Nvidia's Plan for ARM to Take X86 's Throne | Exclusive

juanrga said:
No. That Wikipedia article is wrong and re-linking to it is not going to change anything.
Click to expand...
Sigh. Fine. So I dug up the ISA REFERENCE guide.

An important feature of the Armv8 architecture is backwards compatibility, combined with the freedom for optimal implementation in a wide range of standard and more specialized use cases. The Armv8 architecture supports: • A 64-bit Execution state, AArch64. • A 32-bit Execution state, AArch32, that is compatible with previous versions of the Arm architecture.
https://developer.arm.com/documentation/ddi0487/latest/

The Arm architecture has evolved significantly since its introduction, and Arm continues to develop it. Eight major versions of the architecture have been defined to date, denoted by the version numbers 1 to 8. Of these, the first three versions are now obsolete. The generic names AArch64 and AArch32 describe the 64-bit and 32-bit Execution states: AArch64 Is the 64-bit Execution state, meaning addresses are held in 64-bit registers, and instructions in the base instruction set can use 64-bit registers for their processing. AArch64 state supports the A64 instruction set. AArch32 Is the 32-bit Execution state, meaning addresses are held in 32-bit registers, and instructions in the base instruction sets use 32-bit registers for their processing. AArch32 state supports the T32 and A32 instruction sets

And page A1-38:
Transferring control between the AArch64 and AArch32 Execution states is known as interprocessing. The PE can move between Execution states only on a change of Exception level, and subject to the rules given in Interprocessing on page D1-2400. This means different software layers, such as an application, an operating system kernel, and a hypervisor, executing at different Exception levels, can execute in different Execution states.

You can change between states on the same processor.
juanrga said:
ARMv8 introduced two architectural states: Aarch64 and Aarch32. Aarch64 only can execute instructions from the A64 set (what I have called ARM64). Aarch32 only can execute instructions from the A32 and T32 sets (what I have collectively called ARM32).

The first armv8 mobile cores (e.g., Apple Cyclone and Cortex A57) implemented support for both ARM64 and ARM32 instructions sets, the first for the new 64bit code and the other for all the legacy code. Apple has dropped ARM32 in its last cores and ARM plans to do it by the year 2022

https://www.androidauthority.com/arm-64-bit-1165264/
Click to expand...

A vendor choosing to drop support for part of an instruction state has nothing to do with the ISA. Although I do appreciate that ARM gives you that option - it does let the vendors build optimized CPUs.
juanrga said:
The armv8 server cores didn't have to support tons of legacy code because ARM servers were just starting. So engineers implemented only ARM64 in the server chips. E.g. the TX2 core doesn't supports ARM32

https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/cavium/thunderx2#CN99xx

That is just what Marwell is saying you in the link that I posted before. Their TX2 and TX3 cores only support the new ARM64 ISA. The cores don't have to support the old ISAs and the legacy 32bit ARM code. That is the reason why the TX3 core uses about 30% less die area than an equivalent Zen3 core (both in 7nm):
Click to expand...
A vendor choosing to drop support for part of an instruction state has nothing to do with the ISA. Marvell exiting the generic core market, however, shows that there's not enough business in that market to justify their continuing to pursue it. Part of the problem with ARM in the enterprise space is the fragmentation of the supplier base. While they're all supposed to be compatible, any engineer knows that's not going to be 100% true.
juanrga said:
ARM engineers implemented 64bit as a new separate ISA instead as an extension to 32bit, because the long term plan was to offer the technical possibility to drop support for legacy stuff in the future. AMD engineers implemented 64bit as a cheap extension to 32bit and this is the reason why any modern 64bit x86 core from either AMD or Intel has to support legacy instructions sets back to 16 bits.
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Again, no.
juanrga said:
Not so fast. I posted in this thread a figure with the evolution of architectures in the TOP500 list and x86 needed 10 years to dominate the list. ARM is expected to need a similar amount of time.
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x86 wasn't designed for that - the GPU portion of that list is what you should care about, because that's what was heading to dominate during that timeframe - we all knew it was coming, even back in the mid-2000s when it was still Power on a lot of them and we were futzing around with Blue Gene and the like. But that's neither here nor there - ARM currently is on top, and that will change in 2-3 years like it always does (my bet is back to another custom ASIC of some kind, GPU or otherwise, although it might be hosted on ARM).
juanrga said:
The efficiency gain depends of what is being compared, but the gap is real and the reason why companies are migrating to ARM servers. I have some old graphs from Paypal with the reduction in "Power Consumption Per Year" resulting from the migration to ARM servers.
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Which companies? Paypal is heavily on x86 - they've talked and presented at VMworld about their environment in the past, both when they were ebay and now separate. Links? Show me a non-hyper scalar that has done a mass migration to ARM, please - or even a significant (15%+) investment in ARM servers.
juanrga said:
He is making it in the first part that you quoted: "None of this is true. There are plenty of RISC alternatives to Intel, like SPARC, POWER, and MIPS, and none of them ended up having a power efficiency advantage."

I repeat again, this is no the older RISC vs CISC debate. ARM64 has a power efficiency advantage because it has been designed to be clean and efficient.
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Keep reading the rest of what he posted - he goes into that too. The power advantage is minimal because hte CPU is only a small part of the overall server equation, but you know what? Lets set that aside, because at the end of the day, for your average Fortune 500 company, it doesn't really matter.
juanrga said:
TX2 in a 16nm node is as efficient as Naples in 14nm. Using the same node TX2 had been more efficient than Naples. Something similar happens when comparing TX3 to Rome. The ARM core needs about 30% less transistors and this translates into less power consumption. Jim Keller gave a talk explaining why ARM64 was more efficient than x86 and why K12 core was going to be better than Zen. Anandtech has an early analysis of the new N1 cores and of their efficiency gap with x86:
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I tend to trust Keller. Now tack on 1TB of ram, drives, case fans/etc, and show me a 15%+ overall power improvement. If you can't, I'm not interested as a buyer, because the effort of the changeover will never generate an ROI. Even anand commented on performance per dollar, not performance per watt. Small TDP differences in the processor (I will gladly grant that ARM consumes less power than x86 - that was never my argument) won't make a significant difference to overall operational expenses. Go to my last point to understand why.
juanrga said:
I hope that they can soon test efficiency of some Neoverse chip.



Companies have been migrating to ARM no matter what you think about it. Paypal uses ARM servers, Microsoft is using ARM servers...

Moreover, the ARM-powered AWS instances are growing very fast.

400759_b7bdb9be-d97b-483f-a643-160de6c683bb.svg


EDIT: The Wikipedia page comparing ISAs is better than the other page you cite.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_instruction_set_architectures

As you can check, there is a single entry for x86 in the table, because AMD64 is an extension to x86-32. However, there are three entries for ARM in the table because A32, T32, and A64 are three different ISAs.
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Ok, so once again - someone NOT a hyper-scalar. The markets are two different things, and Graviton is AWS only.

There are enormous numbers of applications that cannot move to the cloud - not everything is going there. For someone like AWS, any workload they can put on ARM saves them operational costs - every bit of power savings or edge they can eek out is money in their pocket, and every drop of operational cost reduced is another drop into Bezos' pocket. For them, anything they can build like that as a fully integrated operation helps - but outside of AWS/Azure/GCP, no one is operating at this scale. Amazon built their entire operation on integrating what were external functions into their own business, but that's a whole different conversation again. Suffice to say, no one is Amazon, and Amazon doesn't represent anyone else.

The converse, however, for people that have to figure out how to get their software to work on ARM enough to justify a corporate investment in the platform, is not true. No one really cares about the processor anymore, as long as the apps function on it - which is where ARM has a huge weakness in the commercial and enterprise space right now. You have to buy servers, test, figure out how to make things that don't work actually work, and then maintain two different environments (with drastically different management stacks, since none of the x86 management tools and virtualization tools work on ARM currently) until some future point where you can move the last things over to the new design... all to what, save a few bucks on power? Unless you're absolutely massive, it just doesn't happen - which is why so many of them are still buying Intel CPUs right now, when Epyc is arguably a better solution, and the two of them are even 100% compatible (minus the downtime to migrate CPU architectures) with each other. Will this change? Maybe. Maybe not. We don't know, but I'd be hesitant to place any bets on folks making that investment right now, because at the end of the day, the CPU doesn't matter that much anymore - as long as it's compatible, it's fast enough and cheap enough, and that's where the consideration tends to end.

Here's my simple argument: It does not matter if ARM is a little more power efficient than x86, or even a little more powerful. For the average consumer, the lack of actual system to purchase will block them. For the average commercial or enterprise organization, there's no ROI on the migration, especially as there's neither a virtualization stack of significance for ARM (VMware/Hyper-V/Xen - open betas / flings don't count) nor associated management tools, and the potential savings in power will never pay back the effort/operational expense of managing the environmental switch over, and that's even making the assumption that we can get Windows Server running on ARM on-prem too (and doesn't explain what we're going to do with the MASSIVE pile of legacy software out there - you going to run two totally different environments for years)? I've still got customers running Windows 2000 - never mind modern ones like 2016!

Business outcomes drive revenue. For AWS, ARM delivers a business outcome - anything they can put there (new apps mostly, that just don't care or are new enough to be coded for ARM/x86 simultaneously / SaaS where no one cares what the CPU is) drives potentially significant savings in opex, and thus higher profits/cash flows/stockholder equity. It also grants them full control of the entire stack, which will let them potentially consolidate more customers into the same footprint or same hardware more than they could with something beyond their control. For commercial/enterprise, the difference is insignificant, and the overhead is massive in comparison, at least for 3-5 years, and we have no idea for the home consumer (outside of oddballs like the Raspberry Pi). There is effectively no real business outcome - pennies saved in one spot, costing dollars in another. At least for some time. Will that change in the future? Maybe. But x86 might also have another major advancement, totally blocking out whatever the ARM guys are working on too - that's happened in the past.

My prediction, and I'll put money on it: At the end of 2022, outside of hyper-scalars, we will see less than 8% market penetration of ARM servers. I'll put $1000 to the charity of your choice on it, and FrgMstr can ban me if I don't. You willing to put money on it too?

I like ARM. It's a fascinating time to be in the industry, because for once we have something else to play with - but I also exist in the business world, and the predictions that "this is the end of x86!" aren't based in reality, because the business world does not care - not until the migration is seamless and the ROI is significantly higher.
 
Mark it down. Nvidia will never actually acquire ARM. The British government, the chinese government, and various regulatory agencies will step in. This will never happen.
 
kirbyrj said:
Mark it down. Nvidia will never actually acquire ARM. The British government, the chinese government, and various regulatory agencies will step in. This will never happen.
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What do either the British and Chinese governments have to do with this, even remotely?
 
Red Falcon said:
What do either the British and Chinese governments have to do with this, even remotely?
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British government has a lot of control over ARM, it being based there (the original ARM systems were tied to BBC projects, in fact - sorta). ARM also has a major branch in China, which has (naturally) resulted in the Chinese taking a certain interest in it (especially given the recent sanctions; this is a processor they can build since they can just "take" the designs as needed). Brits more than the Chinese have a chance of stopping it - ARM could always just cut off their Chinese arm (pun intended) and the Chinese would be out of the conversation, but the Brits - they control HQ. And treaty/legal agreements there, if the Brits don't approve... it won't happen.

But Nvidia has a LOT of money - money makes almost anything possible these days. We'll see. I wouldn't bet on Nvidia acquiring arm, but I also wouldn't bet against it - not right now. Weirder things have happened.
 
Red Falcon said:
What do either the British and Chinese governments have to do with this, even remotely?
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They need regulator approval from... the US, the UK, the EU and China.

US regulation is a joke and the US is rubbing their hands together that all major CPU ISA would be US owned. (which means if they say Nvidia no more ARM license's for Chinese companies... that is the way it will be) The UK let the previous sale of ARM go through so I can't see them standing in the way this time either. The EU has no teeth and will just go along... unless they see an opportunity to extract a toll which is likely. China however is likely going to fight this tooth and fucking nail. Personally I say the likely hood of this going through is 50/50. China may have the leverage to put the kybosh on this. Obviously they are not going to roll over and let the US have the ability to turn off the export of ALL standard CPU ISAs.
 
ChadD said:
They need regulator approval from... the US, the UK, the EU and China.

US regulation is a joke and the US is rubbing their hands together that all major CPU ISA would be US owned. (which means if they say Nvidia no more ARM license's for Chinese companies... that is the way it will be) The UK let the previous sale of ARM go through so I can't see them standing in the way this time either. The EU has no teeth and will just go along... unless they see an opportunity to extract a toll which is likely. China however is likely going to fight this tooth and fucking nail. Personally I say the likely hood of this going through is 50/50. China may have the leverage to put the kybosh on this. Obviously they are not going to roll over and let the US have the ability to turn off the export of ALL standard CPU ISAs.
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The one caveat on the British side is the current wave of nationalism going on there - they have a lot of pride in ARM (it's their CPU, dammit!), and I could see the MPs blocking it just because they don't want to give that up to the states. It's one of the few things of that nature that are totally British (current Japanese ownership aside). They could be dicks just to be dicks, in other words. Agreed on the Chinese/EU though. And the US.
 
Interesting conversation, thanks to all that are chiming in.

What prevents China from just stealing the ARM ISA like they do everything else if the sale goes through? Some sort of tariff threat maybe?
 
longblock454 said:
Interesting conversation, thanks to all that are chiming in.

What prevents China from just stealing the ARM ISA like they do everything else if the sale goes through? Some sort of tariff threat maybe?
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I see a Chinese ARM spin off with Nvidia losing billions of $$. A move like ARM ISA theft would sink any outside involvement in chinese fabs and chip production.
 
longblock454 said:
Interesting conversation, thanks to all that are chiming in.

What prevents China from just stealing the ARM ISA like they do everything else if the sale goes through? Some sort of tariff threat maybe?
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Reality: Nada
Legally: Sanctions and treaty calls, etc - but that might not do anything. Especially fi the Chinese are just using it internally, rather than trying to export it.
 
Some could argue that with the fired chinese CEO still in place that china's creation of their own ARM company has already occurred.
 
longblock454 said:
Interesting conversation, thanks to all that are chiming in.

What prevents China from just stealing the ARM ISA like they do everything else if the sale goes through? Some sort of tariff threat maybe?
Click to expand...

Well they haven't really stolen any CPU ISAs.... the companies there making x86 have had proper licenses. (one was stopped by the US, when they forced AMD to end that deal). Their home grown ISAs for their super computers are as I understand it pretty unique... they may share some Alpha like elements, but so does every other CPU in the world really.

As I type this... I think I would perhaps revise my own forecasted chance of this going though to 90/10. What I sort of forgot about is huawei has a ARM Architecture license.... they may be having production problems thanks to the US. However the US can't do shit about them using the ARM ISA... they basically have the exact same deal Apple does. So if China can ramp up fabrication they can make ALL the ARM Cpus they like forever no matter what any other country says. So more then possible they don't really care all that much. They might put up a show and in the end let it go through after the new US administration throws them a few bones as compensation on the back end.
 
longblock454 said:
Interesting conversation, thanks to all that are chiming in.

What prevents China from just stealing the ARM ISA like they do everything else if the sale goes through? Some sort of tariff threat maybe?
Click to expand...
You don't think they already have?

ChadD said:
They need regulator approval from... the US, the UK, the EU and China.

US regulation is a joke and the US is rubbing their hands together that all major CPU ISA would be US owned. (which means if they say Nvidia no more ARM license's for Chinese companies... that is the way it will be) The UK let the previous sale of ARM go through so I can't see them standing in the way this time either. The EU has no teeth and will just go along... unless they see an opportunity to extract a toll which is likely. China however is likely going to fight this tooth and fucking nail. Personally I say the likely hood of this going through is 50/50. China may have the leverage to put the kybosh on this. Obviously they are not going to roll over and let the US have the ability to turn off the export of ALL standard CPU ISAs.
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China won't do anything about the regulatory approval simply because they have or will steal the IP. Edit: And China doesn't have to worry about the US ability to turn off the export of ALL standard CPU ISA's they have an x86 license.
 
Well regardless of everything else that could happen to this a stance of “We’re coming for you!” is at least preferable to “We’re here to maintain the status quo”
 
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ChadD said:
Well they haven't really stolen any CPU ISAs.... the companies there making x86 have had proper licenses. (one was stopped by the US, when they forced AMD to end that deal). Their home grown ISAs for their super computers are as I understand it pretty unique... they may share some Alpha like elements, but so does every other CPU in the world really.

As I type this... I think I would perhaps revise my own forecasted chance of this going though to 90/10. What I sort of forgot about is huawei has a ARM Architecture license.... they may be having production problems thanks to the US. However the US can't do shit about them using the ARM ISA... they basically have the exact same deal Apple does. So if China can ramp up fabrication they can make ALL the ARM Cpus they like forever no matter what any other country says. So more then possible they don't really care all that much. They might put up a show and in the end let it go through after the new US administration throws them a few bones as compensation on the back end.
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Don't forget the sanctions and embargo though - I'm not sure that Huawei has the latest ISA updates, or could easily get them legally. Not saying they couldn't get them otherwise, mind you - just not the normal way...
 
lopoetve said:
Don't forget the sanctions and embargo though - I'm not sure that Huawei has the latest ISA updates, or could easily get them legally. Not saying they couldn't get them otherwise, mind you - just not the normal way...
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They do they have an Architecture license. Its no different from the ones Apple and Samsung hold. China is covered unless Nvidia tried to screw everyone over by massively extending the ISA... which isn't impossible.

As for sanctions against Huawei..... I somehow doubt they survive this year. Perhaps they don't lift them in January... but come on Biden isn't going to continue. I'm Canadian and China has been punishing us for a year now cause we where holding one of the Huawei execs... its all going to end over the next 6 months or so. They will try to do it a bit at a time and quietly back it all up. The new admin will claim they got this concession for X and and a few months later this concession for Y... and at some point they will try and end all the embargos against them as quietly as possible. China has bet a ton on Huawei.... and they are ramping up home grown fabrication for them as fast as they can. Still trust me by this time next year TMSC will once again be fabbing for Huawei... and by this time the year after China won't need them anymore. I wasn't the biggest Trump fan (not that it is one bit of my business as a Canadian... honest sorry to bring it up) his stance on China was for sure more of what we needed though. Seems to me Biden will go back to the way it was as quickly as possible.
 
Verge said:
As of July 2020 17% MacOS.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/218089/global-market-share-of-windows-7/


Compared to the powerpc days of 1997
https://www.cnet.com/news/apple-market-share-sinks-again/#:~:text=Apple also slipped from this,the same quarter of 1997.

3.3%


So your comparison is... well quite frankly... not very valid is it?
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then your inital question was stupid, you asked when the last time a whatever dollar company switched to/from one of the platforms on my list (clearly referring to apple)... one of which was PowerPC which apple switched to/from... and if you want to go with a 1,5T company microsoft switched from x86 to PowerPC and back to x86 with the xbox/xbox360/xbone

so you still waiting?
 
FLECOM said:
then your inital question was stupid, you asked when the last time a whatever dollar company switched to/from one of the platforms on my list (clearly referring to apple)... one of which was PowerPC which apple switched to/from... and if you want to go with a 1,5T company microsoft switched from x86 to PowerPC and back to x86 with the xbox/xbox360/xbone

so you still waiting?
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I'm not referring to gaming consoles obviously.

But since you bring it up, ARMH is currently number two.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_game_consoles
 
So are ARM chips gonna be scalped so corporations have to ebay them lmfao literally

Though seriously do you think that ARM is the answer to the ever encroaching x86 limit due to silicons eventual process limits?
 
lopoetve said:
Sigh. Fine. So I dug up the ISA REFERENCE guide.

An important feature of the Armv8 architecture is backwards compatibility, combined with the freedom for optimal implementation in a wide range of standard and more specialized use cases. The Armv8 architecture supports: • A 64-bit Execution state, AArch64. • A 32-bit Execution state, AArch32, that is compatible with previous versions of the Arm architecture.
https://developer.arm.com/documentation/ddi0487/latest/

The Arm architecture has evolved significantly since its introduction, and Arm continues to develop it. Eight major versions of the architecture have been defined to date, denoted by the version numbers 1 to 8. Of these, the first three versions are now obsolete. The generic names AArch64 and AArch32 describe the 64-bit and 32-bit Execution states: AArch64 Is the 64-bit Execution state, meaning addresses are held in 64-bit registers, and instructions in the base instruction set can use 64-bit registers for their processing. AArch64 state supports the A64 instruction set. AArch32 Is the 32-bit Execution state, meaning addresses are held in 32-bit registers, and instructions in the base instruction sets use 32-bit registers for their processing. AArch32 state supports the T32 and A32 instruction sets

And page A1-38:
Transferring control between the AArch64 and AArch32 Execution states is known as interprocessing. The PE can move between Execution states only on a change of Exception level, and subject to the rules given in Interprocessing on page D1-2400. This means different software layers, such as an application, an operating system kernel, and a hypervisor, executing at different Exception levels, can execute in different Execution states.

You can change between states on the same processor.
Click to expand...

Evidently. Since the AArch64 only can execute the 64bit ISA (A64) and Aarch32 only can execute the 32bit ISAs (A32 and T32), you need some way to switch between both execution states if you want the same core can execute both 32bit and 64bit code. But there is no obligation to implement both AArch64 and Aarch32. https://developer.arm.com/architectures/cpu-architecture/a-profile

In addition, the Armv8-A architecture allows different levels of AArch64 and AArch32 support, for example:
  • AArch64 only designs.
  • AArch64 designs that also support AArch32 operating systems/virtual machines.
  • AArch64 support with AArch32 at (unprivileged) application level only.
Click to expand...

And that is why current server/HPC cores implement only AArch64 and why future Cortex cores will do as well. I don't bother to explain again why ARM engineers designed it in this way with a separate A64 ISA.

lopoetve said:
A vendor choosing to drop support for part of an instruction state has nothing to do with the ISA. Although I do appreciate that ARM gives you that option - it does let the vendors build optimized CPUs.
Click to expand...

No one is dropping part of the ISA. You seem to confound ARMv8 with the three base ISAs it supports: A64, A32, and T32

https://developer.arm.com/architectures/instruction-sets

lopoetve said:
Which companies? Paypal is heavily on x86 - they've talked and presented at VMworld about their environment in the past, both when they were ebay and now separate. Links?
Click to expand...

Paypal has been running on ARM servers for a while

https://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2015/04/29/paypal-deploys-arm-servers-in-data-centers

lopoetve said:
I tend to trust Keller. Now tack on 1TB of ram, drives, case fans/etc, and show me a 15%+ overall power improvement. If you can't, I'm not interested as a buyer, because the effort of the changeover will never generate an ROI. Even anand commented on performance per dollar, not performance per watt.
Click to expand...

Anandtech didn't comment on performance per watt because they only got remote access to the chip and Amazon didn't disclose official TDP. However, Anandtech commented on the performance per watt advantage of the Neoverse platform in the link I gave you. I also quoted them. I will repeat part of the quote: "Even with this in mind, Arm’s projected results for a N1 64 core design are just outright impressive considering the fact that we’re talking about TDPs much smaller than any of AMD and Intel’s solutions, creating a performance and efficiency gap that I have a hard time seeing the x86 solutions being able to compete against."
 
we have been hearing this for decades now that ARM is the next big thing...yeah no because they do not have the ability to run windows and it's applications at an acceptable level
 
YeuEmMaiMai said:
we have been hearing this for decades now that ARM is the next big thing...yeah no because they do not have the ability to run windows and it's applications at an acceptable level
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Win10 runs on ARM; but you’re right on the applications. Recompile and reachitecture aren’t always easy
 
AMD has been working with ARM processor designs for awhile, if things move more in that direction or if AMD wants to tackle the mobile phone/tablet/Other market with processors/GPUs they can. AMD can also throw their experience with chiplets, stacking and so on. A number of 3d stack patents and cooling methods AMD has.

https://planetsmarts.com/2020/12/03...-soc-with-arm-cpu-and-integrated-dram-memory/

AMD as well as Apple own an ARM architecture license meaning they can design their own ARM chips:

https://gigaom.com/2014/05/05/amd-t...icense-to-marry-x86-and-arm-instruction-sets/
 
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I was hoping AMD would do an ARM chip as they were so close before, Now that Nvidia bought ARM - forget about it. its not going to happen.
 
Mega6 said:
I was hoping AMD would do an ARM chip as they were so close before, Now that Nvidia bought ARM - forget about it. its not going to happen.
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Is that from some source? Why not? AMD can do what they want with ARM, produce and sell chips as they please, no different than Apple.
 
well lookie here. I had forgotten about the C7 info leaked last year.

AMD Ryzen C7

AMD Ryzen C7 specifications:

  • CPU
    • 2x Gaugin_Pro Mobile Core @ 3.0 GHz (Cortex-X1 based)
    • 2x Gaugin_Mobile Core @ 2.6 GHz (Cortex-A78 based)
    • 4x Arm Cortex-A55 clocked @ 2.0 GHz
  • GPU – AMD Radeon RDNA 2 Mobile with 4x compute units @ 700 Mhz that claims to be 45% faster than Adreno 650 GPU found in Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 SoC, and supports real-time hardware ray-tracing and variable rate shading.
  • Memory I/F – 4x 16-bit LPDDR5 @ 2750 MHz
  • Storage – UFS 3.1
  • Video Output – Up to 2K @ 144 Hz with HDR10+ support
  • Connectivity
    • Cellular – 5G via MediaTek 5G UltraSave modem with 2CC carrier aggregation and dual SIM support
    • 802.11 b/g/n/ac/ax/ad/ay WiFi 6
    • Bluetooth 5.1
    • GNSS – GPS, Beidou, Galileo, GLONASS
    • NFC
  • USB – USB 3.1
  • Process – 5nm TSMC
 
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Mega6 said:
well lookie here. I had forgotten about the C7 info leaked last year.

AMD Ryzen C7

AMD Ryzen C7 specifications:

  • CPU
    • 2x Gaugin_Pro Mobile Core @ 3.0 GHz (Cortex-X1 based)
    • 2x Gaugin_Mobile Core @ 2.6 GHz (Cortex-A78 based)
    • 4x Arm Cortex-A55 clocked @ 2.0 GHz
  • GPU – AMD Radeon RDNA 2 Mobile with 4x compute units @ 700 Mhz that claims to be 45% faster than Adreno 650 GPU found in Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 SoC, and supports real-time hardware ray-tracing and variable rate shading.
  • Memory I/F – 4x 16-bit LPDDR5 @ 2750 MHz
  • Storage – UFS 3.1
  • Video Output – Up to 2K @ 144 Hz with HDR10+ support
  • Connectivity
    • Cellular – 5G via MediaTek 5G UltraSave modem with 2CC carrier aggregation and dual SIM support
    • 802.11 b/g/n/ac/ax/ad/ay WiFi 6
    • Bluetooth 5.1
    • GNSS – GPS, Beidou, Galileo, GLONASS
    • NFC
  • USB – USB 3.1
  • Process – 5nm TSMC
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Not 100% sure this is true, but it would not surprise me at all if they did have an ARM-based design in the works, they are trying to aim for Console dominance and getting something in there to get NVidia out of the Nintendo space would be their next objective.
 
Being that Apple, AMD and a few others can create any design supporting the ARM 64 instruction set, something that will probably be around for decades, if AMD can or if they will, a hybrid processor that does both X64/Arm64 effectively is not off the table. A transition processor. As for users, I don't think most care what instruction set is being used as long as it does what one wants and is better than the previous device they used. In other words it does not matter too much to users if ARM64 or X64.
 
noko said:
Being that Apple, AMD and a few others can create any design supporting the ARM 64 instruction set, something that will probably be around for decades, if AMD can or if they will, a hybrid processor that does both X64/Arm64 effectively is not off the table. A transition processor. As for users, I don't think most care what instruction set is being used as long as it does what one wants and is better than the previous device they used. In other words it does not matter too much to users if ARM64 or X64.
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From what I understand of the M1, it does have some sort of Translation layer so not all the x86 to arm instructions are emulated just a subset of them. If Apple can do it I would have to assume that AMD could as well, question becomes do they have the time to sink the resources into a serious ARM product at this time. I would really hate to see AMD's hot streak come to an end because they stretched themselves too thin on too many projects at once.
 
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