The galaxy note 4 could be the first 64bit Android smartphone.

[ZeroBreaker]

It's absolutely stupid. When I see a device with 4GB of RAM and a 64bit processor, it will make sense to market these chips as an advantage, but until then it just makes consumers less aware of the meaning behind 64-bit, which is a problem because before, when I explained 64 bit to people as having the main advantage of more memory, they understood. Now, everyone is all like 'iphone 5s 64bit what about your phone scrub' and then when properly explaining it they don't accept that apple or samsung or qualcomm would lie in their marketing.

It's sad that even knowing about computer parts is uncommon in today's society, when computers are literally in everything that makes modern society modern.

Then you have russia claiming to be replacing government PC's with western CPUs with russian made ARM cpus, and no one thought or was in a position to tell them they would have a problem running most OS's and most software on them because they are not made for desktops.

[harrynowl]

You guys are forgetting that when 64bit apps are a thing this phone is relevant, other 32bit phones won't be. 

 

64bit is useless right now, but where's the downside?

[gunsman]

i could dig up an anandtech article on how 64 bit is not just memory addresses, but maybe later. edit: also, the move to 64 bit isn't just that, but also a move to ARMv8 instruction set

 

Now, am i the only that is excited for this because we will finally have an a15 successor?

[LAwLz]

Thats not because its 64 bit. That's just because the 64 bit chip will be more powerful than the 32 bit. It doesn't magically just give it better performance. You do know what 64 bit is, right? Its not just a magical word that makes everything faster. Its just a bigger bus that allows for more ram to be used.

Actually, on ARM moving to 64bit will in fact "magically" give higher performance.

The move to 64bit on ARM brings with it a lot of improvements since we are moving to ARMv8 as well. On the iPhone 5S we saw a ~20% increase in performance by this move. If you take an iPhone app and compile it for 32bit iOS, and then take the same app and compile it for 64bit iOS with all the new ARMv8 libraries, you will get a 20% performance increase (in the case of crypto calculations like RSA and AES we can see an ~800% increase and yes, that is suppose to be two zeros after an eight).

With the new Exynos we ALSO get the benefit of Cortex A53 and A57, which will be huge as well. I am expecting to see a ~50% (or more) performance increase CPU wise when we move to 64bit Android and Cortex A50 series.

Hopefully we will see ART completely replace Dalvik as well.

 

It saddens me to see so many "tech enthusiasts" on this forum say 64bit ARM processors are useless because we don't need more than 4GB of RAM yet.

More RAM is far from the only thing we get.

 

 

That's just not the way it works. Samsung wants you to buy that but it's bs. The instruction set just makes the cpu more efficient in tasks that support 64-bit, it doesn't improve power consumption. It will speed up the os (slightly) provided that they rewrite android to support 64-bit fully, and anyway it's not like it's èarticularly slow right now...

More efficient/faster CPU = lower power consumption because of "race to idle".

[StingBull]

-snip-

 

People here are saying that just moving to 64 bits doesn't mean anything. And what you say supports this. OS and apps have to be recompiled to take advantage of it.

[LAwLz]

People here are saying that just moving to 64 bits doesn't mean anything. And what you say supports this. OS and apps have to be recompiled to take advantage of it.

Well luckily for us, there is in fact one benefit to Android apps being written in Java, and that's that Google could potentially convert all apps to 64bit without the developers having to do any work whatsoever.

The OS still needs to be modified in order for it to work though, and I suspect it will be a big topic at Google I/O in a few days. With a bit of luck Google will have a working 64bit demo to show us.

[martinrox1568]

Actually, on ARM moving to 64bit will in fact "magically" give higher performance.

The move to 64bit on ARM brings with it a lot of improvements since we are moving to ARMv8 as well. On the iPhone 5S we saw a ~20% increase in performance by this move. If you take an iPhone app and compile it for 32bit iOS, and then take the same app and compile it for 64bit iOS with all the new ARMv8 libraries, you will get a 20% performance increase (in the case of crypto calculations like RSA and AES we can see an ~800% increase and yes, that is suppose to be two zeros after an eight).

With the new Exynos we ALSO get the benefit of Cortex A53 and A57, which will be huge as well. I am expecting to see a ~50% (or more) performance increase CPU wise when we move to 64bit Android and Cortex A50 series.

Hopefully we will see ART completely replace Dalvik as well.

 

It saddens me to see so many "tech enthusiasts" on this forum say 64bit ARM processors are useless because we don't need more than 4GB of RAM yet.

More RAM is far from the only thing we get.

 

 

More efficient/faster CPU = lower power consumption because of "race to idle".

However this isn't because of anything else but the improvements we get from the new architecture. None of it has much to do with 64 bit. What 64 bit means is that it can address more (RAM) at the same time. A 32 bit cpu can only address 2^32 bits at a time which means around 4gbs. and a 64 bit cpu can only address 2^64 bits at a time. Even though the 64 bit system can indeed go through more at a time, it doesn't necessarily mean that it will go through a certain amount of "information" at a time. As long as a process requires less than 4gbs, all bets are off with whether a 64bit cpu is faster than a 32bit cpu

[LAwLz]

However this isn't because of anything else but the improvements we get from the new architecture. None of it has much to do with 64 bit. What 64 bit means is that it can address more (RAM) at the same time. A 32 bit cpu can only address 2^32 bits at a time which means around 4gbs. and a 64 bit cpu can only address 2^64 bits at a time. Even though the 64 bit system can indeed go through more at a time, it doesn't necessarily mean that it will go through a certain amount of "information" at a time. As long as a process requires less than 4gbs, all bets are off with whether a 64bit cpu is faster than a 32bit cpu

Wow if you think that's how 64bit and CPUs work then I am going to blow your mind several times in this post.

 

No, the 20% number I mentioned earlier is solely from the move to 64bit. Anand did lots of tests on it. They took a 32bit app and run that on the iPhone 5S, and then took the same app, compiled it to 64bits and ran that, and they got a 20% performance increase.

The tests were done on the same CPU, at the same frequency and with the same architecture. The ONLY thing that changed was that the program was first compiled for 32bit ARMv7 and then 64bit ARMv8. That is it. The move to 64bits will give us a big performance increase even if the new architecture would have the same performance as the previous one.

 

No, a 32bit OS and CPU are not limited to 2^32 bits of memory. "But if they can address more then how come 32bit Windows only allows for 4GB!?" I hear you scream. Well it can if you enable it. It's just not turned on by default (and Windows memory limitations seems completely arbitrary and is in general a huge mess).

Qualcomm has plenty of chips, including the one in the HTC One (M7 and M8), Galaxy S 4, Galaxy S 5, LG G3 and the Snapdragon 805 version of the Galaxy S 5 which supports more than 4GB of memory. Even the SoC in the Nexus 4 can address 2^40 memory with the help of LPAE.

 

"But if we can already address more than 4GB why do we need 64bits!?". Because more memory is not the only benefit of 64bits. Even if we were to ignore the usual performance increases you get from not having to move as much data back and forth in for example certain loops, we would still get a massive performance increase from the new instructions. x86_64 is just an extension to the x86 instruction set. That's why we only see a performance increase in 64bit from time to time. With the move to ARMv8 it's a brand new ISA which will give us a huge performance increase. Like I said before the new crypto libraries made a ~800% performance increase on the iPhone. We should see the same performance increase on Android since those instructions are the same. The improvements to NEON for example far more registers will also have a solid performance increase.

 

 

I strongly recommend you read the entire Anand page I posted and keep in mind that the entire page is only about the move from 32bit to 64bit. None of the performance increases you see on it is because of the better architecture since they ran the tests on the same CPU.

Here is their conclusion:

The DGEMM operations aren't vectorized under ARMv7, but they are under ARMv8 thanks to DP SIMD support so you get huge speedups there from the recompile. The SFFT workload benefits handsomely from the increased register space, significantly reducing the number of loads and stores (there's something like a 30% reduction in instructions for the A64 codepath compared to the A32 codepath here). The conclusion? There are definitely reasons outside of needing more memory to go 64-bit.

[Si3Rra_7]

Rocking the note 3 now, preparing my pockets for that 1440p snapdragon 805 beast

Aand i'm sitting here with computer monitors higher than 1080p costing $1000 ( even damn 1440p)

[martinrox1568]

Wow if you think that's how 64bit and CPUs work then I am going to blow your mind several times in this post.

 

No, the 20% number I mentioned earlier is solely from the move to 64bit. Anand did lots of tests on it. They took a 32bit app and run that on the iPhone 5S, and then took the same app, compiled it to 64bits and ran that, and they got a 20% performance increase.

The tests were done on the same CPU, at the same frequency and with the same architecture. The ONLY thing that changed was that the program was first compiled for 32bit ARMv7 and then 64bit ARMv8. That is it. The move to 64bits will give us a big performance increase even if the new architecture would have the same performance as the previous one.

 

No, a 32bit OS and CPU are not limited to 2^32 bits of memory. "But if they can address more then how come 32bit Windows only allows for 4GB!?" I hear you scream. Well it can if you enable it. It's just not turned on by default (and Windows memory limitations seems completely arbitrary and is in general a huge mess).

Qualcomm has plenty of chips, including the one in the HTC One (M7 and M8), Galaxy S 4, Galaxy S 5, LG G3 and the Snapdragon 805 version of the Galaxy S 5 which supports more than 4GB of memory. Even the SoC in the Nexus 4 can address 2^40 memory with the help of LPAE.

 

"But if we can already address more than 4GB why do we need 64bits!?". Because more memory is not the only benefit of 64bits. Even if we were to ignore the usual performance increases you get from not having to move as much data back and forth in for example certain loops, we would still get a massive performance increase from the new instructions. x86_64 is just an extension to the x86 instruction set. That's why we only see a performance increase in 64bit from time to time. With the move to ARMv8 it's a brand new ISA which will give us a huge performance increase. Like I said before the new crypto libraries made a ~800% performance increase on the iPhone. We should see the same performance increase on Android since those instructions are the same. The improvements to NEON for example far more registers will also have a solid performance increase.

 

 

I strongly recommend you read the entire Anand page I posted and keep in mind that the entire page is only about the move from 32bit to 64bit. None of the performance increases you see on it is because of the better architecture since they ran the tests on the same CPU.

Here is their conclusion:

Please show me that link. I'd be very interested in exactly the app they were using. And yes a 32 bit cpu IS limited to 2^32 bits of memory. Atleast, that is how much it can address at one point, making more ram useless.

lol I'm and idiot and found the link

Edited June 23, 2014 by martinrox1568

[BallGum]

Actually, on ARM moving to 64bit will in fact "magically" give higher performance.

The move to 64bit on ARM brings with it a lot of improvements since we are moving to ARMv8 as well. On the iPhone 5S we saw a ~20% increase in performance by this move. If you take an iPhone app and compile it for 32bit iOS, and then take the same app and compile it for 64bit iOS with all the new ARMv8 libraries, you will get a 20% performance increase (in the case of crypto calculations like RSA and AES we can see an ~800% increase and yes, that is suppose to be two zeros after an eight).

With the new Exynos we ALSO get the benefit of Cortex A53 and A57, which will be huge as well. I am expecting to see a ~50% (or more) performance increase CPU wise when we move to 64bit Android and Cortex A50 series.

Hopefully we will see ART completely replace Dalvik as well.

 

It saddens me to see so many "tech enthusiasts" on this forum say 64bit ARM processors are useless because we don't need more than 4GB of RAM yet.

More RAM is far from the only thing we get.

 

 

More efficient/faster CPU = lower power consumption because of "race to idle".

 

 

I think many are saying that the various benefits shown off aren't really attributable to simply moving to a 64bit architecture, but instead are attributable to general processor improvements.

 

I'd like some links for some of the numbers you gave, and also, I'd like to say that when the developers behind MCPE converted the app to make use of 64 bit, they actually experienced a downgrade in performance. The only reason why I say this is because I'm doubtful that performance increases are as simple as a move to 64 bit.

 

Although, I don't see anything wrong with moving to a 64 bit architecture, even if there isn't much point at the moment, as it doesn't hurt to be future proof.

[ReytogaN]

I believe that the time for 64 bit mobile procesors is now! Do we need it? No. But they have to start rolling them out now since it will probably take a generation or two to work out the kinks and bugs. Anyway we as consumers we always have to ask for more. Now STFU and take my money Samsung!

[LAwLz]

Please show me that link. I'd be very interested in exactly the app they were using. And yes a 32 bit cpu IS limited to 2^32 bits of memory. Atleast, that is how much it can address at one point, making more ram useless.

lol I'm and idiot and found the link

A lot of times, 32bit CPUs can address more than 32bits of memory. Not all buses and registers are the same width. For example the Snapdragon 600 can address 2^40 memory. Even before we had 64bit desktop CPUs AMD and Intel were implementing support for more than 2^32 bits of RAM.

And like I've said over and over, this is not just a move to 64bits. We are changing to the A64 instruction set which is where the performance increase will come from. If we are going to be pedantic then yes, moving to 64bit by itself won't give us that much of a performance increase (although there is a performance increase since certain loops for example no longer have to stop in the middle to swap data during each run through). 64bit ARM processors has to support ARMv8 though, and that is a big performance increase. Moreover, the new ARMv8 processors ALSO has the typical improvements we see from generation to generation in CPUs.

So with the move to Cortex A53 and Cortex A57 in the new Exynos processor, we will see 2 performance increases. The first one is from moving to 64bit and the support for ARMv8 instructions. This will typically be ~20%,in some rare scenarios it might be a decrease if it's something very integer heavy and not much else, and in some other cases we will see extremely big boosts like with AES and RSA (which aren't that rare). That was the first reason we will see a performance boost and this is what I mean when I say that the move to 64bit will give us better performance. The second reason we will get a performance increase is the typical improvements to the CPU architecture. This is not a small increase either. The Cortex A53 seems to be absolutely amazing in terms of performance:watt, and that will be the little cores in big.LITTLE configs. The Cortex A57 are really beast cores, like the ones in the iPhone 5S.

 

Both the new Exynos (5433) and the Snapdragon 810 are shaping up to be amazing.

 

 

I think many are saying that the various benefits shown off aren't really attributable to simply moving to a 64bit architecture, but instead are attributable to general processor improvements.

Yes that is what many are saying, and those people are wrong. Going from 32bits to 64bits on the same CPU (again, no change in architecture or clock speed or anything like that) will give you a ~20% performance increase in general. This is only true for ARM processors and not x86. The reason is because on ARM we get a brand new instruction set library, while on x86 we just got an extension of the old one.

[BallGum]

A lot of times, 32bit CPUs can address more than 32bits of memory. Not all buses and registers are the same width. For example the Snapdragon 600 can address 2^40 memory. Even before we had 64bit desktop CPUs AMD and Intel were implementing support for more than 2^32 bits of RAM.

And like I've said over and over, this is not just a move to 64bits. We are changing to the A64 instruction set which is where the performance increase will come from. If we are going to be pedantic then yes, moving to 64bit by itself won't give us that much of a performance increase (although there is a performance increase since certain loops for example no longer have to stop in the middle to swap data during each run through). 64bit ARM processors has to support ARMv8 though, and that is a big performance increase. Moreover, the new ARMv8 processors ALSO has the typical improvements we see from generation to generation in CPUs.

So with the move to Cortex A53 and Cortex A57 in the new Exynos processor, we will see 2 performance increases. The first one is from moving to 64bit and the support for ARMv8 instructions. This will typically be ~20%,in some rare scenarios it might be a decrease if it's something very integer heavy and not much else, and in some other cases we will see extremely big boosts like with AES and RSA (which aren't that rare). That was the first reason we will see a performance boost and this is what I mean when I say that the move to 64bit will give us better performance. The second reason we will get a performance increase is the typical improvements to the CPU architecture. This is not a small increase either. The Cortex A53 seems to be absolutely amazing in terms of performance:watt, and that will be the little cores in big.LITTLE configs. The Cortex A57 are really beast cores, like the ones in the iPhone 5S.

 

Both the new Exynos (5433) and the Snapdragon 810 are shaping up to be amazing.

 

 

Yes that is what many are saying, and those people are wrong. Going from 32bits to 64bits on the same CPU (again, no change in architecture or clock speed or anything like that) will give you a ~20% performance increase in general. This is only true for ARM processors and not x86. The reason is because on ARM we get a brand new instruction set library, while on x86 we just got an extension of the old one.

 

Ah I didn't know that, that's very interesting. Thanks for the clarification.

 

A little off topic, does anyone know a good place to learn more about computer architecture?

[LAwLz]

A little off topic, does anyone know a good place to learn more about computer architecture?

It's too broad to just start learning like that sadly.

Everything I know (which isn't that much) I've learned from spending years on different forums, reading Wikipedia/other websites and classes in school.

If I see a word or phrase I don't understand I look it up. For example one day when I was looking at RAM I thought "well, time to actually learn what CL means and how it is measured" and then I looked it up.

 

Anandtech is a fantastic website for info as well. Most of what I know about ARMv8/the move to 64bit on ARM comes from them, with a bit of Wikipedia and ARM's own website and videos. If I hear or read something I don't understand I look it up.

[Misanthrope]

You guys are forgetting that when 64bit apps are a thing this phone is relevant, other 32bit phones won't be. 

 

64bit is useless right now, but where's the downside?

 

Right, the same way that consumer level 64 bit applications that are just now starting to appear are relevant to consumer computers that first started supporting them...10 years ago....

[harrynowl]

Right, the same way that consumer level 64 bit applications that are just now starting to appear are relevant to consumer computers that first started supporting them...10 years ago....

So where's the down side? There doesn't have to be an immediate upside.

 

We're looking at Cortex A57 now which is a huge performance leap. RISC ULP processors are catching up.

[Misanthrope]

So where's the down side?

No you should be asking where's the upside: Not even Lawlz will vigorously stand up for this as there's just no fucking need for 64 bit applications as there is no demanding mobile applications at all because well: It's a shitty mobile device with tiny screens and no good input fucking methods or reliable connectivity.

It's like me taking a kid's bicycle and adding a battery, lights, a stereo, deluxe seat, state of the art anti-theft alarm with motion sensors, gps tracker, the works. What's the fucking point if it's just a stupid bike and it will never replace a proper fucking car.

[LAwLz]

No you should be asking where's the upside: Not even Lawlz will vigorously stand up for this as there's just no fucking need for 64 bit applications as there is no demanding mobile applications at all because well: It's a shitty mobile device with tiny screens and no good input fucking methods or reliable connectivity.

It's like me taking a kid's bicycle and adding a battery, lights, a stereo, deluxe seat, state of the art anti-theft alarm with motion sensors, gps tracker, the works. What's the fucking point if it's just a stupid bike and it will never replace a proper fucking car.

The upside is better performance, which I am always for. You should know this already.

More performance is always better. Just because we might not benefit from it now (actually we do but let's assume we don't) but it is still good because we will in the future.

[BallGum]

It's too broad to just start learning like that sadly.

Everything I know (which isn't that much) I've learned from spending years on different forums, reading Wikipedia/other websites and classes in school.

If I see a word or phrase I don't understand I look it up. For example one day when I was looking at RAM I thought "well, time to actually learn what CL means and how it is measured" and then I looked it up.

 

Anandtech is a fantastic website for info as well. Most of what I know about ARMv8/the move to 64bit on ARM comes from them, with a bit of Wikipedia and ARM's own website and

. If I hear or read something I don't understand I look it up.

 

I was thinking it would be like that. I understand it is an extremely complex subject, but thought it could be possible to learn the basics of computer architecture and move up from there, learning more specific architectures and such.

 

Thanks, for the links though. I have been reading through those sources on and off here and there.

[Misanthrope]

The upside is better performance, which I am always for. You should know this already.

More performance is always better. Just because we might not benefit from it now (actually we do but let's assume we don't) but it is still good because we will in the future.

 

*rails in the fish hook line* Yes! Lawlz bites! 

 

EDIT: Lols aside, check my example: we actually had AMD 64 processors for over a decade now and just now they are becoming necessary: the argument that this phone will be "future proof" because it supports 64 seems a bit beyond wishful thinking: Samsung (like all mobile vendors) actually encourages forced obsolescence and you'll be lucky if you get any updates and support at all 3 years down the road or a battery to replace the one that will undoubtedly die within that timeframe and realistically speaking I don't think even 3 years is enough for mobile 64 bit applications to become relevant and even if they do pop up, in 3 years the hardware would be so outdated anyway it wouldn't matter at all.

[ZeroBreaker]

No you should be asking where's the upside: Not even Lawlz will vigorously stand up for this as there's just no fucking need for 64 bit applications as there is no demanding mobile applications at all because well: It's a shitty mobile device with tiny screens and no good input fucking methods or reliable connectivity.

It's like me taking a kid's bicycle and adding a battery, lights, a stereo, deluxe seat, state of the art anti-theft alarm with motion sensors, gps tracker, the works. What's the fucking point if it's just a stupid bike and it will never replace a proper fucking car.

Agree with you there, but ARM processors look to be replacing x86 processors in embedded systems thanks to the low power consumption and cost, which means in the long run the 64 bit arm processors will become very relevant. The more they become common and mass manufactured, the easier it becomes to obtain and implement them into such systems. It's good news in that regard.

[harrynowl]

No you should be asking where's the upside: Not even Lawlz will vigorously stand up for this as there's just no fucking need for 64 bit applications as there is no demanding mobile applications at all because well: It's a shitty mobile device with tiny screens and no good input fucking methods or reliable connectivity.

It's like me taking a kid's bicycle and adding a battery, lights, a stereo, deluxe seat, state of the art anti-theft alarm with motion sensors, gps tracker, the works. What's the fucking point if it's just a stupid bike and it will never replace a proper fucking car.

I don't want to argue with someone as closed minded as you so I'll leave you to it. I'm sure someone probably said one day "There's no need for multicore CPUs".

[Misanthrope]

-Ad Hominem-

 

1) Fixed that for you. 2) Ok, kthxbye.

[Misanthrope]

Agree with you there, but ARM processors look to be replacing x86 processors in embedded systems thanks to the low power consumption and cost, which means in the long run the 64 bit arm processors will become very relevant. The more they become common and mass manufactured, the easier it becomes to obtain and implement them into such systems. It's good news in that regard.

 

I do think they can become very relevant but by virtue of all the other aspects of the ARM architecture and design for mobile applications, not by virtue of being 64 bits.