ARM-based computing

[HACO]

Since we're getting closer to Apple's release of ARM-based macs, great success of Graviton2 on AWS, Fujitsu building world's fastest supercomputer with ARM, we should have a topic for it here. We're getting to a point where desktop/server/workstation ARM will become more commonplace as time goes on.

Gigabyte today announced a motherboard for Ampere Altra ARM processors which are used in servers:
https://www.anandtech.com/show/1594...ytes-2u-with-80-arm-n1-cores-pcie-40-and-ccix

Ampere's product lineup includes ARM processors using 24 cores, up to 80, running at up to 3.3GHz @ 250w. They support up to 4TB of 8-channel DDR4-3200, 128 lanes of PCIe 4 and support for CCIX. We will see 128-core variants next year.

https://images.anandtech.com/doci/15949/Altra5_575px.png

https://images.anandtech.com/doci/15949/Altra6.png

https://images.anandtech.com/doci/15949/AmpereLaunch-page-008_575px.jpg

**Do not Hotlink Images **

Obviously the biggest challenge right now is actually getting software ready for these processors. Linux on ARM is pretty good, and a lot of major packages work really well, but smaller and more niche stuff aren't optimised yet. We're going to wait and see how that turns out.

 

[HACO]

Apple won't have fully embraced it for two years or so I reckon. Still strange why they don't just use Ryzen in the meantime.

I doubt any existing product lineups gets more than one x86 upgrade before they fully migrate to arm. Probably not worth it for just one generation.

 

[HACO]

Huawei's 24-Core 7nm Kunpeng CPU Allegedly Beats Core i9-9900K In Multi-Core Performance

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/h...tches-core-i9-9900k-in-multi-core-performance

Not a proper benchmark though, so take everything with a grain of salt. Seems like at 250w, for multi-threaded tasks, x86 already has a competitor. These ARM N1 cores however are not competitive at single-threaded workloads, which is the true benchmark in the end. You can always add more cores, but making each core faster is the real challenge.

 

[HACO]

It would be great if Sony and Microsoft encouraged AMD to develop an ARM based APU for it's next generation of consoles. For the PC just imagine the choice of CPU's we could have if there the everyday software we use was written for ARM instead of x-86.

Yeah I think we'll see it sooner or later in consoles. If Nvidia ever wants to power up another Microsoft or Sony console, it won't be on x86 as the only SoC that they'd be able to offer would need to use ARM (like Nintendo's). Microsoft and Sony will probably make massive cost savings if they were to move away from x86, both in terms of chip costs but also in terms of general hardware design (better performance per watt means smaller console design, less cooling, less power delivery, etc).

The counter-argument is that single-threaded performance still matters a lot to gaming (and will probably continue to matter a lot), and outside of Apple nobody on the ARM scene is anywhere near matching x86 levels. But that might change by the time they want to design PS6/Xbox whatever.

 

[HACO]

RISC is better than CISC because it consumes much less power for the same job done.

NUVIA Phoenix Targets +40-50% ST Performance Over Zen 2 for Only 33% the Power
https://www.anandtech.com/show/1596...0-st-performance-over-zen-2-for-only-33-power


ARM saves power and space. You can make tiny PCs measuring in dimensions similar to modern phones, and achieve very high performance still, doing office tasks, some lighter gaming, etc:

RISC vs CISC debate has been over for a very long time, all modern processors are internally RISC (even if they’re externally CISC).

Nuvia is very exciting because it’s effectively created by the industry’s best and brightest. I’m really hopeful they’ll just produce Apple-level ARM chips for everyone.

 

[HACO]

There are articles regularly published and the topic is very hot right now:

RISC vs. CISC Architectures: Which one is better?
https://www.microcontrollertips.com/risc-vs-cisc-architectures-one-better/


x86 Lacks Innovation, Arm is Catching up. Enough to Replace the Giant?
https://www.techpowerup.com/265303/...rm-is-catching-up-enough-to-replace-the-giant

My point was, as Armageus pointed out, there is no debate among chip designers about this. All chips (including x86) are RISC internally. They've decided this long long ago. Nobody makes CISC chips anymore.

Lack of (or slow) innovation in x86 is true, ARM catching up is true, ARM chips generally being better at performance per Watt is true, but this isn't about RISC vs CISC. It hasn't been for a very long time.

 

[HACO]

What is the reason for x86 to be so inefficient if it isn't in its nature as a pure CISC architecture?

Many reasons (maintaining compatibility, different application targets, poor legacy design decisions and more). Like we said, since the mid-1990s all x86 processors from Intel and AMD have been RISC internally and use ISA decoding. The power overhead of micro-ops decoding is less than 15-20%.

x86 could well become competitive in performance per watt if Intel and AMD prioritised that application target (they just haven’t yet), and they probably will if ARM designs continue to close down the gap and we get good Windows software support for ARM in laptops. Intel and AMD just haven’t felt the need yet (Intel made some attempts, but failed).

There’s no magic here, ARM’s efficient designs also come with their own trade-offs. Apple’s A13 Lightning cores, for example, have more transistors than Intel’s i9 10900K cores. They can afford to make these huge chips because they don’t need to make a margin on the chip itself so it gives them an advantage that Intel and AMD don’t have.

Remind you that you can get a smartphone SoC (that lasts up to a month on its battery and 2-3 days with moderate apps use) that can do everything and more than a typical office PC.

No need to remind me, I’ve been saying this for a very long time. Apple’s performance cores are basically as good as the fastest Intel ones at much lower power (like i9 10900K, not just the typical office PC stuff). Not sure how that’s relevant though.

 

[HACO]

I don't think that this late Intel or AMD have either the time or resources to fundamentally change their philosophies as to how they design their x86-64 CPUs.

It's time to shift to ARM RISC and post-silicon semiconductors.

They could - they've done it before.

The future will likely be multi-arch (ARM and x86 aren't the only ones around). ISA is becoming less relevant these days due to how modern CPUs are built (different internal RISC ISA + micro-ops decoding). As for post-Silicon semiconductors, we're still at least 15-20 years from any realistic commercial processors outside of a lab. The first products that will come are purpose-built ASICs rather than commercial general-purpose CPUs.

 

[HACO]

15-20 years during which Intel won't progress that much, I am quite sure about this.
Look at two 4-core / 8-thread CPUs from Intel launched in Q4 2016 and Q2 2020 respectively - Core i7-7700K and Core i3-10300.


https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Core+i7-7700K+@+4.20GHz&id=2874


https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Core+i3-10300+@+3.70GHz&id=3765

No performance improvement, no IPC improvement, I see a small regression in performance.

Yeah, again not sure how any of that is relevant to anything. x86 has been stagnant for the last 10 years, you’re only stating the obvious. Intel and AMD are behind ARM in terms of IPC and the margin is already significant.

 

[HACO]

I'm actually surprised that neither of the big 'modern' (well newest) operating systems, Android and IOS didn't go for the 'nix/Linux model and force the distribution of source codes instead of binaries.
Just-in-time Emulation/re-compilation is all very well, but a truly ISA-agnostic OS and software is when you have the source code and recompile it as needed. Or rather a package manager does it for the user.
Some SIMD type stuff might be tricky, but maybe something like OpenCL could address this.
Of course, my biggest problem with these new operating systems - especially IOS - is how closed they are and little control the users have versus Apple and Google.
Pity the rise of Linux is still 'just around the corner' after all this time.

Universal binaries are the way to go, as Apple is doing for Mac and a lot of package managers do for Linux distros. This will become the norm in IDEs and other CI/CD tools as time goes on. Developers end up submitting binaries for several architectures and it's all handled behind the scenes, to the end user they just install a program like they always do.

 

[HACO]

A14X Bionic to Be ‘Nearly on Par’ With 8-Core Intel Core i9-9880H, According to Leaked Performance Data
https://wccftech.com/apple-a14x-bionic-leaked-performance-results-comparable-to-core-i9-9880h/

A13 was more or less on par with i9-10900K in single-threaded workloads. Assuming no huge surprises from Zen 3 are coming, A14 will likely be the fastest single-threaded processor in the world by a good margin.

I’m very much looking forward to the A14 variant that will be in the first Apple Silicon Mac. There’s a chance that it will even be faster than midrange x86 chips at running x86 code in emulation.

 

[HACO]

Apple has a history of changing CPU architecture every decade or so in their laptops and desktops. So it is not something tectonic.

take up of ARM based CPU will be decided elsewhere, not by Apple. But it is interesting that more complex CPUs are being made.

They're trend makers in technology. Where they go, others usually follow or at the very least, seriously consider following.

If/When Apple releases laptops with the same performance and maybe 3x battery life (which is actually conservative), or much faster laptops at small form factors without sacrificing battery life, others will either have to accept losing ground to Apple or they have to compete, and competitors will have no choice but to adapt. So either Intel and AMD would need to seriously improve their performance per watt to become competitive, or the likes of Dell, HP, Microsoft, ASUS, Acer, Lenovo, etc will look elsewhere for ARM CPUs.

It will be interesting if Apple together with other companies build an ecosystem which can rival Microsoft's and Intel's WinX86-64 ecosystem.
ARM CPUs coupled with appropriate popular OS, and all the DIY components - graphics cards, mainboards, memory, peripherals, games, apps and more.

What's more likely is that Microsoft will put a lot more effort in making Windows multi-architecture (like Linux). Don't expect DIY components with Apple CPUs though, the chance of that happening is very slim.

It was very telling that Microsoft Office was among the software that Apple demoed running natively on ARM macs (even though Microsoft itself didn't run Office natively on its own line of ARM laptops at the time of release). Microsoft doesn't have a dog in the architecture fights, they'll adapt and will support both x86 and ARM.

 

[HACO]

I don’t agree that Apple is trend setter in computing world. In design and mobile devices may be. Apple computers (not their iPhones, watch etc) are much small sale volumes than x86 based PCs.

They’re small, but they’re trend makers. That’s the thing, they’re always the first people to do X, and others will do the same pretty soon. Modern laptops are following the trend that Apple set with their MacBook lines in late 2000s and early 2010s for example.

I also know plenty people buy macs and run windows on them due to it being transferable in X86. Dunno why they just don’t get PCs but I guess they like the symbolism.

days of doing that are unnerved.

I also doubt that ARM can be 3x faster than x86 based CPU in the next year. ARM based cpu excelled at certain tasks but it need graphics accelerators and other components to make the machine fully functional. Especially anything graphically demanding like games, the whole package drains battery pretty fast. My iPhone has 3AH battery that will disappear under 1hr if I play games on it solidly. Latest AMD u series mobile chips are pretty amazing stuff. For a 25w and 45w chip they can do a heck a lot. I am not so sure there is an equivalent ARM chip out there can do the same on the same power profile. Remembering that these mobile chips got iGPUs.

I didn’t say 3x faster. I said 3x better performance per watt. i.e. same performance at a third of the power. That’s where they are compared to the current Intel offering. AMD is slightly better than Intel, but the scale is different in orders of magnitude when it comes to ARM. They can 100% do the same things on much lower power profiles, this is already incredibly well documented for various ARM chips in Linux, etc...

I am not concerned about a pure ARM cpu taking over the world. I think intel’s big-small architecture has much more mileage where they can technically put a few hugely power efficient reduced instruction set cores with the more complex cores to drive efficiency.

Neither am I. x86 will be around, but it has serious competitors now. You don’t need ARM to take over the world (it already has) for x86 to face competition. You only need it to be competitive, and it is competitive.

what I am trying to say is that ARM by itself won’t take over but a hybrid chip will be a game changer.

Hybrid multi-arch ARM-x86 chip isn’t happening (there’s no point hardware decoding two ISAs in one chip). But all AMD processors have ARM cores in them for example, doing specific tasks.

then you probably have lots of market segmentation where ARM based CPUs are like those “netbooks” from 10yrs old. Low power slowish things. Then the hybrids for everything from low end to ultra thin stuff and some premium laptops. Then the full fat gaming Laptops and workstation laptops

At the beginning, sure. First non-Apple ARM laptop won’t be a Dell Precision. Eventually, that gap will close down and ARM chips will find themselves in higher end models.

I also can’t see those ARm based chips making their way to the PCs or the DIY market. From OEM perspective to provide support for diverging hardware is a pain in the back side. This is why Apple is doing ARM cos it stream line their support, design, and software. But for PC OEMs it is completely the opposite.

Why not? I mean, not for gamers but for other people? It already is a non-trivial market. In fact gaming system building is a small part of the DIY market.

It is ok for data centres as they have to invest in hardware and each generation of hardware that becomes obsolete, next generation that replaces it will attract a certain amount of support and learning curve. So for them the offset of long term running cost would be significant. And when they are running arm based servers, these instances can be provided or designed to cater for very specific needs like number crunching. So there are (dare say) niche market for these. At individual computer level I just can’t see it happening.

You probably have a lot more ARM processors in your home than x86. They’ve become over 100x faster in terms of IPC in the last 15 years (x86 had 4-5x IPC improvements in the same period), and over 1000x faster in pure terms. There still is a gap between them and x86, closing down very fast, but they’re going to become performance competitive in every single way, at lower power profiles, within a few generations, unless x86 begins improving at the same rate (which they’re not, not even in the case of AMD).

 

[HACO]

ARM has better IPC. But that instructions per cycle isn’t comparable to x86 based chips.

x86 chips from intel over the last 6 yeaRs has stagnated in terms of IPC. Intel has to resort to higher clocks to give any gains in package performance. Thus more power draws etc. But as you look at the laptop space the reverse is true. Where per ghz performance has become more efficient over the last 6 years. Resulting much lower TDP mobile chips. This is obtained through refinement in architecture. X86 gets its big boost from node shrink in terms of IPC and better refinement in the design.

ARM is in everything that’s connected and is everywhere from phones to door bells. Raspberry pi can run windows etc etc. All that is true.

market segmentation at this level is a headache for hardware providers as well as software developers. It just won’t happen. Apple can do whatever it likes as it has a closed ecosystem anyways.

hybrids I am talking about isn’t a hybrid of ARM and X86, it is a set of x86 cores that have reduced instruction sets to perform simple task with relatively low energy. As everyone said, CPUs are RISC chips wrapped in CISC wrappers.

Don't generally disagree with any of it.

ARM doesn't make socketed CPUs so you can't just go and buy one off the shelf. They only design bespoke systems. They could, but they say there isn't a demand for it. A shame really.

Yeah just some server socketed stuff but that will change as well in the next half decade.

Windows already runs on ARM. And Windows NT has been multi-architecture from the start - x86, Itanium, PPC, MIPS, and DEC ALpha.

Yeah, just not that well because there's no full force behind it. It's the entire ecosystem that needs to be multi-arch, not just the pure OS itself. Most apps are just x86, we need more time (and Microsoft's determination and tools) to make sure that most apps become multi-arch in their future versions.

 

[HACO]

Is ARM going through a steep development/improvement curve at the moment that may yet plateau out like x86 appears to have done ?

Nobody knows the future, from what it seems, it's unlikely to stagnate in the next few years at least.

 

[HACO]

Oh definitely. The shot in the ARM that AMD has given X86 is massive. Over just the last 18 months AMD has more than doubled performance and that looks set to double again over the next.
I can see EPYC doubling socket and core count plus a 30% IPC gain over the next two years.

I think that's very ambitious for AMD. But 15% IPC improvement every 18 months (which seems to be the plan) will make sure ARM (outside of Apple) is not going to surpass x86 in the next 3 years at the earliest.

 

[HACO]

AMD could double core count and sockets now.

So can ARM. ARM-based manufacturers have access to the same fabrication. It's really performance per core (per watt) that matters.

 

[HACO]

https://blogs.windows.com/windowsex...-ever-the-role-of-the-windows-pc-has-changed/

Microsoft announces x86-64 emulation on ARM.

 

[HACO]

Huawei is soon going to launch the laptops running on its Kirin 990 SoC. A leaked retail box of the upcoming Huawei Qingyun L410 laptop shows it is powered by Kirin 990, 8GB RAM, 512GB SSD, 14-inch 1080p display with Linux-based Deepin OS 20. : Huawei (reddit.com)

"Huawei is soon going to launch the laptops running on its Kirin 990 SoC. A leaked retail box of the upcoming Huawei Qingyun L410 laptop shows it is powered by Kirin 990, 8GB RAM, 512GB SSD, 14-inch 1080p display with Linux-based Deepin OS 20."

Will this work with Windows? Probably yes, I see no problems to install Windows on it.

Let's see if Microsoft allows that.

 

[HACO]

As long as the user pays the Windows license fee, why would they care?

Microsoft doesn't sell ARM Windows licenses to end-users. They only issue them for their own Surface devices.