Really strong & muscular ARM ... - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: BravoV
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 23, 2013, 07:54:03 am
content: Even though I'm aware that PC market is shrinking, its just I was quite surprised to see in the chart of leading processor manufacturers that ARM boys are kicking out AMD out of top 3 position at 2012.I guess AMD's CEO must be busy doing thisand, and probably thistoo , -21% is a really serious number.Source ->http://www.icinsights.com/news/bulletins/Qualcomm-And-Samsung-Pass-AMD-In-MPU-Ranking/Meanwhile ARM's mcu position vs 4/8 and 16 bit mcus.Source ->http://www.icinsights.com/news/bulletins/MCU-Market-On-Migration-Path-To-32bit-And-ARMbased-Devices/Yay .. way to go ARM.

author: Fsck
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 23, 2013, 10:35:16 am
content: AMDs relative performance of late is kinda disappointing after their A64 asskicking.Seeing how well ARM moves to HPC-type computing will be interesting as well as the effect of AMD's Jaguar.

author: casper.bang
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 23, 2013, 11:30:08 am
content: Quote from: Fsck on May 23, 2013, 10:35:16 amIndeed, it's a grim tale of the world flip-flopping in a few years. Just as Intel got caught sleeping on their laurels with the P4 NetBurst (into flames) leaving AMD to gain marked, AMD is now experiencing the same thing at the lower segment. The problem for AMD of course, is that they neither sit firmly on the low-end nor the high-end marked.It's a little unfortunate for us consumers, that Intel now no longer feels the pressure of a close competitor, and indeed the delays vs. previous roadmaps confirms this scenario. I only hope ARM implementors will soon be able to match Intel in the high-end marked, so we can move away from the ineffecient legacy x86 architecture. Imagine prices and competition if Intel felt the heat of Quallcom, Samsung, TI, Nvidia, Freescale, Marvell, Broadcom etc.

author: T4P
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 23, 2013, 11:35:08 am
content: Sure AMD lacks single-thread performance but unless you're so stuck up on 2010 8 cores is always better.Plus it's cheaper than i5-3570k by 20 bucks and performs about the same. What's wrong with it?Vishera is good. Unlike zambezi bullshit

author: Fsck
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 23, 2013, 12:20:40 pm
content: 4 years of the same platform (LGA1366) to upgrade to a platform with only 8GB more memory? Bleh deal: Yes, I'm desperate for memory in my desktop.AMD also don't have a cheap ECC-compatible platform . Have recommended/built i3 2120/3220s and supermicro x9scl+-F to/for an huge number of people.

author: andersm
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 23, 2013, 12:28:56 pm
content: Quote from: casper.bang on May 23, 2013, 11:30:08 amIntel's problem wasn't the P4, it was Itanium. Andy Glew, one of the Pentium Pro architects has publicly said that he internally proposed something that was very similar to what AMD eventually released, but company politics at the time were Itanium or nothing.QuoteIf the last 18 years or so have taught us anything, it's that the ISA doesn't matter. Intel has had many competitors in the high end (MIPS, Alpha, POWER, SPARC, PA-RISC etc.) and managed to outperform them all. Only IBM has managed to stay competitive, but that's mostly due to big government supercomputer contracts.

author: Rufus
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 23, 2013, 01:27:41 pm
content: The new XBOX One has an AMD processor - that might help them a bit with turn over.

author: casper.bang
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 24, 2013, 05:04:05 am
content: Quote from: andersm on May 23, 2013, 12:28:56 pmItanium was a parallel endeaveur, which may have taken some focus from Intel... however, with 100.000 employees and a research budget that trumps many nations GNP, that is not the full story. Netburst had a really huge pipeline (31 steps as far as I recall) so they had to overclock the prefetcher, add heaps of cache and come up with strategies for when the pipeline was invalid, which gave birth to hyper-threading. Intel can owe their current success with the Core to the relatively small design team in Israel, which designed the Pendium-M.Quote from: andersm on May 23, 2013, 12:28:56 pmI would not say MIPS, Alpha etc. were direct competitors to Intel, these are different marketing and margins segments altogether. Through hard work and a lot of $ in research, Intel managed to keep the x86 competitive enough (in spite of massively overcomplex design, few registers etc.) to eventually make it advantageous even at the ultra high segment. Of course, in that game, though focus gradually went from FLOPS to performance/watt, making them such high profile customers as Apple (who went from Motorola to PowerPC to Intel) but which caused them to completely lose track of the mobile segment. Intel's venerable and now retiring CEOPaul Otellini just admitted this directly, when remembering back prior to the production of the iPhone.

author: BravoV
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 24, 2013, 06:07:23 am
content: Quote from: Rufus on May 23, 2013, 01:27:41 pmYeah, I doubt that deal can cover the gaping big hole.

author: Rasz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 24, 2013, 09:47:09 am
content: Quote from: BravoV on May 24, 2013, 06:07:23 amXbox + PS4 means AMD is not going anywhere. This will also solidify AMDs PC position - every game will be optimized for AMD from the grounds up. No more single threaded games that only work good on Intel.I am still hoping AMD will do something with ARM, they are in some sort of a coalition, would be great if AMD licensed their GPU core for ARM SoCs.

author: amyk
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 24, 2013, 10:23:24 am
content: Quote from: casper.bang on May 24, 2013, 05:04:05 amIMHO the complexity of x86 is what makes it have more opportunities for optimisation than simpler architectures; especially as memory bandwidth becomes the limiting factor it makes sense to employ more complex instructions and work on making them execute in fewer clock cycles, which is what Intel have been doing with each newer model.

author: cyr
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 24, 2013, 10:51:01 am
content: Isn't that reversed logic? If memory bandwidth is the limiting factor, you get more instruction cycles to process each bit of data. Registers and cache store intermediate values between instructions anyway so it's only the loads and stores that run into the memory bottleneck.

author: AndyC_772
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 24, 2013, 11:53:54 am
content: Not if you have to read those instructions from memory in the first place!

author: dr.diesel
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 24, 2013, 11:35:08 pm
content: Quote from: Rasz on May 24, 2013, 09:47:09 amPerhaps. AMD likely bid this one so low they aren't likely making much, if any, plus making a ton of work for themselves.I read somewhere, don't recall, bid pricing got so low Intel simply said it's not worth the effort. I'd wager a bet Intel's costs are lower than AMDs, meaning AMD will profit even less.But who knows, Intel needs tough competition to keep innovating, I sure hope AMD pulls out of it.

author: andersm
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 25, 2013, 03:03:39 pm
content: Quote from: casper.bang on May 24, 2013, 05:04:05 amYep, but their original task was designing a low-power chipset for notebooks. The future was Itanium, despite vocal opposition from even within the company.Quote from: casper.bang on May 24, 2013, 05:04:05 amThey were competitors at the high end (and if you're anywhere in the processor business, Intel makes it their business to be in competition with you). They managed to crack that segment with the development of the original Pentium Pro, which IIRC managed to beat the current speed kind Alpha. I couldn't find benchmark results quite that old, but for instance a650MHz Pentium 3(released in 1999) could outperform a500MHz Alpha EV6(released in 1998). The kicker being that the EV6's power consumption was 73W compared to a TDP of 17W for the P-3.The real hurdle, overcome by the PPro was making the architecture out-of-order. The effort required after that to make it really fast is comparable to that of any architecture.

author: T4P
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 26, 2013, 04:47:26 pm
content: Quote from: Fsck on May 23, 2013, 12:20:40 pmI don't understand why you need ECC in a desktop. If you need ECC memory go the freaking Xeon routeBesides can normal Core processors run ECC? I don't think soQuote from: Rasz on May 24, 2013, 09:47:09 amXbox + PS4 means AMD is going somewhere. Dude, they are just supplying a tiny die for the consoles. How tiny? It's actually smaller than the trinity/richland parts ... which is quite smallHow much are they going to make? A LOT.I hope you are kidding. AMD under Dirk Meyer sold away their mobile GPU section to qualcomm ... And that ARM only has Mali GPUs and that is rarely used anywhere (in high-end phones)But i did hear about 64-bit ARM server procs under AMD's handshakeQuote from: dr.diesel on May 24, 2013, 11:35:08 pmIntel bidding? More likely they got rejected. Intel's current iGPUs (Ivy Bridge) are not even on-par with X360's GPU

author: Fsck
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 26, 2013, 04:50:12 pm
content: Actually, C202/C204 with an i3 can use ECC. These are low-end servers or router/firewalls.Neither use really *needs* ECC, but it's just an added bonus for high availability. And I did say LOW END which is which is AMD's historical target. AMD has no competition for Intel's LGA2011 desktop/workstations (high end), which can (supposedly, paper spec: never seen it) support 128GB of memory.C32 and G34 platforms are AMD's answer to Xeons.

author: T4P
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 26, 2013, 05:41:39 pm
content: I think you're probably thinking the other way round. The IMCs are IN the CPUs not on the chipset. why would the chipset decide ECC support?

author: Fsck
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 26, 2013, 05:48:38 pm
content: i3 3220 supports ECC.from intel:http://ark.intel.com/products/65693/ECC is simply unsupported on consumer boards.http://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/Xeon/C202_C204/X9SCL_-F.cfmCheck out the rest of the X9SC* class of boards.

author: BravoV
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 26, 2013, 05:58:17 pm
content: Quote from: Fsck on May 26, 2013, 05:48:38 pmSave your energy, that dude knows only PC related world, and well known for brainless bragging & arguing at the those crowded PC based forums out there, like the boring Intel vs AMD debates which he intended to start in here.Anyway, this thread is about ARM vs x86 architecture, not sure if he is aware what an ARM architecture is.

author: andersm
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 26, 2013, 07:27:34 pm
content: Quote from: T4P on May 26, 2013, 04:47:26 pmMy workstation uses ECC memory. Some time last year I happened to check the hardware diagnostics and discovered that one memory stick had gone bad several months ago, but thanks to the error correction there were no unrecoverable errors and no ill effects. So that's what ECC buys you - reliability and peace of mind. It's the same reason why so people want advanced error correcting file systems like ZFS, but if you can't trust the data while it's in RAM then what's the point?