ARM developments coming to a Windows laptop near you

[ghettosynth]

Computers that are relevant for professional audio-production are desktops. Many hobby musicians also use laptops.

You can't compare mainframes/'supercomputers' to these machines. They got a completely different architecture. It's highly parallel and operates with thousands of cores. They need special software that is written for a very specific task. The guys who build these machines pick CPUs mainly by price in relation to processing power and operation costs.

I started a similar post, but yes, exactly.

[jupiter8]

You can't compare mainframes/'supercomputers' to these machines. They got a completely different architecture. It's highly parallel and operates with thousands of cores. They need special software that is written for a very specific task. The guys who build these machines pick CPUs mainly by price in relation to processing power and operation costs.

I dunno,man. Most supercomputer are just regular servers (AMD Epyc, Intel Xeon) running Linux. They're not that different from regular computers, there's just lots of them with fast network cards.

Anyways my point is, there are very powerful ARM server chips, they're not just for mobile.

[egbert]

There is obviously a degree of parallelism in DAW workloads with lots of plugins and/or lots of synth/sampler voices. However, there are tasks which require running a single thread really fast with each stage of the process needing the output of the previous stage (sequential operation rather than simultaneous/parallel) and currently ARM is not winning on those tasks, it wins on massive parallelism and low power. So processing large images or hi-res video streams with many millions of pixels lends itself to massive parallelism and this is what graphic processors are optimised for also. If ARM tries to beat Intel/AMD at their game then some of the benefits of their low-power architecture might be lost. So it is not obvious that Intel/AMD lose here and if it were obvious they would know that better than us and move toward ARM's approach or simply use their own ARM licences to join in the party. They clearly see a market for their approach.

[machinesworking]

Computers that are relevant for professional audio-production are desktops. Many hobby musicians also use laptops.

Yes Prodigy using laptops onstage among other "hobby" musicians.... plus the point is completely, pointless when the discussion is whether thermals play a role in computer performance.

You can't compare mainframes/'supercomputers' to these machines. They got a completely different architecture. It's highly parallel and operates with thousands of cores. They need special software that is written for a very specific task. The guys who build these machines pick CPUs mainly by price in relation to processing power and operation costs.

The point was clear, Arm can be ramped up. What we've seen so far is Apple using their chips for smaller devices, and with significant power. Take the chips out of thermally constraining devices and you can ramp up performance even further. This seems so basic, low wattage Arm chips from Apple are competing well with chips twice their wattage, this is an area we've seen performance increase in before. It's already happened over and over in the chip market. We also see signs that other tech companies such as Microsoft, Qualcom etc. are interested in a similar trajectory. Apple has a 20 core chip in a glorified Mac Mini, this should be proof enough to anyone that it's possible to ramp this approach up.

[BONES]

As predicted. M1 was an extinction-level event. Intel architecture is EOL.

Right, just like was when RISC server chips dominated in the 1990s. Until they didn't because Intel was better. This might seem all fresh and new to you but to Intel it's deja-vu all over again.

With mobile devices being pre-dominant sellers and the increased focus on power efficiency, I don't think there are going to be many x86 devices on the market in 10 years.

Except that Apple's silicon doesn't deliver any better than Intel can, does it? There are still Intel powered laptops with longer battery life than an M1 powered Mac so why would Intel be worried?

Apple always understood that hardware and software need to be one and the same for the optimal experience.

Hardly. For Apple, it makes sense to harmonise a tiny division (Mac) with the division that makes all their money for them (iOS). It probably saves Apple billions of dollars and ill eventually allow a complete convergence of iOS and macOS. Nobody else has those kinds of efficiencies to make in moving to a whole new platform worth the disruption.

Microsoft and co. are slowly waking up to that. If they want to compete they'll have to make their own chips.

Microsoft have been making their own chips for ages, for Hololens and I think for XBox now, too. They've also been making Windows on ARM for several years now and partnering with Qualcomm with it. But guess what? Nobody cares and nothing Apple has been doing in the last 18 months or so indicates that anyone should. Yes, Apple's stuff is competitive but it's not superior in any way that matters to consumers. It's one of those points of difference Apple loves to have for its marketing department not something that's actually going to make a difference to anyone.

This can't be stressed enough, everything is about thermals, you match a speed at a lower degree level, you can ramp up speeds, cores everything.

If this is true, why aren't Apple's new CPUs faster/more powerful than Intel's or AMD's?

The point was clear, Arm can be ramped up. What we've seen so far is Apple using their chips for smaller devices, and with significant power. Take the chips out of thermally constraining devices and you can ramp up performance even further.

This is true of any processor, not something exclusive to ARM. In fact, when thermals don't matter, or they start to matter less, the advantages of RISC/ARM also matter less. That's just basic common sense.

[BONES]

Most supercomputer are just regular servers (AMD Epyc, Intel Xeon) running Linux.

Hardly. They don't just download UBUNTU and install it, they run a highly specialised version of Linux that they write specifically for that machine. In fact, most serious supercomputers run different OS versions for different tasks. They may just be acres of servers but they are fundamentally different from an Amazon server farm or Weta's render wall.

[jupiter8]

Hardly. They don't just download UBUNTU and install it, they run a highly specialised version of Linux that they write specifically for that machine.

I don't doubt that. The point i was trying to make that the hardware they use in supercomputers are just regular off the shelf computers (just lots of them). There's no special unobtanium supercomputer chip that only big companies can buy.

You can't compare mainframes/'supercomputers' to these machines. They got a completely different architecture.

I just don't see how this is the case.

[Markus Krause]

Yes Prodigy using laptops onstage among other "hobby" musicians...

That prooves what? That Desktops are obsolete and are not longer used in professional studios?

That's why I don't use a laptop:

- Soundcards need to be connected with USB which is ugly, slow and unrelieable. There is no PCI/PCIe slot
- You got difficultites to connect more than 1 screen. I use 1x4k + 2x WQHD
- It can be easily extended with new hardware
- I got enough space for my SSDs
- I can pick the componenets i like and need
- I can repair it easily

The point was clear, Arm can be ramped up.

No the point was the claim that Intel x86 technology would be come EOL, which is complete bullshit. I also can't see any significant market share for ARM on Windows in the near future.
You can ramp up *any* architechture by adding more parallel cores. But not all processing tasks can be parralellized and there is additional overhead to handle. More than 16 cores do not make sense in audio processing.

[ghettosynth]

You can't compare mainframes/'supercomputers' to these machines. They got a completely different architecture. It's highly parallel and operates with thousands of cores. They need special software that is written for a very specific task. The guys who build these machines pick CPUs mainly by price in relation to processing power and operation costs.

I dunno,man. Most supercomputer are just regular servers (AMD Epyc, Intel Xeon) running Linux. They're not that different from regular computers, there's just lots of them with fast network cards.

Anyways my point is, there are very powerful ARM server chips, they're not just for mobile.

I could be wrong, but, what I thought that he was saying is that you can't say "ooh supercomputer, these chips must be really really fast." In fact, as you say, they are just server chips, and they don't particularly excel at single core performance. They are currently doing well with performance/watt. But, individual chip performance is probably not as important in a supercomputer design as other factors.

[jupiter8]

You can't compare mainframes/'supercomputers' to these machines. They got a completely different architecture. It's highly parallel and operates with thousands of cores. They need special software that is written for a very specific task. The guys who build these machines pick CPUs mainly by price in relation to processing power and operation costs.

I dunno,man. Most supercomputer are just regular servers (AMD Epyc, Intel Xeon) running Linux. They're not that different from regular computers, there's just lots of them with fast network cards.

Anyways my point is, there are very powerful ARM server chips, they're not just for mobile.

I could be wrong, but, what I thought that he was saying is that you can't say "ooh supercomputer, these chips must be really really fast." In fact, as you say, they are just server chips, and they don't particularly excel at single core performance. They are currently doing well with performance/watt. But, individual chip performance is probably not as important in a supercomputer design as other factors.

Yeah, maybe i misunderstood the whole thing.

[jupiter8]

And just for the record, i kinda doubt that whole EOL thing as well. But another player is obviously good for competition but i don't see them outcompeting x64 anytime soon.

[BONES]

I don't doubt that. The point i was trying to make that the hardware they use in supercomputers are just regular off the shelf computers (just lots of them). There's no special unobtanium supercomputer chip that only big companies can buy.

That's not necessarily the case. IBM's supercomputers, and they have more of them than anyone else, use IBM's own proprietary processors, Power 9 or Power 10. You and I can't buy those off any shelf.

- Soundcards need to be connected with USB which is ugly, slow and unrelieable.

That's not actually true. I can run my beautiful looking EVO 8 with a 32 sample buffer at 96kHz with complete reliability. That's really f**king fast!

- You got difficultites to connect more than 1 screen. I use 1x4k + 2x WQHD

My laptop has two screens! OTOH, the $12k workstation I use at the office only has one. Of course both machines can handle more screens, via Thunderbolt and/or HDMI.

- It can be easily extended with new hardware

So can a gaming laptop. When I bought mine, it only had 8GB RAM and 1TB of storage but when I upgraded to 32GB and 2TB myself, without voiding the warranty.

- I got enough space for my SSDs

I've got a cupboard full and enough Type C ports to run 3 at a time if I need to.

- I can pick the componenets i like and need

So can I, that's the joy of being on PC. I can choose from literally hundreds of configurations from a dozen or more vendors and get exactly what I want.

- I can repair it easily

Mine never break, so that's a non-issue.

On top of that, I can take my laptop to a studio to record vocals, I can take it to rehearsals and, of course, use it on stage. One computer to rule them all!

It's not 2002, it's 2022 and laptops are more than capable of being used as desktop replacements in the most demanding of tasks. We've made four albums on mine and played gigs up and down the East Coast of Australia and on the other side of the world. At the end of the day, we have to have a laptop but we don't need a desktop computer at all.

[machinesworking]

Yes Prodigy using laptops onstage among other "hobby" musicians...

That prooves what? That Desktops are obsolete and are not longer used in professional studios?

That's why I don't use a laptop:

- Soundcards need to be connected with USB which is ugly, slow and unrelieable. There is no PCI/PCIe slot
- You got difficultites to connect more than 1 screen. I use 1x4k + 2x WQHD
- It can be easily extended with new hardware
- I got enough space for my SSDs
- I can pick the componenets i like and need
- I can repair it easily

The point was clear, Arm can be ramped up.

No the point was the claim that Intel x86 technology would be come EOL, which is complete bullshit. I also can't see any significant market share for ARM on Windows in the near future.
You can ramp up *any* architechture by adding more parallel cores. But not all processing tasks can be parralellized and there is additional overhead to handle. More than 16 cores do not make sense in audio processing.

Again, the main driving force behind recent chip improvements all come down to smaller, less power hungry chips at the same performance level, it’s why i7 and i9 won out over Xeon even on desktops for the most part. So if/when it comes out that Arm is the way forward in terms of power VS performance we will see a change in architecture. Apple are right now doing this, and we’re seeing Microsoft and Qualcom reinvested in this because frankly of the results they’re seeing from Apple.

As far as laptops VS desktops, your argument is all over the place. Desktops are better because of PCI, sure, but audio is easy, RME proved over a decade ago you can write and use powerful full featured USB audio interfaces with no issues. As far as core counts, I flatly disagree, the advantage of a desktop is also RAM and core count, which add up when using large templates. Pros, IMO this term is stupid, are you a non Pro because you use a laptop and release records with it, but a pro because you work in a recording studio mixing other peoples music on a desktop? IMO the prevalence of “pro’ online is an idiotic attempt to give credit where it isn’t due. This old 09 Mac Pro here is still a vastly useful machine because it’s a 12 core, flatly it’s provable with any decent DAW that track count goes up, as long at individual core speed doesn’t go down.

Anyway this is getting too religious for me, I’m tired of arguing online with people about their favorite football team, plenty of musicians use laptops, and IMO in ten years x86 will be at most emulated. We will see.

[BONES]

You're saying "when" but the reality is that it's "if". As I've pointed out half-a-dozen times already, RISC processors have been around a long time and Intel has always managed to out-do them. I see nothing to suggest they won't continue to do so as they shrink their dies and add more and more processor cores to their CPUs. Because at the moment they are competing on a much larger process, 11nm for Gen 12, I think, compared to 5nm for Apple's silicon, yet they are still the most powerful. You have to think that when Intel get down to 5nm, they'll have similar thermal efficiency to ARM and they'll likely be in front of AMD then, too. I can't see it going any other way.

[ghettosynth]

Again, the main driving force behind recent chip improvements all come down to smaller, less power hungry chips at the same performance level, it’s why i7 and i9 won out over Xeon even on desktops for the most part. So if/when it comes out that Arm is the way forward in terms of power VS performance we will see a change in architecture. Apple are right now doing this, and we’re seeing Microsoft and Qualcom reinvested in this because frankly of the results they’re seeing from Apple.

It is a common and outdated view that ISA is the reason for the difference, it's not. It has to do with implementations, research focus, and priorities. Apple has been heavily invested in power friendly mobile chips and it's easier to scale those up to a low power desktop than it is to scale down a high power desktop.

However, it's a misconception to think that it's because ARM, and that x86 is intrinsically doomed as an ISA. There has only been one chip in the last two decades that directly executes x86, the original Atom. In terms of RISC vs CISC, RISC has won, all modern x86 chips operate a RISC core and the x86 decoder is not the reason for significant increased power consumption.

So, while Apple has a good strategy for consumer computers, that is not necessarily a win for ARM in general. Qualcomm is not going to unseat Intel/AMD in the near future. Moreover, backwards compatibility is still going to be huge for a while. Long enough, IMO, to see Intel/AMD continue to evolve.

ARM is not some silver bullet. Execution is where it's at and Apple, for all of their gains, are still not on top in terms of overall performance. It has nothing to do with ARM and everything to do with the specific compromises that they're making in their designs.

https://www.extremetech.com/mobile/3120 ... based-macs