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Alereon posted:Keep in mind that nVidia and Via quit at the same time along with AMD. This is really an issue of Intel controlling BAPCo and selecting and weighting the benchmarks to show Intel's products in the best possible light. That probably means a focus on single-threaded performance and with minimal emphasis on graphics performance, which would definitely disadvantage their competitors who optimized for multi-threaded performance and GPU speed. Intel is manipulating the market in underhanded ways?  Although nVidia leaving is kinda funny to me, they have their own sordid history with benchmark software and do plenty of their own Intel-like bundling stuff for developers. Easier for them to have compatibility in advance since they'll give you plenty of nVidia cards to work with if you do the whole "the way it's meant to be played" thing, although someone will surely point out that nVidia and ATI both have crap drivers if I don't throw that out there beforehand  So which benchmarks are worth a drat, then? None? If they're all gamed, what's the yardstick by which to measure performance so that an informed purchase can be made?
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Jun 24, 2011 21:23
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This is why good review sites will actually load up some apps and games and time a standardized task that mimics real-world use.
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Jun 24, 2011 21:29
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Factory Factory posted:This is why good review sites will actually load up some apps and games and time a standardized task that mimics real-world use. Well, that's what Sysmark does, too. It all comes down to what tasks you've chosen as representative of "real-world use."
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Jun 24, 2011 22:03
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Yes, AMD is trying to go up against a monolithic company that's been using underhanded tactics. In response, they should be shifting their focus on what needs to be done to compete with Intel. Llanos is a good start, but they could continue looking at what Intel is not doing well and strong-arm into that. For instance, Microsoft and Intel aren't getting along in terms of ARM architecture. Work with Microsoft then, see if some deals can be made. Start there, see if Apple will do the same. Spend more on R&D, look at what can be done in the server market. AMD could also try combining the AMD/ATi technology to start pushing out AMD reference mainboards (like Intel does). Make them stable, make them reliable, push them to consumers and manufacturers. I'd build an AMD machine with an AMD reference board if it's comparable to Intel's. Stability, simplicity and well-documented functionality. Obviously you'll need a comparable CPU to go with it. AMD & Microsoft working (or at least looking like they're working) on ARM could act as a distraction for Intel. AMD could use that to re-position themselves in the market by getting the desktop market back into play and come up with a useful product.
PUBLIC TOILET fucked around with this message at 04:08 on Jun 25, 2011 |
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Jun 25, 2011 04:02
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Space Gopher posted:Well, that's what Sysmark does, too. It all comes down to what tasks you've chosen as representative of "real-world use." Anyone with a clue is not going care about Sysmark scores. "I'm so going to get a 2500K over Phenom II because MS Office runs faster hoho"
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Jun 25, 2011 04:31
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COCKMOUTH.GIF posted:Yes, AMD is trying to go up against a monolithic company that's been using underhanded tactics. In response, they should be shifting their focus on what needs to be done to compete with Intel. Llanos is a good start, but they could continue looking at what Intel is not doing well and strong-arm into that. For instance, Microsoft and Intel aren't getting along in terms of ARM architecture. Work with Microsoft then, see if some deals can be made. Start there, see if Apple will do the same. Spend more on R&D, look at what can be done in the server market. AMD could also try combining the AMD/ATi technology to start pushing out AMD reference mainboards (like Intel does). Make them stable, make them reliable, push them to consumers and manufacturers. I'd build an AMD machine with an AMD reference board if it's comparable to Intel's. Stability, simplicity and well-documented functionality. Obviously you'll need a comparable CPU to go with it. There's no real reason for AMD to make their own branded motherboards, this makes them a competitor with their own partners and is what killed 3Dfx years ago. Intel isn't doing so well in the motherboard arena either, as the complexity and engineering challenges of modern motherboards require a level of focus and dedicated resources that you only see in companies like Asus. None of Intel's motherboards have any interesting or differentiating features, and even their high-end boards are unreliable garbage because they simply don't do the engineering/QA necessary to make good products. Intel's recent drive to push their own branded motherboards could easily end up as a coup for AMD, as Intel damages their relationships with their partners.
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Jun 25, 2011 04:32
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I'm not too worried about lack of competition letting Intel get lazy. Both Android and iOS gaming is taking off while Windows 8 for ARM cpu's will run any 64bit binary that the x86_64 architecture can run. There will probably be some performance limited 32bit VM solution for older apps too. by 2014 I predict the situation will be Intel for performance, ARM for mobility and AMD as a middleground. All of which will be powerful enough to run any game or entertainment app in High Definition that can be run on the WiiU, 360 or PS3. Likely any successor consoles released in 2015-2017 too.
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Jun 25, 2011 04:56
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Verizian posted:Windows 8 for ARM cpu's will run any 64bit binary that the x86_64 architecture can run
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Jun 25, 2011 05:00
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I may have misremembered it but pretty sure someone linked an article in the winows8 thread where MS stated that any current 64bit windows applications will work on Windows 8 for ARM. I'm assuming 32bit support will be a third party VM plugged into the new tile system or running in legacy desktop mode. -edit. Misread your post, yes Intel claimed that there was no way it could work. Then over the following week ARM, nVidia, and Microsoft basically all issued press releases that basically read as a large string of laughter and corporate speak for "Liar liar pants on fire". They also said a few weeks ago that Windows 8 development would be mostly HTML5 based while arstechnica.com clarified things a bit. Verizian fucked around with this message at 05:23 on Jun 25, 2011 |
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Jun 25, 2011 05:15
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Star War Sex Parrot posted:Wait what? Intel said Windows 8 for ARM will not have an emulation layer. Has Microsoft stated otherwise?
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Jun 25, 2011 05:23
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Yep. If I recall Paul Thurott stated that programs will be able to be recompiled to work on ARM, but otherwise, there is no compatibility layer or emulator. Even during the D8 demo, they stated that office was recompiled to work on ARM. In other words, you'll be at the mercy of developers providing a binary.
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Jun 25, 2011 20:19
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Ryokurin posted:In other words, you'll be at the mercy of developers providing a binary. And what that means is Windows on ARM will barely have any software.
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Jun 25, 2011 23:44
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fishmech posted:And what that means is Windows on ARM will barely have any software. If it's the same OS and the same APIs, isn't it just a question of some guy (possibly at Microsoft) writing and selling an ARM compiler to set as a target alongside the x86 compiler? As long as the software doesn't use any assembly code, at least.
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Jun 25, 2011 23:47
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Realistically, how much software do you actually need for Windows 8 ARM? As long as Firefox, Flash and Java get ported, that pretty much covers you for everything but games. Also, would .NET applications need to be recompiled, or can the CLR just JIT into native ARM code?
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Jun 25, 2011 23:55
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Alereon posted:Realistically, how much software do you actually need for Windows 8 ARM? As long as Firefox, Flash and Java get ported, that pretty much covers you for everything but games. If Firefox, Flash, and Java are the only major things ported, what's going to stop you from buying an Android tablet instead?
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Jun 26, 2011 01:12
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David Tennant posted:If Firefox, Flash, and Java are the only major things ported, what's going to stop you from buying an Android tablet instead?
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Jun 26, 2011 01:40
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Factory Factory posted:If it's the same OS and the same APIs, isn't it just a question of some guy (possibly at Microsoft) writing and selling an ARM compiler to set as a target alongside the x86 compiler? Ask yourself: how many programs were ported to Itanium Windows? How many programs were ported to PowerPC Windows NT (when that existed)? There's no particular reason to expect people to take the effort to compile ARM binaries. Edit: Almost forgot: remember when there were like 4 different processor architectures for Windows CE 2.x/3.x? Remember how most programs would only be compiled for one architecture and the others ignored by the developer?
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Jun 26, 2011 02:14
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fishmech posted:Ask yourself: how many programs were ported to Itanium Windows? How many programs were ported to PowerPC Windows NT (when that existed)?
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Jun 26, 2011 02:31
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Yeah but...  Yeah, okay. But those didn't really have major market penetration, whereas a Windows 8 tablet or ultraportable notebook might. It's kind of a chicken-or-egg question, though. Without apps, such devices will never get good penetration. Also, stop making me remember my iPaq.
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Jun 26, 2011 02:33
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Alereon posted:To be fair, both of those architectures failed because of the lack of compelling benefits versus x86/x64. Imagine if Itanium had been fast enough to justify rewriting code for it, for example. These days though, we're going to see people porting apps to JavaScript webapps, not recompiling them for ARM on Windows. ARM has no compelling benefits other than low power usage, which comes at the cost of performance. Noone's going to be replacing full laptops or desktops with ARM based ones because the high-speed ARM CPUS that start to approach 2 generation old x86/x64 chips also use as much power as those used. The only thing slower than x86 apps in an emulation layer on ARM is Javascript replicating a full x86 app on ARM.
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Jun 26, 2011 02:38
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fishmech posted:ARM has no compelling benefits other than low power usage, which comes at the cost of performance. Noone's going to be replacing full laptops or desktops with ARM based ones because the high-speed ARM CPUS that start to approach 2 generation old x86/x64 chips also use as much power as those used.
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Jun 26, 2011 02:45
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Alereon posted:The thing is, even four 1Ghz Cortex A9 cores is enough to provide a pretty effective computing experience when combined with the capable hardware acceleration you find on modern ARM SoCs. No one's talking about beating Intel Core processors, but Atoms don't have effective hardware acceleration so are brought to their knees by video. It's pretty easy for ARM CPUs to take market share in any market with processors like Atom. If you think of the way most people use small computing devices like that, we're talking web browsing, Youtube, and Facebook games, not complex native applications. The problem is that if you want to get a lot of people bothering to port things to work on the platform, knowing it will be restricted to tablets and netbooks is a disincentive. If ARM was actually capable of providing a robust experience at a good pricepoint on full laptops and desktops, then there'd be a lot more push to actually port apps to work on ARM windows. Also ARM devices do provide a good experience now - but your iPad or Android device sure as poo poo ain't stuck running Javascript based programs. Edit: And seriously, for something that's meant to be a netbook? If all you want to do is beat the Atom there's the AMD Zacate or whatever it is netbooks. fishmech fucked around with this message at 03:13 on Jun 26, 2011 |
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Jun 26, 2011 02:56
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Factory Factory posted:If it's the same OS and the same APIs, isn't it just a question of some guy (possibly at Microsoft) writing and selling an ARM compiler to set as a target alongside the x86 compiler? As long as the software doesn't use any assembly code, at least. Windows 8 ARM will certainly be added as a target for Visual Studio. It looks like MinGW even already supports it. But there can still be a lot of obstacles even if the software doesn't use any assembly. Differences in endianness, memory alignment rules, calling conventions and stack layout can potentially impact code across architectures. Even if the code doesn't intentionally rely on this, it is very likely that any application of reasonably large complexity will have many hidden bugs that become apparent in different different conditions. Also, it's not just a matter of re-targeting your own code - every library which your application is dependent on must also be ported. Alereon posted:Also, would .NET applications need to be recompiled, or can the CLR just JIT into native ARM code? A pure managed code .NET application doesn't contain any x86 code at all, AFAIK (the .NET framework is loaded using info encoded in the PE header, not native code), so there would be need need for recompilation in that respect. However, Microsoft has stated that .NET code will be required to be recompiled to run on ARM. I don't think they've justified the reason behind that yet.
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Jun 26, 2011 03:38
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There are a few applications that windows 8 on arm will likely get and will allow it to be successful. Citrix Receiver and VMware View client. With those two applications, an inexpensive, low power windows PC could definately see some success.
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Jun 26, 2011 14:46
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adorai posted:There are a few applications that windows 8 on arm will likely get and will allow it to be successful. Citrix Receiver and VMware View client. With those two applications, an inexpensive, low power windows PC could definately see some success. In business perhaps, but if you're just remoting in you don't need full Windows 8 locally in the first place. When the solution to not having or not being able to run applications is to just run them elsewhere, you can use any OS or CPU locally.
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Jun 26, 2011 15:13
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Alereon posted:SemiAccurate had an interesting article on Wednesday about the AMD/ARM collaboration. In short, they're working on creating a standard on-chip interconnect so that manufacturers can combine ARM CPU cores with an AMD GPU block, or AMD Bobcat CPU cores with hardware acceleration blocks from/for ARM for ultra-low-power x86/x64 applications. The fact that Bobcat CPU cores are designed for production in third-party fabs (since Brazos is fabbed at TSMC and not Global Foundries) will help make adoption more likely. In response to the article about the Intel board, I've noticed a common similarity between Intel reference motherboards over the years. I've built machines using them for the past six years and out of 400 or so workstations in a corporate setting, I've only seen maybe five fail for no reason and a few fail because of water damage or neglect by the end user. In a home user setting, I've only had a problem with one and it was a Sandy Bridge board with the SATA port issue. If you ever read through the manuals and PDF files for Intel reference motherboards, you'll notice a very specific memory compatibility guide. Additionally, they are designed to work within very specific guidelines and nothing more (this means they're designed to run stock and not be overclocked or hosed around with for a long time.) I use them exclusively for that reason. I hate to use a car analogy, but they're pretty similar to German cars. They'll run for a long time, but you'll have weird issues with them in between, especially when you try to make them perform outside of their original specifications. In my personal opinion, anyone that chooses to build a machine with an Intel reference board should use reputable, brand-name components that have been around for a long time. Research is important as well (get the right memory, make sure your video card fits properly, etc.) PUBLIC TOILET fucked around with this message at 15:22 on Jun 26, 2011 |
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Jun 26, 2011 15:19
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Oh man 16 new posts in the AMD bulldozer thread, must be some news!  ARM processor compatability with Windows 8? Awesome.
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Jun 26, 2011 17:05
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COCKMOUTH.GIF posted:AMD ARM mainboards You're basically advocating entry into two separate markets outside AMD's core competencies where there's already vicious competition by established players. I think your analysis is a little one-dimensional. There are more than two companies that design processors.
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Jun 26, 2011 18:15
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fishmech posted:The problem is that if you want to get a lot of people bothering to port things to work on the platform, knowing it will be restricted to tablets and netbooks is a disincentive. If ARM was actually capable of providing a robust experience at a good pricepoint on full laptops and desktops, then there'd be a lot more push to actually port apps to work on ARM windows. Modern JS engines and the ready availability of hardware acceleration mean that there are very few applications that can't be replaced by webapps that have acceptable or even superior performance from the end-user's perspective. The only common application that does enough work that this isn't the case is 3D games, and we're going to see exciting developments in that area thanks to WebGL. You won't be playing Crysis on your ARM netbook/nettop, but you might be playing Battlefield Heroes, Quake Live, or even Counter-Strike without the developer maintaining a native-code plugin for your platform. AMD's Brazos series (Zacate/Ontario/Desna) certainly are some great low-power processors, but the on-the-ground reality is that severe shortages (compared to demand, AMD is pumping them out) mean that no one's making Zacate netbooks because they can make much more expensive ultra-portable notebooks, small desktops, or tablets, and those products that are coming out are at high prices. Even if these supply problems were solved, ARM processors will come in at a substantially lower power envelope and with much higher power efficiency, meaning much longer netbook battery life and easier integration into nettops. ARM SoCs are also physically smaller and more tightly integrated (fewer supporting chips) than even the Brazos platform, which has its own advantages.
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Jun 26, 2011 19:17
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fishmech posted:Ask yourself: how many programs were ported to Itanium Windows? How many programs were ported to PowerPC Windows NT (when that existed)? That was a long time ago though, when everything was written in C++ and using Win32, and a lot of code ended up being very low level and it was a pretty big deal to port something to a different architecture. But people don't develop that way anymore. If you're using Java or a .NET language it's going to require no effort at all to port. You might have some QA issues just to sort out weird differences between the VMs. Same for most of the modern high-level languages, they're basically cross platform already. Plus developers are already used to linux/BSD where you're targeting 10+ architectures or OSX where there was a long period of having both PPC and x86.
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Jun 27, 2011 03:21
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evensevenone posted:Plus developers are already used to linux/BSD where you're targeting 10+ architectures or OSX where there was a long period of having both PPC and x86. Both systems with a vastly smaller software ecosystem than Windows, genius. evensevenone posted:But people don't develop that way anymore. If you're using Java or a .NET language it's going to require no effort at all to port. You might have some QA issues just to sort out weird differences between the VMs. Same for most of the modern high-level languages, they're basically cross platform already. Did you just learn about .,net and Java or something? How naive 
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Jun 27, 2011 04:35
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Ryokurin posted:you need to take Theo Valich articles with a grain of salt. He's been dead wrong several times in the past.
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Jun 27, 2011 08:46
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COCKMOUTH.GIF posted:I hate to use a car analogy, but they're pretty similar to German cars. They'll run for a long time, but you'll have weird issues with them in between, especially when you try to make them perform outside of their original specifications. Actually modern BMWs and Audis are really easy to overclock. For many of them you just need a BIOS flash.
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Jun 27, 2011 12:10
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Lum posted:Actually modern BMWs and Audis are really easy to overclock. For many of them you just need a BIOS flash. True, and then the check engine light will come on a couple months later.  I went through two Audis and a VW in my lifetime. Not much has changed in the way of immediate reliability from my personal experience. But the previous poster was right, let's chat about AMD's bleak future in the desktop processor market now and what technologies they have available!
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Jun 27, 2011 14:25
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fishmech posted:Both systems with a vastly smaller software ecosystem than Windows, genius. You're right, it it is just as difficult to write cross platform software as it was in 1998 when PPC NT was last relevant.
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Jun 28, 2011 00:07
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evensevenone posted:You're right, it it is just as difficult to write cross platform software as it was in 1998 when PPC NT was last relevant. There were C compilers for both PPC and NT and x86 NT (and unix for many years prior). So long as you don't use anything specific to the architecture then code could port fine! Hint: The same problem exists today even with .Net
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Jun 28, 2011 02:40
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Are you seriously arguing that win32 is as portable as .net? That's kind of what it sounds like.
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Jun 28, 2011 04:46
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evensevenone posted:Are you seriously arguing that win32 is as portable as .net? That's kind of what it sounds like. Have you tried porting .NET to a different platform ever? It really sounds like you haven't. evensevenone posted:You're right, it it is just as difficult to write cross platform software as it was in 1998 when PPC NT was last relevant. No Windows that isn't x86/x64 based will ever be relevant buddy.
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Jun 28, 2011 05:58
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fishmech posted:Have you tried porting .NET to a different platform ever? What, write a new JITter and redo any native code libraries?
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Jun 28, 2011 07:03
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fishmech posted:Have you tried porting .NET to a different platform ever? It really sounds like you haven't. I was under the impression Microsoft was going to handle porting .NET and all relevant libraries to ARM. Like it might be an issue if you are writing using mono gtk, or in like Iron Ruby, but in theory C#/Visual Basic apps using whatever the rumored WPF replacement is should run fine.
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Jun 28, 2011 07:29
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