AMD and Nvidia Will Make Arm-based Processors for PCs

[leadeater]

1 hour ago, Paul Thexton said:

Are you saying an ARM based computer is useless without an internet connection and cloud based services?

Yes and x86 too, without an internet connection we couldn't be arguing about this.

[Kisai]

12 hours ago, leadeater said:

Yes and x86 too, without an internet connection we couldn't be arguing about this.

You see the problem right?

 

Some corpo guy goes "oh we could sell a lot more profitable sh*t tier hardware" and then the engineer goes "you're literately selling a car with no windshield and no doors." You know what that's called? A golf cart.

 

The basic requirements to do anything useful with a "PC" is different from a "dumb terminal" which is what people seem to be equating here.

 

If internet is required to make it do anything useful, then it's really closer to the definition of a "dumb terminal". Your typical desktop or mac, can have software installed to it without being connected to the internet, and can be operated offline. Maybe with some difficulty, considering how many drivers want you to create an account to do... I don't know... save settings to the cloud? Why would I want this feature? There is no reason why Nvidia GeForce Experience needs an account, let alone internet connectivity for your GPU to operate, and the same goes for mouse and keyboards.

 

Yet, you buy one of these so-called ARM PC's, that are locked down, and can't do anything without the manufacturer's blessing. Like the iPad and iPhone, and like the Windows ARM laptops and the Mac laptops. Good luck trying to operate these things without WiFi and/or 5G internet. Not impossible, but hugely frustrating.

 

And yet people want to propose making the situation worse by selling Laptops that have little or no onboard storage, you need to download everything from the cloud in order to use it, and when you close the app, it's erased from the laptop, cause oh no, can't have the person not pay to use the service by keeping the app open for a month.

 

Please, stop framing "dumb terminal", "cloud services required" type of computer hardware as anything but expensive garbage. If I can't use it 10 miles away from internet, it's not a computer, it's a terminal and you don't own it.

 

And before anyone decides to nitpick this, trying to put a golf cart and a car in the same category as "passenger vehicle" is the analogy I'm going for here. Just because it has 4 wheels and a steering wheel, does not make it street legal or safe. These ARM computers that "only run a web browser" are the equivalent of a golf cart that is locked inside the golf course.

 

[Paul Thexton]

You’re telling me I can’t use my Apple Silicon MacBook without an internet connection? That’s odd. I do it all the time

[igormp]

29 minutes ago, Kisai said:

*snip*

You are totally moving goalposts here. Any modern device can be said to be a golf cart, be it a phone, desktop x86 pc or arm laptop.

 

Your analogy makes no sense to the main topic of this thread IMO. You seem to be claiming that only Windows x86 devices can be considered "PCs", and assuming eveyone's usecase to be the same as yours.

[Kisai]

3 hours ago, igormp said:

You are totally moving goalposts here. Any modern device can be said to be a golf cart, be it a phone, desktop x86 pc or arm laptop.

 

Your analogy makes no sense to the main topic of this thread IMO. You seem to be claiming that only Windows x86 devices can be considered "PCs", and assuming eveyone's usecase to be the same as yours.

Dumb Terminal = You can't take that thing home and use it to write emails on. The infrastructure doesn't exist.

Golf Cart = You can't take that from the golf course and go use it as your daily driver. The infrastructure, hell, LICENSE to use it outside the golf course doesn't exist.

 

Trying to say that an ARM based laptop, "only requires a web browser", because that's all these ARM SoC's outside have Apple's have been capable of so far, because Qualcomm try to market their flimsy SoC's as laptop parts.

 

Can AMD and Nvidia sell an SoC that is more capable? Sure, Will they? No, Apple has already eaten that lunch of where the money is to be made.

 

Nobody, as we've seen from the chromebook failures, wants cheap, weak, useless-without-internet things.

 

Either build stuff that I can be used without an internet connection, or get publicly shamed for building eWaste electronics for schools and businesses that get discarded after 2 years.

Quote

“When the software expires just a few years into a device’s use, schools are left with boxes of computers with working components that end up as electronic waste, and the need to buy even more Chromebooks,” the paper warns.

https://www.theverge.com/2023/4/21/23691840/us-pirg-education-fund-report-investigation-chromebook-churn

 

A recurring joke I would make every time I saw Samsung held up as "sales leader" is "yeah, the leader in eWaste" because of their then extremely short Android update lifespan on flagship devices, and how despite being supposedly the number 1 in sales, how they weren't even making a dent in the device category according to my own websites server-sided statistics.

 

Meanwhile, iPhones, and iPads had more presence than linux computers, but it was still a 70% windows and 20% Mac situation.

 

Certain devices are not even intended for US markets. These crappy ARM SoC laptops always get touted as being sold to developing countries, places with no internet and not even stable power generation, and yet they want to sell them cloud services?

 

You will own nothing, and you will be happy. That is what these companies want, and we should not be encouraging locked down ARM SoC computers that become ewaste in just 2 years because Nvidia (with it's historically hostile linux support) or AMD decide that they want another crack at the money pinata and "discontinue" support for something that is clearly still viable. 

 

No don't expect an AMD or Nvidia ARM SoC that will be comparable to the M1/M2. The only lunch being eating is Qualcomm's. People maybe want an ARM Windows Laptop for the logical reason that they might get 11x more battery life if Windows was even remotely developed like MacOS, but it isn't. That is an extremely wide gulf. But that ARM Laptop is gonna be something you then become expected to replace every 2 years, or when Windows releases a new major patch.

 

A lot of the open x86 stuff works, because it was unshackled from IBM's BIOS. Yet we seem to be rapidly backsliding towards a world where only two companies produce the majority of the hardware for the "PC", and switching to ARM without any promises from ARM to keeping things open is a recipe for disaster, and one of the reasons why RISC-V keeps being promoted in OSS circles.

[igormp]

38 minutes ago, Kisai said:

Dumb Terminal = You can't take that thing home and use it to write emails on. The infrastructure doesn't exist.

Golf Cart = You can't take that from the golf course and go use it as your daily driver. The infrastructure, hell, LICENSE to use it outside the golf course doesn't exist.

 

Trying to say that an ARM based laptop, "only requires a web browser", because that's all these ARM SoC's outside have Apple's have been capable of so far, because Qualcomm try to market their flimsy SoC's as laptop parts.

 

Can AMD and Nvidia sell an SoC that is more capable? Sure, Will they? No, Apple has already eaten that lunch of where the money is to be made.

 

Nobody, as we've seen from the chromebook failures, wants cheap, weak, useless-without-internet things.

 

Either build stuff that I can be used without an internet connection, or get publicly shamed for building eWaste electronics for schools and businesses that get discarded after 2 years.

https://www.theverge.com/2023/4/21/23691840/us-pirg-education-fund-report-investigation-chromebook-churn

 

A recurring joke I would make every time I saw Samsung held up as "sales leader" is "yeah, the leader in eWaste" because of their then extremely short Android update lifespan on flagship devices, and how despite being supposedly the number 1 in sales, how they weren't even making a dent in the device category according to my own websites server-sided statistics.

 

Meanwhile, iPhones, and iPads had more presence than linux computers, but it was still a 70% windows and 20% Mac situation.

 

Certain devices are not even intended for US markets. These crappy ARM SoC laptops always get touted as being sold to developing countries, places with no internet and not even stable power generation, and yet they want to sell them cloud services?

 

You will own nothing, and you will be happy. That is what these companies want, and we should not be encouraging locked down ARM SoC computers that become ewaste in just 2 years because Nvidia (with it's historically hostile linux support) or AMD decide that they want another crack at the money pinata and "discontinue" support for something that is clearly still viable. 

 

No don't expect an AMD or Nvidia ARM SoC that will be comparable to the M1/M2. The only lunch being eating is Qualcomm's. People maybe want an ARM Windows Laptop for the logical reason that they might get 11x more battery life if Windows was even remotely developed like MacOS, but it isn't. That is an extremely wide gulf. But that ARM Laptop is gonna be something you then become expected to replace every 2 years, or when Windows releases a new major patch.

 

A lot of the open x86 stuff works, because it was unshackled from IBM's BIOS. Yet we seem to be rapidly backsliding towards a world where only two companies produce the majority of the hardware for the "PC", and switching to ARM without any promises from ARM to keeping things open is a recipe for disaster, and one of the reasons why RISC-V keeps being promoted in OSS circles.

Your main assumption seems to be that ARM devices = chromebooks, and try to make tons of baseless comparisons and assumptions that still have nothing to do with the main point of this thread.

 

The discussion about owning vs subscribing is valid, but not the point of this thread nor relevant to the idea of running stuff in a different ISA. Your ideas are not even inherent to any ISA.

I personally won't be discussing this any further with you (I shouldn't have engaged in my last message to begin with).

 

[Kisai]

23 minutes ago, igormp said:

Your main assumption seems to be that ARM devices = chromebooks, and try to make tons of baseless comparisons and assumptions that still have nothing to do with the main point of this thread.

No, my assumption is that these companies are only going to release SoC's marketed to the Chromebook target. 

 

Have you EVER seen a powerful ARM chip? Nope. They do not exist. This is never being targeted at mainstream windows users. 

 

23 minutes ago, igormp said:

The discussion about owning vs subscribing is valid, but not the point of this thread nor relevant to the idea of running stuff in a different ISA. Your ideas are not even inherent to any ISA.

 

Good luck running any of your legacy software on an ARM version of windows. X86-64 only works because it's still ultimately has an x86 mode.

 

This is a repeat of the entirely idiotic "A Raspberry Pi runs minecraft, thus is must also run Windows" type of argument. A Raspberry Pi is not in anyway equal to a i7-13700HX in performance. That's not even taking to account the GPU. Cause AMD and Nvidia sure aren't going to be sticking Geforce 3060 GPU performance into one.

 

Apple sure doesn't.

 

23 minutes ago, igormp said:

I personally won't be discussing this any further with you (I shouldn't have engaged in my last message to begin with).

 

Then maybe do not engage in bad faith. 

[Lightwreather]

9 minutes ago, Kisai said:

Have you EVER seen a powerful ARM chip?

Hi! 

[IkeaGnome]

1 hour ago, Kisai said:

Golf Cart = You can't take that from the golf course and go use it as your daily driver. The infrastructure, hell, LICENSE to use it outside the golf course doesn't exist.

Getting a little pedantic, but you can where I live.

If you have registration, brake light, blinkers etc you can drive it on any road with a speed limit under 45 mph. Snowmachines and hovercrafts aren't allowed on public roads.

However, most of our roads out here in the valley have this next to them and you are allowed to drive/ride there. 

Spoiler

Hell, I can even drive a power wheel to town to go grocery shopping as long as I only cross the road and don't try to drive on pavement.

[Kisai]

21 minutes ago, Lightwreather JfromN said:

Hi! 

This laptop doesn't even exist on Dell's website. $499. Hmm, I wonder who bought it. Vaporware.

Meanwhile $2000 (CAD) for an Apple M2 versus Non-existent ARM Windows laptop $620 (CAD)

 

 

$4349, wow, we're only half way to just a Mac Pro desktop now. 7X more than that wimpy ARM Dell laptop vaporware.

 

Do you really think AMD and Nvidia are going to produce a SoC aiming for Apple's lunch? Nope. Nobody has to date, and they've had several years.

 

That Qualcomm SoC (see other thread) has never even come close to Apple. They do not have expertise building GPU parts. They only licence IP blocks from others. Their experience is Modem SoC's designed for mobile phones. That's it.

 

I went to Qualcomm's site, and tried to find ANY of these laptops

https://www.qualcomm.com/products/mobile/snapdragon/pcs-and-tablets/consumer/windows

 

None of these links go to ARM laptops, even the Surface Pro X "Not Available"

 

Hm, why would I want the SQ3 when the 12th gen Intel is ... 51 dollars cheaper and works with all my existing stuff.

 

18 minutes ago, IkeaGnome said:

Getting a little pedantic, but you can where I live.

If you have registration, brake light, blinkers etc you can drive it on any road with a speed limit under 45 mph. Snowmachines and hovercrafts aren't allowed on public roads.

However, most of our roads out here in the valley have this next to them and you are allowed to drive/ride there. 

  Reveal hidden contents

Hell, I can even drive a power wheel to town to go grocery shopping as long as I only cross the road and don't try to drive on pavement.

 

I picked the golf cart explicitly because I know they're not street legal, at least not without being modified. I could also have picked go-kart, or an ATV (not street legal here either.)

 

 

Overall, my point is still that these companies keep trying to sell things that nobody asked for, or even wants at that price point. You don't see businesses using chrome books, those are disposable toys. Yes, SOME of the staff who only do emails might be fine with it, but how are you going to explain that to the rest of the staff that you're buying them these computers that don't even run their existing software? Or maybe it does but it runs it substantially worse than the 5 year old x86 Wintel computers it replaced. 

[Donut417]

24 minutes ago, Kisai said:

why would I want the SQ3 when the 12th gen Intel is ... 51 dollars cheaper and works with all my existing stuff.

5G connectivity. Because it’s the only CPU they offer that on. Some people like devices that are always connected. 

[Kisai]

2 hours ago, Donut417 said:

5G connectivity. Because it’s the only CPU they offer that on. Some people like devices that are always connected. 

Wow, and costs 51 dollars more. I'm also assuming this is the same chip in the Surface listing, because I really have no way of knowing, since that's not in the listing just "SQ3".

 

Would it not have made more sense to just buy an internal 5G modem? You know a feature that some Dell's actually have?

 

Above Latitude 7430, Below Latitude 7440

 

Though the laptop is already $1988 CAD https://www.dell.com/en-ca/shop/laptops-ultrabooks/latitude-7440-laptop-or-2-in-1/spd/latitude-14-7440-2-in-1-laptop

 

What the heck, the prices all changed on me in between opening the tabs. The 7430 is $939 and then the 7440 is $2149.

 

Anyway, point remains unchanged. The ARM offerings are anemic laptops with half the performance of the laptops Apple ARM compares it's M-series to.

 

SQ3 = 11% weaker than i5-1265U ... and this is what you want AMD and NVidia fighting for? The miserable to use laptop segment that's only selling point is battery life?? The laptops that everyone turns on and goes to get a coffee because it's slow to cold start, despite having a SSD?

 

[Donut417]

13 minutes ago, Kisai said:

Would it not have made more sense to just buy an internal 5G modem? You know a feature that some Dell's actually have?

Because its a tablet and they probably couldn't fit it in. On many ARM chips the 5G modems are integrated on the SOC which also makes things more power efficient. Also how many consumer x86 devices have 5G connectivity vs an ARM device? The fact is you asked who would buy the SQ3 and I gave you an answer.

 

15 minutes ago, Kisai said:

SQ3 = 11% weaker than i5-1265U

The average person doesnt give a shit. Thats the thing you have to get thru to yourself. We are not the average, we are looking at the benchmarks but the every day Joe blow doesnt know his ass from a hole in the ground. All they see if this one has 5G and this other one doesnt. The other fact is 11% aint shit. Im not going to be gaming on this type of device, Ill probably be consumer media, surfing the web and maybe if I was a student typing documents or doing other school related things. You know the stuff the average person does.

[Kisai]

12 hours ago, Donut417 said:

Im not going to be gaming on this type of device, Ill probably be consumer media, surfing the web and maybe if I was a student typing documents or doing other school related things. You know the stuff the average person does.

The average person complains about how slow these laptops are already. Even in a business environment.

There is pretty much no use case for these devices that isn't equal to "taking notes at a meeting", cause I'm sure the office will really appreciate the laptop cooling fan screaming.