediction"

[Sauron]

6 minutes ago, DrFacecage said:

consider his anecdotal evidence

I was about to type out a rebuttal but on second thought I don't need to. This is, as the article says, nothing but anecdotal evidence from someone who almost certainly uses their laptop for the most mundane sort of office productivity which requires nowhere near the price that the devices mentioned demand.

 

As for the "grand prediction", where was this guy while there were still Intel based Macs to sell? When ARM Macs come out and inevitably get about as hot as the Intel models as they aim for similar performance will he walk back on his statement or will he just go with whatever story is convenient for Apple?

[samcool55]

Well many have tried and many have failed. Apple is just in a unique position where they can at least try it but for most of us, x86 is going to stay here for a loooong time.

[jagdtigger]

I dont even want to imagine how a resource hog like win10 would "run" on an ARM chip....

Edited July 15, 2020 by jagdtigger

[Sauron]

2 minutes ago, jagdtigger said:

I dont even want to imagine how a resource hog like win10 would "run" on an ARM chip....

Check it out

it runs just fine - the problem is app compatibility, which is in my personal opinion the only reason to ever use Windows.

[Guest]

What is a Mac boss?

Is Apple a collection of computer mafia? Is there an iPhone boss?

[Kisai]

40 minutes ago, DrFacecage said:

 

My thoughts

 I'm not wholly convinced by his reasoning for this, he seems to cite the fact that his MacBook runs hotter than his iPad as his reasoning for ARM superiority. I think it's largely due to it being an Intel chip, which given their run until recently were more than happy to run hotter to get better performance instead of trying to optimise and improve the hardware. I am so far from being an expert on these matters so I could be completely missing the mark with my take, but I was curious to see what the community had to say on it, maybe set me straight if I'm just plain wrong.

 

But it would play nicely into Linus' recent conspiracy theory about Apple, where they're designing their cooling solutions poorly on purpose to make the jump to ARM seem even better by comparison.

 

 

 

I think it's inevitable for low-end systems, and the problem is just that Microsoft doesn't produce a version of Windows that can go on "whitebox" ARM systems as there is no such thing as a whitebox ARM system. You can not install windows on a RaspberryPi or a SNES Mini, or anything else that has a ARM chip, only things that explicitly were made to run Windows that the OEM developed their own drivers for the SoC.

 

Like if you think installing Windows on a third party (eg ASRock, ASUS, Gigabyte, MSI, etc) MB is difficult compared to just buying a OEM (HP, Dell, Lenovo) despite the hardware being 100% the same chips on the board, imagine what happens when none of the chips are the same.

 

Like if you take a quick look at Distros for ARM linux, you'll notice there are versions for each chip/board. 

https://archlinuxarm.org/platforms or just look at the builds themselves 

http://os.archlinuxarm.org/os/

Of which "generic" is Armv8 (the 64-bit platform.)

 

Now imagine Microsoft doing the same for a second. Yeah, probably not happening.

 

What I see going forward is that companies like Dell and HP will probably drop their rubbish-tier device lines and replace those with ARM versions that would have otherwise had Celeron/Atom chips in them, and are basically useless for anything that isn't a web browser already. But in most cases the only category that really invites using ARM are the 12-14" laptops that would normally have U or Y Intel parts in them, and are already kind of miserable to use since the iGPU is barely able to catch up with 5-8 year old baseline dGPU's. This is where a specificly designed ARM CPU could completely lap Intel. 

 

But it's still a chicken-and-egg problem with Windows. ARM adoption won't happen unless ARM devices can run x86-64/x86-32 programs unmodified in some fashion, and ARM-based devices won't gain any traction in the market if they are just mass-market rubbish like chromebooks already are.

 

I suppose if it ever gets to it, someone will produce a socketed ARM chip "standard" that might enable a whitebox PC based on ARM, but even back with PPC systems this was largely a non-thing (the only whitebox PPC system was many attempts at reviving the Amiga, not a Mac Clone.)

[LAwLz]

You don't need to be able to see into the future to make this prediction. It's already happening. Microsoft has spent several years working with Qualcomm to try and make windows on ARM a thing. There are several ARM based laptops that run Windows on the market. The problem is thst they are, to put it mildly, not good. 

 

So if you ask me, Jean-Louis seem to have the amazing ability to look into the present. 

[porina]

PC manufacturers will need MS to provide a good ARM version of Windows, without all the pain we've had to date which has caused them all to die. Without that, making ARM PCs will go nowhere fast.

 

For ARM market domination, I did hear one argument which could make sense. For the world (not just PCs) to switch to ARM as majority architecture requires software developers reaching some kind of critical mass to switch. ARM for server is a kidna niche but ever there, not quite going big, but not going away wither. Apple going ARM could swing that. The argument is software peeps want to code on the same architecture at home as they do at work. So with good ARM solutions in client and servers, that might tip the balance and allow it to break out of the mobile device space big time. Have to re-iterate, this is not my idea, but one I saw elsewhere that might just be possible.

 

Edit: if we look at it in terms of units deployed, has ARM already passed x86? I'm assuming there are far more mobile phones than PCs+laptops in the world. Not sure servers would tip that balance much if included, bearing in mind they could use either.

[DrFacecage]

31 minutes ago, Kisai said:

 

I think it's inevitable for low-end systems, and the problem is just that Microsoft doesn't produce a version of Windows that can go on "whitebox" ARM systems as there is no such thing as a whitebox ARM system. You can not install windows on a RaspberryPi or a SNES Mini, or anything else that has a ARM chip, only things that explicitly were made to run Windows that the OEM developed their own drivers for the SoC.

 

Like if you think installing Windows on a third party (eg ASRock, ASUS, Gigabyte, MSI, etc) MB is difficult compared to just buying a OEM (HP, Dell, Lenovo) despite the hardware being 100% the same chips on the board, imagine what happens when none of the chips are the same.

 

Like if you take a quick look at Distros for ARM linux, you'll notice there are versions for each chip/board. 

https://archlinuxarm.org/platforms or just look at the builds themselves 

http://os.archlinuxarm.org/os/

Of which "generic" is Armv8 (the 64-bit platform.)

 

Now imagine Microsoft doing the same for a second. Yeah, probably not happening.

 

What I see going forward is that companies like Dell and HP will probably drop their rubbish-tier device lines and replace those with ARM versions that would have otherwise had Celeron/Atom chips in them, and are basically useless for anything that isn't a web browser already. But in most cases the only category that really invites using ARM are the 12-14" laptops that would normally have U or Y Intel parts in them, and are already kind of miserable to use since the iGPU is barely able to catch up with 5-8 year old baseline dGPU's. This is where a specificly designed ARM CPU could completely lap Intel. 

 

But it's still a chicken-and-egg problem with Windows. ARM adoption won't happen unless ARM devices can run x86-64/x86-32 programs unmodified in some fashion, and ARM-based devices won't gain any traction in the market if they are just mass-market rubbish like chromebooks already are.

 

I suppose if it ever gets to it, someone will produce a socketed ARM chip "standard" that might enable a whitebox PC based on ARM, but even back with PPC systems this was largely a non-thing (the only whitebox PPC system was many attempts at reviving the Amiga, not a Mac Clone.)

This is exactly the sort of concise insight I was hoping to get from the LTT community, thanks for taking the time to write that. I think you're right that a socketed standard for and ARM chip would be a game changer, but I guess that would require a massive amount of development of both hardware as well as supporting software, other than Qualcomm, I can't think of a manufacturer that would have the infrastructure to take on such a task. Plus, there's the issue of covering those development costs, who's going to pay the early adoption tax for entry-tier computers?

[BabaGanuche]

Assuming there is a switch to ARM, I just AMD just making ARM chips as well. I do not think AMD married to just x86.

 

Having said that I am not sure ARM can beat x86 in per core performance. Just matching it will not be enough as there will need to be some advantage to get people to switch.

[Taf the Ghost]

Man with massive Apple Stock says you should buy more. What, was there a question?

 

Reality is that you'd need to be able to sell an "Apple Compatible" ARM-based device, much like in the historic "IBM-compatible". Since that's not happening, this isn't happening. Apple will have its Apple Ecosystem. Everything else will be x86 or GPUs, then custom stuff for custom projects.

[MageTank]

Quote

superior Geekbench test results

Ah , I too like to base my opinions entirely on results from the worst, most flawed benchmark available. 

[RejZoR]

Good luck trying to match an ARM processor with something like 64 or 128 core Threadripper... I'm calling BS on this one. ARM may be great for phones, tablets and laptops. Not for this.

[leadeater]

3 hours ago, DrFacecage said:

Jean-Louis Gassée has stated that since Apple have decided to move to ARM, all current X86 based processor manufacturers will have to scramble to play catch-up and make the switch to ARM to

 

Spoiler

Sure they might have to look at it in a few years but since when has either Mac or Windows given a crap what each other is doing...
 

Nothing is going to change without Microsoft though.

 

[Salv8 (sam)]

3 minutes ago, leadeater said:

god damit! you made the joke before i could!

[Vishera]

4 hours ago, porina said:

Edit: if we look at it in terms of units deployed, has ARM already passed x86? I'm assuming there are far more mobile phones than PCs+laptops in the world. Not sure servers would tip that balance much if included, bearing in mind they could use either.

Platform dominance map from Wikipedia (Blue - Windows devices,Green - Android devices,Red - iOS devices):

 

4 hours ago, Sauron said:

When ARM Macs come out and inevitably get about as hot as the Intel models as they aim for similar performance will he walk back on his statement or will he just go with whatever story is convenient for Apple?

Don't forget that the legendary Jim Keller laid the foundations for this CPU,the same person that brought us the Athlon 64 and Ryzen.

As far as i know those chips are very power efficient,so heat should not be a problem.

While the CPU itself is solid - the iGPU is just good enough,they have no chance competing with NVIDIA and AMD at the GPU market (the Tegra SOCs of NVIDIA are fantastic,an example for that is the Nintendo Switch).

That SOC is more suitable for lower end devices,it won't be a suitable replacement for a i9 CPU,but it's good enough for replacing the i5 lineup.

[leadeater]

5 minutes ago, Vishera said:

Platform dominance map from Wikipedia (Blue - Windows devices,Green - Android devices,Red - iOS devices)

I was about to say there are no red areas but I spotted them now. With the amount of mobile phones there are I'm actually surprised it's that few.

[mr moose]

37 minutes ago, leadeater said:

I was about to say there are no red areas but I spotted them now. With the amount of mobile phones there are I'm actually surprised it's that few.

l'iphone et l'ipad

 

quel est cet androïde dont tu parles?

[Trik'Stari]

Generally I buy whatever I can that is the opposite of what Apple is doing.

 

Really annoys me how many phone manufacturers are jumping on the Apple bandwagon with abandoning wire ports like chargers and Headphone jacks. Especially when you consider that water-resistant charging ports are a thing. I remember dropping my S8 in some water and freaking out, only for my roommate to inform me that it wasn't an issue in the slightest.

[mr moose]

6 hours ago, DrFacecage said:

 

 

 

But it would play nicely into Linus' recent conspiracy theory about Apple, where they're designing their cooling solutions poorly on purpose to make the jump to ARM seem even better by comparison.

 

 

Now this I have a problem accepting.

 

1. Main reason I don;t believe it is because no company intentionally gimps their own products for any reason, they will all go to extravagant lengths to hide flaws, not intentionally design them into products.  All sales are necessary sales and shit performance cost sales. 

 

2.Apples track record with cooling fits in way too well with their track record of shit engineering of late,  poor cooling, keyboard issues and undersized batteries.  Trying to find a reason beyond just being a shit design requires way too many assumptions (ochams razor).

 

3. Apple don't need to create a reason, they can simply do it and their marketing department will tend to the rest.   It's not like ARM is inferior to x86 at this scale.  People are making the mistake of thinking of ARM in terms of mobile SoC, not in terms of larger scale performance chips. 

[ouroesa]

54 minutes ago, mr moose said:

l'iphone et l'ipad

 

quel est cet androïde dont tu parles?

 

[Vishera]

24 minutes ago, Trik'Stari said:

Generally I buy whatever I can that is the opposite of what Apple is doing.

 

Really annoys me how many phone manufacturers are jumping on the Apple bandwagon with abandoning wire ports like chargers and Headphone jacks. Especially when you consider that water-resistant charging ports are a thing. I remember dropping my S8 in some water and freaking out, only for my roommate to inform me that it wasn't an issue in the slightest.

Smartphones manufacturers are looking for components to shave off their products to reduce costs,the next trend will be without any doubt to ship the phones without chargers,then they will shave the accessories that come with the phone while the the prices of smartphones have tripled in the last 5 years.

Smartphone and laptop consumers don't know what backlash is and always submit to manufacturers.