When will ARM be the PC CPU?

[Edward78]

The Power Demand difference is crazy. I wonder when ARM PCs will be comon?

[ki8aras]

38 minutes ago, Edward78 said:

I wonder when ARM PCs will be comon?

when they can do everything x86 systems can, one of my friends has an m1 macbook air for school and relies on a vm i set up for her schoolwork cuz of software like quartus or orCad

[voyager_]

Until there is enough support, for people wanting nothing more than a chromebook they are fine. For most others it won't be until they can run everything that current systems can run. As far as business applications they may never replace x86 for home use im sure in the very far future they will have a place as either more developers create arm based applications and things similar to proton get more support to be able to run x86 on arm efficiently. But I never see x86 going anywhere atleast in my lifetime. Look at some programming languages like cobalt, many systems still run on it. 

[Edward78]

Hmmm, that vid. sure makes it sound different.

[Mark Kaine]

2 hours ago, Edward78 said:

Hmmm, that vid. sure makes it sound different.

yeah. i watched this. guy is an idiot (no offense lol) 

[Edward78]

The Videos talk about laptops, seems it would come to desktops also, why mantion a x86 & ARM version of all those programs, when just 1 will do?

[emosun]

when its faster than x86

[Edward78]

6 minutes ago, emosun said:

when its faster than x86

 

[emosun]

11 minutes ago, Edward78 said:

?

[Edward78]

3 minutes ago, emosun said:

?

Watch the video.

[porina]

When it is faster/cheaper/more efficient/widely supported. Not all are required at the same time but the more boxes it ticks, the more possible it may become.

 

The question at the end of the day is what benefit is there to a user, and at what cost? Apple's M series chips are great - within their niche. Targeted wins are possible, but to truly take over it'll need a broad win without relying on specific areas to look good.

[Levent]

Title and the content ask a different question. They are already in the PCs.

[danalog]

People have been asking this question for 10 years.

x86 is not vanishing.

[Edward78]

1 minute ago, porina said:

When it is faster/cheaper/more efficient/widely supported. Not all are required at the same time but the more boxes it ticks, the more possible it may become.

 

The question at the end of the day is what benefit is there to a user, and at what cost? Apple's M series chips are great - within their niche. Targeted wins are possible, but to truly take over it'll need a broad win without relying on specific areas to look good.

Well ya, not saying in a year 90% PCs will be ARM. Programs have to be written for ARM. Windows ARM exists & Linux ARM prob. all the open source OSes. Makes sense to my less power hungry & speeds are not hugely slower.

[Brando212]

the problem and reason ARM isn't really on the desktop PC side yet also comes down to the fact that it's still only really supplied as a soldered SoC, until a socketed solution is agreed upon from vendors, then there's no chance of ARM taking off in the desktop space.

[Alex Atkin UK]

27 minutes ago, Edward78 said:

Well ya, not saying in a year 90% PCs will be ARM. Programs have to be written for ARM. Windows ARM exists & Linux ARM prob. all the open source OSes. Makes sense to my less power hungry & speeds are not hugely slower.

It doesn't make sense though, as a big reason ARM is more efficient is because its an SoC where you have to replace the entire PCB to upgrade anything.  A few vendors have played with the idea of having the SoC on a daughter board, but that decreases efficiency and there is no standard for this so you get tied into one vendor in the hope they actually offer tangible upgrades. 

 

Even for laptops this is a drag, as you want to at least be able to upgrade the RAM and storage.  This is a limitation that is frustrating enough on phones where you end up paying as much for 256GB of storage as a 2TB SSD on PC.

 

Plus every vendor designs their SoC differently as ARM is only a baseline, so the different configurations ends up being even more complicated than x86 to support.  Or we risk all ARM PCs being from the same manufacturer, where they can crank up the price and we have no choice but to accept it.

 

Sure its more power efficient, but it costs you more in the long run and creates more e-waste.

 

I don't think its as efficient on its own as people think either, just look at Steam Deck.  When you make an x86 PC with limited IO (powering PCIe slots, SATA, USB controllers are a lot of the base power wasted on PC), the gap really isn't that large from what I've seen.  Even an x86 SoC can be really efficient.

[SansVarnic]

-= Merged with Previous Topic =-

[emosun]

31 minutes ago, Edward78 said:

Watch the video.

i did , didn't see the faster part

[Edward78]

19 minutes ago, Alex Atkin UK said:

It doesn't make sense though, as a big reason ARM is more efficient is because its an SoC where you have to replace the entire PCB to upgrade anything.  A few vendors have played with the idea of having the SoC on a daughter board, but that decreases efficiency and there is no standard for this so you get tied into one vendor in the hope they actually offer tangible upgrades. 

 

Even for laptops this is a drag, as you want to at least be able to upgrade the RAM and storage.  This is a limitation that is frustrating enough on phones where you end up paying as much for 256GB of storage as a 2TB SSD on PC.

 

Plus every vendor designs their SoC differently as ARM is only a baseline, so the different configurations ends up being even more complicated than x86 to support.  Or we risk all ARM PCs being from the same manufacturer, where they can crank up the price and we have no choice but to accept it.

 

Sure its more power efficient, but it costs you more in the long run and creates more e-waste.

 

I don't think its as efficient on its own as people think, just look at Steam Deck.  When you make an x86 PC with limited IO (powering PCIe slots, SATA, USB controllers are a lot of the base power wasted on PC), the gap really isn't that large from what I've seen.

Nvidia & AMD are doing ARM. Intel still denies it. AMD may just use what they have. Nvidia will just make their own & strangly Intel might just go to GPUs. These companies are huge & they have the resources..

[Alex Atkin UK]

1 hour ago, Edward78 said:

Nvidia & AMD are doing ARM. Intel still denies it. AMD may just use what they have. Nvidia will just make their own & strangly Intel might just go to GPUs. These companies are huge & they have the resources..

Sure they will, and they may be great for long battery life laptops that punch above their weight, just as the Macbook Pro does.

 

However for the desktop PC market, I doubt its of any benefit.  As I mentioned, a lot of the power inefficiency comes from PCIe slots, RAM slots, etc.  Anything with a socket, with long traces to reach that hardware, adds power consumption.  You can already see this where Intel chips using only efficiency cores and limited IO, like the N100, sips power.

 

So in like for like configurations, I'm not convinced ARM offers a tangible improvement over similarly limited x86 designs.  Its always been of most benefit for idle power consumption and lower powered devices, such as consumer routers.

 

I'm by no means anti-ARM, my childhood was drooling at Acorn Achimedes machines that absolutely blew everything else out of the water at their power consumption and price point.  ARM has been a more efficient option for decades, there's a reason we haven't made the switch in PCs.

[Brando212]

1 hour ago, Alex Atkin UK said:

Sure they will, and they may be great for long battery life laptops that punch above their weight, just as the Macbook Pro does.

 

However for the desktop PC market, I doubt its of any benefit.  As I mentioned, a lot of the power inefficiency comes from PCIe slots, RAM slots, etc.  Anything with a socket, with long traces to reach that hardware, adds power consumption.  You can already see this where Intel chips using only efficiency cores and limited IO, like the N100, sips power.

 

So in like for like configurations, I'm not convinced ARM offers a tangible improvement over similarly limited x86 designs.  Its always been of most benefit for idle power consumption and lower powered devices, such as consumer routers.

 

I'm by no means anti-ARM, my childhood was drooling at Acorn Achimedes machines that absolutely blew everything else out of the water at their power consumption and price point.  ARM has been a more efficient option for decades, there's a reason we haven't made the switch in PCs.

We'll have to see how things go the next few generations. Intel in particular is going backwards with their power efficiency right now on their main series; so that's not a good sign to me.

[Edward78]

Quote

We'll have to see how things go the next few generations. Intel in particular is going backwards with their power efficiency right now on their main series; so that's not a good sign to me.

 

That is a great reason for the switch to happen, while AMD has no issues. Lower power draw CPUs will be better for less demand on the power grid,  (places with blackouts from high draw would do better) plus I am not talking about PCIe slots or other hardware, just the CPU. Apple does it just fine, why would it be a issue for PCs? That is like saying my grandpa did fine driving manual, well no reason to not be able to buy a automatic transmission car. Plus you know a % of people who have ARM laptops will want to play games, use office/security (You know what I am saying) & not be limited in selection. Why make the same piece of software for x86 and ARM.