MicroSoft and ARM aim to threaten Intel's dominance

[CTR640]

Damn, just as I'm curious what to expect about MS and Qualcomm will do make Intel afraid but all I see is grammar warriors in here.

 

[Okjoek]

Sounds cool I guess. I don't understand what all the technical issues there are with this are.

[Castdeath97]

So, basically are they trading performance for efficiency? Or can ARM CPUs manage to get as powerful as their X86 brother?

 

Frankly, I almost know nothing about this domain  .

[VicBar]

I hope the ARM architecture keeps getting traction. I look happily at a future with RISC architectures beat out the cluttered, unecessarily backwards compatible mess that is the x86 architecture.

[Dylanc1500]

5 minutes ago, Castdeath97 said:

So, basically are they trading performance for efficiency? Or can ARM CPUs manage to get as powerful as their X86 brother?

 

Frankly, I almost know nothing about this domain  .

From a techinical standpoint ARM is RISC (reduced instruction-set computing). The instructions that they operate off of are much simpler, for the most part. Which can allow more instructions to be completed. x86 on the other hand is CISC (complex instruction-set computing) based which allows for more complex instructions to be completed, which takes longer/more cycles, again for the most part. POWER arch, SPARC, along with some others operate as RISC. Intel actually developed its x86 CISC from the original z360 system back in the late 50s. Also CISC based processors typically favor high-level programming more so than RISC.

To put in a summary the way they compute is different entirely, RISC based tends to be more efficient computationally but not always.

[Castdeath97]

1 minute ago, Dylanc1500 said:

From a techinical standpoint ARM is RISC (reduced instruction-set computing). The instructions that they operate off of are much simpler, for the most part. Which can allow more instructions to be completed. x86 on the other hand is CISC (complex instruction-set computing) based which allows for more complex instructions to be completed, which takes longer/more cycles, again for the most part. POWER arch, SPARC, along with some others operate as RISC. Intel actually developed its x86 CISC from the original z360 system back in the late 50s. Also CISC based processors typically favor high-level programming more so than RISC.

To put in a summary the way they compute is different entirely, RISC based tends to be more efficient computationally but not always.

Yeah I just remembered that from my Computer Architecture courses.

[Dylanc1500]

12 minutes ago, VicBar said:

I hope the ARM architecture keeps getting traction. I look happily at a future with RISC architectures beat out the cluttered, unecessarily backwards compatible mess that the x86 architecture is.

I'm hoping for POWER to come back to consumer systems, I wouldn't mind 4 threads or 8 threads per core. 

 

I honestly have have no idea if it would help in games. But it does in virtual machines and for running databases.

 

EDIT: However ARM is open source. Which puts a lot of competition with all the different manufactures. Great for advancing the architecture.

[VicBar]

3 minutes ago, Dylanc1500 said:

I'm hoping for POWER to come back to consumer systems, I wouldn't mind 4 threads or 8 threads per core. 

 

I honestly have have no idea if it would help in games. But it does in virtual machines and for running databases.

Yeah but seeing that phones went and kept on ARM I see it more plausible for consumers. I'm linking the Linux distros that have an ARM variant, and Microsoft has stopped using the emulation layer and is going for it native!

Spoiler

Long gone are the days of the POWERPC... 

 

[goodtofufriday]

1 hour ago, Jamiec1130 said:

All I can say is "Good luck Microsoft!" They've tried that on a much smaller scale before. Anyone remember the Surface RT?

 

Also Microsoft is not spelled MicroSoft. It's Microsoft. 

As long as I can continue the same cloud operations as current then I don't really care if theres ARM involved. RT failed because it couldnt do x86. as I understand there is now x86 emulation code for ARM.

[manikyath]

1 hour ago, zMeul said:

 

 

their 1975 logo:

their 2017 logo containing their name, pulled from your own post:

2 hours ago, zMeul said:

 

 

EDIT, also, NVIDIA, not nVidia, as stated by the footer of their own website

[Dylanc1500]

14 minutes ago, VicBar said:

Yeah but seeing that phones went and kept on ARM I see it more plausible for consumers. I'm linking the Linux distros that have an ARM variant, and Microsoft has stopped using the emulation layer and is going for it native!

  Hide contents

Long gone are the days of the POWERPC... 

 

Well to be fair could you imagine trying to run something like x86 on a phone. Linux kernel definately can support it natively (quite easily I might add), however I don't know which distros do and don't. Microsoft shouldn't have a problem with it, they used to support quite a few different archs back with DOS and early windows. Even the first NT systems had some RISC compatibility.

 

 

 

(I will give you a hint for POWER though, it may have slowed off, but it's still HEAVILY used in a lot of financial institutions and is actually on the rise in several others as well. I work for a certain database software company and have to help develope databases for many different institutions)

[Mira Yurizaki]

Microsoft can do what Apple did during the transition from POWER to x86: provide a decent compatibility layer. And even then, only for Win32 applications.

 

24 minutes ago, Dylanc1500 said:

I'm hoping for POWER to come back to consumer systems, I wouldn't mind 4 threads or 8 threads per core. 

 

I honestly have have no idea if it would help in games. But it does in virtual machines and for running databases.

 

EDIT: However ARM is open source. Which puts a lot of competition with all the different manufactures. Great for advancing the architecture.

The problem with the current implementations of POWER is it's not efficient enough.

 

ARM is also not open source. It's a licensed architecture. ARM Holdings just isn't as much of a dick as Intel is.

[Dylanc1500]

9 minutes ago, M.Yurizaki said:

Microsoft can do what Apple did during the transition from POWER to x86: provide a decent compatibility layer. And even then, only for Win32 applications.

 

The problem with the current implementations of POWER is it's not efficient enough.

 

ARM is also not open source. It's a licensed architecture. ARM Holdings just isn't as much of a dick as Intel is.

Oh I agree entirely, for the consumer market they would have to push hard, which I don't see happening for a long time, if ever. With number crunching and calculations they are great. They are partnering with NVidia and have Power-Volta based systems slated sometime this year for that exact purpose.

 

You are correct about ARM I had it mixed up in my head with something else when I was jotting stuff down. Sorry about that.

[zMeul]

2 hours ago, manikyath said:

EDIT, also, NVIDIA, not nVidia, as stated by the footer of their own website

nVidia's original logo, 1995:

[manikyath]

1 minute ago, zMeul said:

good work on digging up old logo's mate, but that's still not nVidia, that's nVIDIA

[Crazy Ginger]

I like this move.  I can't wait to see how this will work out for mIcRoSoFt.  Or is it MiCrOsOfT?  Eh company names are wierd

[Misanthrope]

Is good that they'll put pressure on Intel but on the other hand Azure is not the only big fish out there in terms of cloud stuff so if it doesn't works this could potentially cause lots of troubles for them: AFAIK Microsoft gets a lot more revenue through the Azure division than through the OS or Gaming divisions.

[AJ-Goodrich]

If I could get the life back I spent reading these moronic postings about the spelling of the logo versus the actual topic I'd probably be minutes younger. Nearly hours.

[Zodiark1593]

On Wednesday, March 08, 2017 at 10:16 AM, M.Yurizaki said:

Microsoft can do what Apple did during the transition from POWER to x86: provide a decent compatibility layer. And even then, only for Win32 applications.

 

The problem with the current implementations of POWER is it's not efficient enough.

 

ARM is also not open source. It's a licensed architecture. ARM Holdings just isn't as much of a dick as Intel is.

Unfortunately, unlike with PowerPC, ARM processors are not as fast as their x86 brethren as of now. Thus compatability will incur a heavy performance hit until ARM greatly exceeds x86 capability. For most consumer applications, this is probably of minor concern, though performance sensitive applications like games will suffer greatly. 

[Zodiark1593]

On Wednesday, March 08, 2017 at 10:16 AM, M.Yurizaki said:

Microsoft can do what Apple did during the transition from POWER to x86: provide a decent compatibility layer. And even then, only for Win32 applications.

 

The problem with the current implementations of POWER is it's not efficient enough.

 

ARM is also not open source. It's a licensed architecture. ARM Holdings just isn't as much of a dick as Intel is.

Unfortunately, unlike with PowerPC, ARM processors are not as fast as their x86 brethren as of now. Thus compatability will incur a heavy performance hit until ARM greatly exceeds x86 capability. For most consumer applications, this is probably of minor concern, though performance sensitive applications like games will suffer greatly, particularly old ones that receive no support. 

[Mira Yurizaki]

2 hours ago, Zodiark1593 said:

Unfortunately, unlike with PowerPC, ARM processors are not as fast as their x86 brethren as of now. Thus compatability will incur a heavy performance hit until ARM greatly exceeds x86 capability. For most consumer applications, this is probably of minor concern, though performance sensitive applications like games will suffer greatly. 

I would imagine that games aren't going to be a priority. The people who would be interested in a Windows/ARM environment would be those in servers and HPC.

 

It's the same deal with Windows XP mode in Windows 7. It wasn't meant for games, but somehow some gamers totally missed the memo and thought you could run any game for XP on it.