ARM leaps forward!

[WolfToTheMoon]

According to this blog they are looking to go head-to-head with x86:
"Denver frees PCs, workstations and servers from the hegemony and
inefficiency of the x86 architecture. For several years, makers of high-
end computing platforms have had no choice about instruction-set
architecture. The only option was the x86 instruction set with
variable-length instructions, a small register set, and other features
that interfered with modern compiler optimizations, required a larger
area for instruction decoding, and substantially reduced energy
efficiency.
Denver provides a choice. System builders can now choose a high-
performance processor based on a RISC instruction set with modern
features such as fixed-width instructions, predication, and a large
general register file. These features enable advanced compiler
techniques and simplify implementation, ultimately leading to higher
performance and a more energy-efficient processor."

OH, bulls...

nVidia tried for years, unsuccesfuly, to get an x86 licensing deal... Than they tried going around legal issues and designed Denver so that it translates x86 code into a custom internal machine code(that design feature will also be present in the ARM Denver core, a legacy of the x86 begginings)... And when Intel said sorry we'll still sue your asses, than they switched to ARM. Now it's all roses it seems...

[WolfToTheMoon]

ARM is now the only CPU in the world that will have deep penetration in the mobile devices, the PC, servers and supercomputers.

Arguably, Intel already has that with Medfield + Clover Trail and IvyBridge variants.

nVidia only really wanted to make CPUs to pair with their Tesla GPUs for a specific market and uses... Since Denver will not match Intel's Haswell/Broadwell performance it kinda begs the question how it differs from x86 Denver.
aside from a different architecture they will always be playing second fiddle to Intel... And on the ARM side of things, there are more big players than on x86, albeit maybe not one has the advantages and monopoly of Intel on x86...

And lets not forget, Intel owns an ARM license and should they decide one day to reenter that market with their fab/process advantage they could easily decimate competition...

The power usage thing is a myth, Intel proved with Medfield and Clover trail  x86 scales to sub 1W TDP while delivering A9/A15 rivaling performance  - and that with an ancient in-order Atom core

[WolfToTheMoon]

IBM is only interested in custom products for specific customers. And they would probably do such a thing with ARM if somebody came knocking at their door with a big enough bucket of money...


Freescale, on the other hand, has falling revenue and is bleeding money. It's only a matter of time before they switch to supporting just one viable architecture and it's no brainer that PPC is not it.

[WolfToTheMoon]

As an example: take my damn noisy and hot Intel i5-based laptop and give me a cold, silent, efficient ARM-based laptop with 1/4 the raw power. Keep raw power for yourself! All I need is a video core with HW geometry transformation engine and HW fullHD H264 & MPEG2 decoding.
You see? The ARM computer is more capable, better designed and respects the enviroment by not needing a thermonuclear plant for himself as Intel chips usually do.

Underclock your i5 and it'll use very little power while still having very good performance. No need for a CPU switch
That's what I did with my Turion, at 900 MHz it's noiseless and produces very little heat - still sufficiently fast for everyday computing
When I need power, I bring it back on it's native 1.8 GHz clock.

[WolfToTheMoon]

That would explain the flood of new PPC designs including two new 64bit cores (a first for Freescale). Yep, look like they're abandoning the market.:laugh1:

They will be forced to in the near future. They're loosing market share left and right, revenues are down, most divisions are selling less products... It's pretty obvious a point where they'll not be able to support and develop 2 distinct architectures is not far away....

[WolfToTheMoon]

The same could be asked about why they maintained x86 builds of OSX before they even had any plans to switch to Intel. Not every internal project at a company is directly tied to current business prospects.

Steve Jobs planned and wanted for Apple to switch to Intel x86 as early as late 90s. He was personally very dissatisfied with Motorola and their PPC chips and since Motorola also lost a lot of money when Jobs killed the clone market, there was no love between the two.

[WolfToTheMoon]

Got a reference for that?

Sure, it's in Isaacson biography on Jobs.