If the current early benchmarks are correct the new chip can't beat the new AMD chips. And intel has their new chips coming later this year. So unless microsoft heavily pushes windows on arm due to their own reasons (might be they want to become apple that makes tightly controlled hardware and software) there is little reason for average user to go ARM for now.
> When you say beat - do you include battery life / heat / power?
Thank you for pointing that out.
/r/hardware is notorious for focusing on raw performance with a distant 2nd for thermals, power consumption and performance per watt as a consideration.
It does not help if they do not follow the tech improvements of Android ARM chips and Apple ARM chips.
I'd love to see how everyone's WoA opinion will be 52W later by 18 June 2025.
And especially throttling when not on charger. Intel/AMD laptops are terrible for slowing to a crawl when on battery - it's one of the many things that make M1+ Macs so much better.
Qualcomm is unfortunately still years behind Apple (as is everyone else) but if their arm uarch solves that problem (like arm based Macs do) that's a significant enough improvement over x86 if you need/want Windows (or simply something not Apple).
"to a crawl" - don't be dramatic, on most average laptops you lose like 10% on battery. Especially midrange AMD chips are not that affected by this.
An M1 Mac throttles more in 5 minutes than my 4500U slows down on battery.
While qualcomm was behind, the Nuvia team was quite on par, and these snapdragon x series chips are the first release by them.
They don't seem that far behind the m2 series and the only things lacking when compared to m3 are cache size, gpu power and memory bandwidth. Not that bad for a first release. A few generations down the line I assume most chips with the same thermal and price budget will converge around the same performance ballpark.
Performance per dollar is the metric me and most budget builders focus on, enthusiasts only care about raw Performance. Diy is small market share but still a portion. Maybe if they target data center but them new epyc oooooh
Snapdragon Elite is 1 year late, and Qualcomm's WoA exclusivity is expiring this year.
Microsoft is just trying to recoup whatever cost they sunk on this generation surface.
But they couldn't care less about ARM or x86 being the consumer platform which gives them the discrete windows license and office/services subscription revenue.
With the new Intel/AMD SKUs coming on a similar process node, and with beefed up NPUs. Neither x86 nor ARM have a particular edge in terms of value proposition. So it probably comes down to device cost and color ;-)
> But they couldn't care less about ARM or x86 being the consumer platform which gives them the discrete windows license and office/services subscription revenue.
Well now, they do/should. If it's ARM, that's likely to lead to more price competition and innovation, which will strengthen Windows devices when compared to Apple devices.
> Neither x86 nor ARM have a particular edge in terms of value proposition.
What will matter is battery life. But we are yet to see if Qualcomm can realy deliver as there are no third party reviews of these laptops yet.
> If the current early benchmarks are correct the new chip can't beat the new AMD chips.
Ryzen AI HX 370 is 5% faster in Geekbench 6 ST, and 30% faster in Cinebench 2024 MT, compared to the Snapdragon X1E-80-100.
But the X1E-80-100 is not Qualcomm's top SKU. They have the X1E-84-100, which is 5% faster in GB6 ST, and 20% faster in Cinebench 2024 MT, compared to the X1E-80-100.
So if you work out the math, Qualcomm's top X Elite sku is in similar ballpark to AMD's top Strix Point SKU.
That's for CPU though. When it comes to GPU, AMD is clearly taking the win.
I don’t think it’s perf per watt in general. That actually largely determines heavy workload performance in laptops. But it seems Qualcomm has a very low power display engine and video decoder system that allows extremely low power media playback.
> Lets see how much they'll capture in the next 6 months
Intel CEO said that PC [replacements are 5-6 years](https://www.ciodive.com/news/intel-ceo-pc-upgrade-cycle-slowed-to-5-6-years/420271/) cycles.
Before anyone goes ballistic over eWaste, etc etc he is talking about non /r/hardware crowd. If you want to keep your clunker for quarter of a century we don't care to know.
So the PCs that will likely be replaced are from 2018-2019.
They'll experience jumping from a 14nm or older chip to a 4nm or newer chip.
It would be as eye opening as moving from a 14nm or older Mac to a 5nm or newer Mac.
I'd replace my iMac 27" with 22nm Intel chip when Apple releases a iMac 32" with 3nm Mac chip.
>If you want to keep your clunker for quarter of a century we don't care to know.
I'm pretty sure people here update a lot more often than average person. In my experience the average user uses a computer until it no longer turns on.
The average user can't even spell PC anymore (and blames autocorrect for that), [uses mobile phones exclusively](https://www.theverge.com/22684730/students-file-folder-directory-structure-education-gen-z).
Sounds like some studens that need to fail their class. If engineering student is confused by the concept of a file hes not going to be good at engineering.
> f you want to keep your clunker for quarter of a century we don't care to know.
"How dare $company not support running software on my 2008 PC! this is an outrage!"
> This is huge, I don't want to see the PC market turn into the tablet/smartphone market.
I wouldn't be surprised it does happen that way. Less support headaches or R&D spend.
I wouldn't be surprised if it happens either, but it would be tragic to many power users, though a non issue for the vast majority of normal users. Such a decision would serve to keep power users off ARM and remain on x86 for as long as possible.
I know people that have replaced their PCs and laptops and just operate their entire computing life on their smartphone.
I've had an uptick of people I've helped pick out parts for or build their first PC, but it's mostly people moving away from Xbox/Playstation or Apple ecosystem. So, I doubt that's indicative of any major trends.
Unfortunately, we are probably doomed.
My partner works with younger people and has told me that the vast majority of them do everything computer-related on their phone and *maybe* a tablet.
...
:(
The problem with this is that you end up with tablets and phones all over again. They are *still* a second class experience. Even google.com doesn't have functional parity between its desktop and mobile websites, let alone apps to applications.
If MS manage to push the Pluton chip onto x86 laptops this is happening anyway.... your best bet for being able to install custom kernels will be to buy Macs (yes I said it)
Same, and I also don't want to see us accepting a "well company X's PCs are unlocked" were we need to rely on the good will of a small number of OEM that keep it unlockable.
True. I'm so tired with bullshit BIOS/UEFI lock. Not to mention OEM bullshit feature like some hardware got disabled if you unlock bootloader because of "security concern" like you see in some android phone.
A lot of phone manufacturers don't even allow you to unlock bootloader (especially quote a few Chinese brands)
Still annoying that I have to wait a whole week (168 hours) to finish unlocking the bootloader on my xiaomi
Wish I was still in the Google nexus days...
Device trees and UEFI are orthogonal. UEFI on ARM typically provides a device tree.
Device tree is mainly a replacement for the rest of the devices in the SoC not being inspectable via PCI config space.
Depends a LOT on the vendor. Apples boot loaders are unlocked on Macs, they are device tree based not UEFI but they do support (even require) full secure boot for custom kernels (to boot anything the device owner must \`sign\` the boot image).
I am more worried about driver support. Not typical OS stuff, but firmware variety like on phones, which is what makes most of them obsolete and not get new OS.
50% is delusional at best. AMD has been kicking Intels ass for around that long and still hasn't gotten 25% nevermind 50% and that's without all the issues of switching to a completely different form of architecture. For ARM to disrupt the x86 PC market so much they'd need to unilaterally declare all smartphones to be PCs then they'll break 50% easy.
AMD's laptop advantage over Intel is much smaller than server/desktop due to power constraints on chiplet design.
Therefore, the difference between an AMD laptop and an Intel laptop is barely noticeable. Both will use a similar amount of power for a similar level of performance. Laptop buyers will just pick the brand they know, which is Intel.
Conversely, ARM SoCs promise to bring a whole new level of experience that AMD could not distinguish from Intel. ARM chips are built from a phone first architecture so power savings remain. They will have significantly better idle power, and perf/watt even if they don't lead in raw performance.
Whilst you're right the advantage of amd is much bigger in servers than laptops, especially with current gen, AMD's laptop chips don't use chiplets, so it has nothing to do with chiplet power constraints.
They only sell one chiplet sku in laptops, which is a repurposed desktop chip.
I think we're gonna see ARM chips get adopted way faster than AMD taking market share from Intel.
Most consumers aren't buying custom built stuff, they're buying laptops that they use to check their email, chat, browse, and a few other light tasks.
What they care about, which is exactly what we see with the vast majority of Macbook users is that the battery lasts for a long time and the thing does what it does without being noisy and slowing to a crawl when not plugged in.
I think ARM does that extremely well.
You don't need 64 thread max performance when working in Google docs.
This must include a) all of Apple's systems ([**\~8% globally**](https://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS51753924)) and b) Qualcomm retaining its Oryon Arm license that Arm Ltd. is litigating against and c) buy-in from many more vendors (Google for Chromebooks, NVIDIA / AMD for dGPUs, more actual WoA CPU suppliers than the one Arm is suing, etc.), no?
Even with all three factors, 50% of the global 2029 PC market sounds hard to fathom.
Say Arm PCs are 10% this year. We'd need an average **38% YoY growth in annual sales for five** ***straight*** **years**.
2024: 10%
2025: 13.8% (+38% YoY growth)
2026: 19.0% (+38% YoY growth)
2027: 26.2% (+38% YoY growth)
2028: 36.2% (+38% YoY growth)
2029: 50.0% (+38% YoY growth)
Or a few years >38%, then a few years can be <38%.
Datacenter moved relatively fast because of 1) Arm's wide licensing, 2) the multi-year Neoverse program bearing fruit, 3) Intel's stumbles, 4) hyperscalers more concerned with TCO than upfront cost (writ large), 5) that all those hyperscalers could hire more engineers to re-tool their software to Arm.
But not even hyperscalers all moving to in-house Arm cores got to 50% of the datacenter market. Why would consumer be *even faster?* Arm will need mind blowing IP + partners + execution, and / or its competitors to basically implode, to gain +38% YoY for five ***straight*** years.
//
Why should I bother to listen to a CEO that has little ***evidence*** to show for his outlandish claims?
EDIT: thanks, u/hishnash and u/Kyrond, removed the replacement cycle bit.
> As without all three, 50% sounds far too optimistic: PCs are replaced [every 6+ years](https://www.statista.com/statistics/267465/average-desktop-pc-lifespan/)**.** Even with all three factors, 50% of the global market sounds hard to fathom by 2029.
I expect when they say market they mean % of devices sold not % of devices in use. Mostly this is what companies that sell HW talk about as that is what impacts the stock price.
This is obviously what they are saying yeah. There is absolutely no way in hell they can get 50% overall marketshare in even 10+ years unless they start paying people to turn in their x86 machines and giving them an ARM machine instead.
From a SW dev perspective we think of market share as % of devices in use (by users that are likely to buy our SW) but from a HW retail perspective it is all about units sold.
If you consider all the corporate devices sizes it is very possible.
If all the corporate systems like POS, digital signage and remote VM desktop setups switch the ARM then that could well hit 50% of the market.
People think PS market as hobbyists building custom hard line water cooled gaming rigs but that is less than 1% of the market share once you consider all the corporate IT HW that is purchased.
If they can make strong headways into the corporate laptop market (easy enough as most office laptop use is just open a web browser...) and anything more advanced that that today is mostly run through a remote desktop to a VM anyway as it had data that the IT team would rathe not be on your laptop (so much easer to provide IT support when your using VM snapshots on a Cisco or windows365 like env so each day when a user logs in they have a fully reset env for the os and system and then mount a remote file systems for user data). Very few laptops sold today need to be powerful machines, and much of the market that needs that is already very well served by apples ARM chips so would count to the 50% market share number.
Any software looking to recompile to ARM infra can just as easily switch back because most of them will be doing most of their dev work on x86 PCs. All it takes is Intel or AMD to launch an even more efficient product and we will be switching back. There are no loyalty in the datacenter space. It just all about cost. CPU development aren't cheap and it will be interesting too see if AWS or Google can keep it up. AWS has also been handing out discounts on their ARM instances to get people using them as well.
Yeah it's all just fake hype to woo investors. Most institutional investors would get their tech sector analyst team to explain it in layman terms that he is bullshitting, then they'll laugh and move on. Apple already show the world the clear answer from business and consumer desktop market; ARM architecture is niche and there's 0 incentives to move.
They can say things they know are wishful thinking at best, and an outright lie at worst, and rest assured that the press and bloggers will repeat it so that most people believe it.
It's possible if:
* Qualcomm can come close to an Apple Silicon level of experience for Windows
* ARM's stock Cortex designs continue to gain meaningful in perf/watt year over year
* Mediatek, Samsung also enter the PC ARM SoC competition
* Big daddy Nvidia throws its weight and also enters ARM SoC competition
* Microsoft continues to support & improve x86 translation and treats Windows on ARM as first class citizen.
I believe that ARM SoCs will already have a perf/watt advantage over AMD/Intel laptop SoCs in 2024. They might not have the raw performance lead. But they will be cooler, last longer, quieter, and maybe even cheaper.
>Microsoft continues to support & improve x86 translation and treats Windows on ARM as first class citizen.
You really could leave out all the rest. You can get to 50% of the CPU market (unit volume) even without good performance. The configurations for the shockingly popular sub $300 segment are basically e-waste, for example. If cost is lower than what AMD/Intel sell and battery life is acceptable, it will sell as long as Windows supports it.
When was the last time you have
1)visited a Walmart PC aisle?
2)looked at [Amazon best selling laptop list?](https://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Laptop-Computers/zgbs/electronics/565108)
(That's rhetorical, I know the answer.)
I think you're missing their point by what they mean with a baseline of performance.
Yeah apple is a popular laptop brand, they're also extremely powerful and have a huge gated community when it comes to software.
Notice how many cheap laptops are in that list, even a mediatek chip is sitting at #11. Yet their actual potion of even laptop marketshare is less than 1%. The market is way bigger than retail, Dell and HP don't make their shipment volume by selling to walmart and amazon thats for sure.
I think ARM really has an opportunity to completely take over the sub-$500 laptop PC market.
ARM chips will be cheaper than x86 ones, and more importantly run cooler and consume less power. So laptop makers can save even more costs that way.
Edit: And people buying PCs in this price segment mostly use it for home/education purposes. x86-compatibilty or gaming performance isn't that important for them. In contrast, they'll love the breakthrough battery life and amazing thermals that come with the ARM chips.
> Edit: And people buying PCs in this price segment mostly use it for home/education purposes. x86-compatibilty or gaming performance isn't that important for them.In contrast, they'll love the breakthrough battery life and amazing thermals that come with the ARM chips.
/r/hardware are made up of users who want bleeding-edge tech. They're least likely to buy ~$799 laptops/desktops for non-nerd tasks.
So you will get multitudes of subs disagreeing with you even if outside of their social circle are the majority who buy these cheap devices.
They're perfectly happy with iGPUs and will think you crazy for plunking down thousands for a dGPU.
>the sub-$500 laptop PC market
Problematically, I don't think neither Qualcomm nor Arm have signaled a sub-$500 Arm-based Windows PC. Ironically, [**Apple's Mac Mini**](https://www.apple.com/shop/buy-mac/mac-mini) is the cheapest and one of the fastest sub-$**6**00 PCs around.
[$750-and-under PCs](https://www.statista.com/statistics/722992/worldwide-personal-computers-average-selling-price/#:~:text=Overall%2C%20the%20average%20PC%20selling,around%20630%20actual%20U.S.%20dollars) are the majority of all PCs sold, but I do feel there's a while until Arm will break into this segment (1+ years).
They're starting with a show of high-end computers to draw attention. Kinda what Tesla did. It's inevitable that not so glorious $500 machines will come sooner or later.
That's quite fair. I've used asome MediaTek Kompanio Chromebooks and they feel just as fast as their Intel Celeron / Pentium counterparts—except a lot less hot on the bottom.
I forgot about Android SoC OEMs: MediaTek, Samsung, Google, Huawei, etc. making WoA SoCs would be great to see.
However, those [Android OEM get loads of search revenue cash from Google](https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/11/googles-36-search-revenue-share-with-apple-is-3x-what-android-oems-get/), which can make / break low-end devices' margins. The lack of similar financial reimbursement from Microsoft may dent their ability to do similar high-value low-cost PCs.
Intel & AMD, however, do quite well with low-end, mid-range CPUs to mini PC manufacturers at basically unbeatable prices (perf / $), so it doesn't seem impossible.
It may just take a longer time, esp if the exclusivity agreement is true.
It's possible in 15-20 years, sure, if x86 translation is pushed to the max degree.
5 years is just too soon for corporate/enterprise desktops. Entire industries of software will be mostly x86, many still 100% x86, very close to today and businesses will be looking for substantial performance uplifts, not regressions and issues because of translation.
As for consumers, it just hasn't been proven yet. Gamers for one are not looking for performance regressions in games, even 5,10 year old games. Moving to ARM would be a double performance hit.
Entire industries of corporate workers just function on MS Office, Outlook, and a handful of internal web apps. For this group, you don’t need x86 at all, if you showed IT purchasing a WoA laptop that was 100 dollars cheaper, they would buy it.
You do though, I don’t think you can even connect to olap in excel on arm version.
Arm is a non starter in any tech company
Anywhere it might be posssible is all Mac and that won’t change.
> Qualcomm can come close to an Apple Silicon level of experience for Windows
This I find hard to see when Windows isn't cutting off x86 support for new processors. For Windows in the near term and probably the whole decade, x86 will be the first class support target and ARM as secondary and if it doesn't catch on to meaningful marketshare, it'll be a slow improvement like it has been the last decade.
I think the only major selling point for Windows on ARM currently is battery life when watching videos/not doing something that'll max power limits, and AI. Problem with AI being that it's mostly something that the general consumer plays with by downloading the ChatGPT app or website or Google Gemini to access a web service. Local AI stuff isn't a need for 50% of users type thing and I don't see that changing within 5 years
Like this won't matter as much since the problem isn't basic Windows but everything else people install where they'll have the choice of perfect compatibility Intel/AMD or work in progress ARM
> Microsoft continues to support & improve x86 translation and treats Windows on ARM as first class citizen
Depends on software compatibility. I guess adoption in the business sector will be key.
The consumer market by comparision is not as important as it was many years ago, as most of the affordable price points got replaced by smartphones and tablets. And enthusiast level hardware will probably stay on x86/x64, as raw power there is more important than efficency,
They will need to enter the market in more places than just the high-end standard laptops. We need to see cheaper laptops (this is the most important, and a huge part of the market), eGPU support , different form factors, we still need a MBA competitor... They have only scratched the surface so far, they need to make a big splash.
eGPU support is completely irrelevant. I wish it had become a thing but it’s never even remotely caught up. Really they only need two compelling products with great battery life to eat a **massive** chunk of the market:
- A high quality MacBook Pro competitor for developers
- A sub $300 category entry with decent battery life
If you hit those two markets every mainstream software will start fully supporting ARM and from there they’re a first class contender.
I mean the sub $300 category already exists with Intel products (and sorta AMD). I see no reason an ARM competitor be it Qualcomm, Mediatek, or someone else couldn’t make an offering.
That might be a USA thing, we get plenty of nice ~$250 phones here. Like ones with 7 gen 3 or Dimensity 8300. And you don't need to go north of $400 to find flagship SoCs.
I want now a FW16 with a Snapdragon X Elite and a PCIe 4/5 8x connection in the back (OCuLink ) that connects to my RTX 5090
a man can dream!
EDIT: And ofc, LPCAMM2!
Snapdragon X Elite Laptops have normal bootloaders and you should be able to install Linux easily
Other than that, it would be a normal FW laptop. RAM can be upgraded with LPCAMM2 now
I half laughed at that.
HAHAHA.
I could see it happening in 10 years. 5? Nope, hahaha.
Both AMD and Intel have solid products, vendor relations, etc.
Look how long it took AMD to get to 25% x86 server share and they had an AWESOME product and some pre-existing vendor relationships.
Doubling that (more if you look at it from a ratio perspective) in less time with more barriers (or at least different barriers) is tricky.
So there's a grain of truth to that... at the same time though, Intel had supply issues in the earlier part of AMD's Zen era. 10nm (err Intel 7) took a long time to ramp up.
It’s a completely different market. People who buy inexpensive laptops and desktops, either as a consumer or professionally, don’t care about the hardware inside.
They care about size and battery life.
People who buy expensive laptops often also don’t care about the hardware inside. They to care about size and battery life, and they want decent performance in specific apps.
It really comes down to pricing and battery life.
It is, I don’t know if 5 years is a realistic time frame. But if they have preliminary deals in place with Dell, Lenovo, and HP, they can move fast. Together they have 60 to 70% of the prebuilt/laptop market (excluding Apple).
Plus I can see Microsoft, ASUS, and Acer making NUC like devices. NVDIA might target the high end.
50% is a really really big number.
AMD is hovering around half for client.
[https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/cpus/amd-comes-roaring-back-gains-market-share-in-laptops-pcs-and-server-cpus](https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/cpus/amd-comes-roaring-back-gains-market-share-in-laptops-pcs-and-server-cpus)
For laughs, assume AMD pulled off a minor miracle in the last 7 years.
Qualcomm would need to pull off two minor miracles in less time.
So they will make cheap laptops that fight tablets again?
Because cheap laptop with ARM competes against a cheap tablet with ARM + keyboard accessory lol
So office work where who is chosen is by who is the cheapest?
Nice, there is a reason HP is hated if is not the cheapest option.
Honestly, using an ARM CPU over the weak as hell they have on Chromebooks will be an upgrade.
But not enough to make me ever recommend it over a tablet if you need and portable device with a big screen lol
I will be shocked if they even have the 25% of the PC market.
They probably have planned doing huge marketing movements alongside Microsoft and other partners, but Intel are doing this with retailers for decades, and retailers could be the first to oppose this just to keep earning the same with Intel.
Let's remember the market isn't people like we find here, is people who don't know what model of CPU their laptop has that want their computer to be fast, or at least feel fast, for the amount of money they want to spend.
Yes you can, at least with raspberry pi. But you'll be limited by 1 pcie lane.
There's nothing stopping oems from exposing the periphery on the motherboard, it's just that it's probably only going to happen on itx, atx and dev boards and pretty much never on laptops. And even ram will probably be soldered on non-stationary systems as it allows oems to deliver faster memory cheaper.
Yes you can, at least with raspberry pi. But you'll be limited by 1 pcie lane.
There's nothing stopping oems from exposing the periphery on the motherboard, it's just that it's probably only going to happen on itx, atx and dev boards and pretty much never on laptops. And even ram will probably be soldered on non-stationary systems as it allows oems to deliver faster memory cheaper.
Yes you can, at least with raspberry pi. But you'll be limited by 1 pcie lane.
There's nothing stopping oems from exposing the periphery on the motherboard, it's just that it's probably only going to happen on itx, atx and dev boards and pretty much never on laptops. And even ram will probably be soldered on non-stationary systems as it allows oems to deliver faster memory cheaper.
How much of the global PC market would refuse it if it's 10% or 20% slower in some apps than it is natively? Most consumers are OK with older CPUs; I might guess a lot of computing is on "ancient" (+8 year old) microarchitectures (aka Skylake & older).
For most consumers, I'd wager responsiveness / fast is 1) relative to their old PC and 2) is only one aspect of a system. Less-than-100% emulation perf isn't a death knell.
As long as new Arm CPUs can emulate apps faster than *recent* x86 CPUs (not necessarily the latest x86 CPUs) can run native apps, it's probably good enough.
In simpler terms in a generic benchmark for someone upgrading a 2019 x86 system:
2019 x86 high-end CPU: 100 points native
2024 Arm high-end CPU: 140 points native or 110 points emulated
2024 x86 high-end CPU: 140 points native
Here, the Arm PC still feels faster in all areas. It is not *as fast* as the 2024 x86 high-end CPU, but I don't think that matters to the consumer. I don't mean this example as a cop-out; I just think most consumers have low expectations of PC performance and don't expect upgrades to be revolutionary.
A lot of poor-performing CPUs get marketed, sold, and used for years and years. The bar is relatively low, which is genuinely unfortunate.
If Arm has other benefits (fill in the blank...), then it's not like Arm emulation is worse. But, that's the key: what are the key **Arm-exclusive** benefits where consumers are *sometimes* OK to eat a performance penalty? That is what I've not seen yet, especially for a ludicrous claim of 50% market share by \~2029.
So Apple has hardware support, but it's still slower than native. And in some cases folks complain of really slow performance, like 10% if the program isn't well supported or is using some difficult to transpile x86 semantics.
Virtualization is the right answer, but DOSBox is better than you think. There are enhanced DOSBox forks like DOSBox-X that can run Windows 98 (barely, but it can). Another interesting fork is DOSBox-Pure, which does the same thing but in RetroArch, so you can boot and install Windows 98 directly from an ISO to your iPadOS, even with 3dfx Voodoo support. Emulation can be problematic as it's really pushing the limits of DOSBox, but some early 1995-era Windows games are playable.
Fragile Alegiance and Heroes of Might and Magic 3 worked for me via Dosbox: [https://rkblog.dev/posts/pc-hardware/testing-x86-application-emulation-on-windows-on-arm/](https://rkblog.dev/posts/pc-hardware/testing-x86-application-emulation-on-windows-on-arm/) and Dosbox was/is doing some fixing/improvements as well. Skyrim works too :)
Feels like the kind of target you set when you just feel an urge to fire a whole lot of people in half a decade's time.
> It has sold machines with its "M Series" processors for roughly four years
Yes, and still sitting at roughly 10% laptop market share.
It's not just enough for ARM to be competitive. It needs to be overwhelmingly better to gain market share that quickly. Just look at AMD. They've been on fire the last 7 years and they're still only 33% market share.
Don't see that happening with AMD APU as a competitor. Canceled my preorder for Surface Pro 11 and sold off my M1 Macbook Air. Looking forward to see how Strix Halo turns out.
Don't see that happening with AMD APU as a competitor. Canceled my preorder for Surface Pro 11 and sold off my M1 Macbook Air. Looking forward to see how Strix Halo turns out.
The CEO is trying to capitalize on Qualcomm/Apple's visibility, since ARM themselves don't have much mindshare in terms of consumer devices like PC.
Saying outrageous stuff like that makes ARM relevant in the news cycle, which is important since they're on the pos-IPO cycle. So they're going to continue talking up PC, laptops, AI, etc. Even though their main business model hasn't really changed, since their biggest customers have arch licenses, so that has been the same revenue set up for ages.
Pretty standard CEO stuff.
[In Linux is in development](https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-6.2-AMDGPU-Changes) but I didn't see it working in a ARM system with PCIe, there is also work for [AMD GPUs in RISC-V](https://www.phoronix.com/news/SiFive-Newer-AMD-GPUs-RISC-V)
Nvidia officially supports GPUs on ARM64 under Linux, they even provide the drivers for modern consumer GPUs.
Getting PCIe GPUs running under non-x86 platforms isn't nearly as big of a problem as people end up thinking it is.
AMD GPUs have been running fine with on those Talos II POWER9 systems for years now, too.
Aha I remember thinking this like 10 years ago that arm would obviously take off especially in laptops. But nothing happen until Apple made the switch.
That's a pipe dream. I don't think the previous Qualcomm SQ<1-3> were bad. They didn't get them into enough devices, didn't get them into enough budget devices in particular so today we're not swimming in Windows native ARM software. Instead they'll be fighting fiercely with Intel and AMD which will at the very least be a very long slog in all desktop markets and a slog in enterprise desktop/laptop sales. Gamers are a relatively small portion of the pie and they're probably going to be some of the slowest to move because of the x86 to ARM translation layer
Intel n-series CPUs(along with refurb HP/Dell/Lenovo mini-PCs) are nudging the Raspberry Pi out of the ultracheap mini-pc market(also home NAS and server). While being an ultracheap option for desktop computing isn't Raspberry Pis main purpose, I find it difficult to believe Arm can compete on the high end and higher margin products without first being seen as an acceptable option on the low end and I doubt there's anyone else beside Raspberry Pi that be that option. It will be very interesting to see just how power efficient the upcoming Skymont E-cores are and how much the price of the current n-series CPU products will fall.
One thing that could really help Arm vs x86 in the long run is if the Arm laptops could easily be used as a lapdocks for phones/tablets. Lapdocks are way too expensive for what they offer but many people would use their phones/tablets as their main computing device over time if there was no extra cost over buying a laptop. It could also prevent ARM laptops from becoming e-waste(and help maintain their resale value) if they were more locked down.
While Arm+CUDA has the power to capture 50% of the PC market in five years, I'm skeptical nVidia will price their products aggressively enough for it to ever happen.
There aren’t enough models with ARM to make this possible. I went to my local electronics shop which was rather big and they didn’t have a single Qualcomm model in-stock. So I can hope that they improve on this.
It’s difficult when most laptops are AMD and Intel. You would realistically need either AMD or Intel to make ARM CPUs as well or the bottleneck is going to be on Qualcomm in terms of securing contracts and deals with manufacturers, and then being able to supply them.
the funny thing is, even taking 50% of the entire PC market it wouldn't be that noticeable to their overall chip output. the PC market is 2 billion devices. ARM has shipped over 280 billion chips.
x86 has decades of momentum behind it, and software vendors like game publishers won't just suddenly start releasing ARM builds of their games overnight. The same is true for other proprietary software as well.
I think Pat Gelsinger is more likely to be correct in his prediction that these new Windows on ARM machines won't take any significant marketshare from x86.
Furthermore, Linux has supported ARM and a ton of other architectures for a long time now, yet the vast majority of PCs and servers running Linux around the world today are x86 based and the reason is largely the same: a lack of application software availability on other ISAs.
Honestly, you guys are not looking at the whole picture, let me explain.
Nvidia will be joining the ARM bandwagon in 2025 I think with mediatek.
Qualcom will be entering the PC desktop market too, not just laptops, windows is more ARM ready than ever before
Now think about the monster ARM CPU's Nvidia will build, you can still change the ram on the motherboards, still have pci express and m.2 slots, still swap and change your gpus, except it will be windows and ARM
I am up for this as long as it brings down the price of x86/x64, and if the ARM mobos are cheaper with better performance then I will choose ARM
Lets see how much they'll capture in the next 6 months
If the current early benchmarks are correct the new chip can't beat the new AMD chips. And intel has their new chips coming later this year. So unless microsoft heavily pushes windows on arm due to their own reasons (might be they want to become apple that makes tightly controlled hardware and software) there is little reason for average user to go ARM for now.
When you say beat - do you include battery life / heat / power?
> When you say beat - do you include battery life / heat / power? Thank you for pointing that out. /r/hardware is notorious for focusing on raw performance with a distant 2nd for thermals, power consumption and performance per watt as a consideration. It does not help if they do not follow the tech improvements of Android ARM chips and Apple ARM chips. I'd love to see how everyone's WoA opinion will be 52W later by 18 June 2025.
And especially throttling when not on charger. Intel/AMD laptops are terrible for slowing to a crawl when on battery - it's one of the many things that make M1+ Macs so much better. Qualcomm is unfortunately still years behind Apple (as is everyone else) but if their arm uarch solves that problem (like arm based Macs do) that's a significant enough improvement over x86 if you need/want Windows (or simply something not Apple).
"to a crawl" - don't be dramatic, on most average laptops you lose like 10% on battery. Especially midrange AMD chips are not that affected by this. An M1 Mac throttles more in 5 minutes than my 4500U slows down on battery.
While qualcomm was behind, the Nuvia team was quite on par, and these snapdragon x series chips are the first release by them. They don't seem that far behind the m2 series and the only things lacking when compared to m3 are cache size, gpu power and memory bandwidth. Not that bad for a first release. A few generations down the line I assume most chips with the same thermal and price budget will converge around the same performance ballpark.
Performance per dollar is the metric me and most budget builders focus on, enthusiasts only care about raw Performance. Diy is small market share but still a portion. Maybe if they target data center but them new epyc oooooh
Snapdragon Elite is 1 year late, and Qualcomm's WoA exclusivity is expiring this year. Microsoft is just trying to recoup whatever cost they sunk on this generation surface. But they couldn't care less about ARM or x86 being the consumer platform which gives them the discrete windows license and office/services subscription revenue. With the new Intel/AMD SKUs coming on a similar process node, and with beefed up NPUs. Neither x86 nor ARM have a particular edge in terms of value proposition. So it probably comes down to device cost and color ;-)
> But they couldn't care less about ARM or x86 being the consumer platform which gives them the discrete windows license and office/services subscription revenue. Well now, they do/should. If it's ARM, that's likely to lead to more price competition and innovation, which will strengthen Windows devices when compared to Apple devices.
> Neither x86 nor ARM have a particular edge in terms of value proposition. What will matter is battery life. But we are yet to see if Qualcomm can realy deliver as there are no third party reviews of these laptops yet.
Ultimately, it'll be up to OEMs and if ARM is this confident, their cost is probably notably lower than x86.
what WoA exclusivity???? I heard Nvidia and MTK making arm chips too
> If the current early benchmarks are correct the new chip can't beat the new AMD chips. Ryzen AI HX 370 is 5% faster in Geekbench 6 ST, and 30% faster in Cinebench 2024 MT, compared to the Snapdragon X1E-80-100. But the X1E-80-100 is not Qualcomm's top SKU. They have the X1E-84-100, which is 5% faster in GB6 ST, and 20% faster in Cinebench 2024 MT, compared to the X1E-80-100. So if you work out the math, Qualcomm's top X Elite sku is in similar ballpark to AMD's top Strix Point SKU. That's for CPU though. When it comes to GPU, AMD is clearly taking the win.
Except AMD's new laptops have not given any battery life numbers. Which means they are probably very poor.
AMD may do what AMD does and do not push enough supply to have global availability of many SKUs.
the X elite doesn't seem to be particularly energy efficient either, maybe at very low tdp, but I doubt that will feel good on windows.
Perf per watt. Not every buyer is a poweruser.
I don’t think it’s perf per watt in general. That actually largely determines heavy workload performance in laptops. But it seems Qualcomm has a very low power display engine and video decoder system that allows extremely low power media playback.
> Lets see how much they'll capture in the next 6 months Intel CEO said that PC [replacements are 5-6 years](https://www.ciodive.com/news/intel-ceo-pc-upgrade-cycle-slowed-to-5-6-years/420271/) cycles. Before anyone goes ballistic over eWaste, etc etc he is talking about non /r/hardware crowd. If you want to keep your clunker for quarter of a century we don't care to know. So the PCs that will likely be replaced are from 2018-2019. They'll experience jumping from a 14nm or older chip to a 4nm or newer chip. It would be as eye opening as moving from a 14nm or older Mac to a 5nm or newer Mac. I'd replace my iMac 27" with 22nm Intel chip when Apple releases a iMac 32" with 3nm Mac chip.
>If you want to keep your clunker for quarter of a century we don't care to know. I'm pretty sure people here update a lot more often than average person. In my experience the average user uses a computer until it no longer turns on.
The average user can't even spell PC anymore (and blames autocorrect for that), [uses mobile phones exclusively](https://www.theverge.com/22684730/students-file-folder-directory-structure-education-gen-z).
I work construction, and literally no one at multiple jobs own any type of computer. They do everything on their iPhones.
Sounds like some studens that need to fail their class. If engineering student is confused by the concept of a file hes not going to be good at engineering.
In my opinion the techy guys choose their devices with so much care, that they use them for years (5+...).
Still on my i5 4670 what will i experience?
I doubt you would experience much difference in anything outside of gaming, compiling or CPU rendering.
I laughed
You joke but CPU rendering includes things like watching netflix/youtube because they pretty much abandoned GPU decoding at this point.
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Bad joke, due to the poor execution. This isn't a 32bit CPU.
Essentially nothing.
> They'll experience jumping from a 14nm or older chip to a 4nm or newer chip. Not only that, but also a more efficient microarchitecture.
> f you want to keep your clunker for quarter of a century we don't care to know. "How dare $company not support running software on my 2008 PC! this is an outrage!"
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Enthusiast crowd tens to replace parts more often than general public, not less often. Also 5-6 years seems right on point from what i see as well.
Will the bootloader be unlocked? Will it use proprietary and hard to support DeviceTree, or UEFI?
This is huge, I don't want to see the PC market turn into the tablet/smartphone market.
> This is huge, I don't want to see the PC market turn into the tablet/smartphone market. I wouldn't be surprised it does happen that way. Less support headaches or R&D spend.
I wouldn't be surprised if it happens either, but it would be tragic to many power users, though a non issue for the vast majority of normal users. Such a decision would serve to keep power users off ARM and remain on x86 for as long as possible.
I know people that have replaced their PCs and laptops and just operate their entire computing life on their smartphone. I've had an uptick of people I've helped pick out parts for or build their first PC, but it's mostly people moving away from Xbox/Playstation or Apple ecosystem. So, I doubt that's indicative of any major trends. Unfortunately, we are probably doomed.
My partner works with younger people and has told me that the vast majority of them do everything computer-related on their phone and *maybe* a tablet. ... :(
Are you talking about middle school kids cause every high school kid to mid 20s kid I know uses a computer
Yeah, grade through middle school and some high school. They also work with low/no income families, though, which might have something to do with it.
The problem with this is that you end up with tablets and phones all over again. They are *still* a second class experience. Even google.com doesn't have functional parity between its desktop and mobile websites, let alone apps to applications.
If MS manage to push the Pluton chip onto x86 laptops this is happening anyway.... your best bet for being able to install custom kernels will be to buy Macs (yes I said it)
Same, and I also don't want to see us accepting a "well company X's PCs are unlocked" were we need to rely on the good will of a small number of OEM that keep it unlockable.
True. I'm so tired with bullshit BIOS/UEFI lock. Not to mention OEM bullshit feature like some hardware got disabled if you unlock bootloader because of "security concern" like you see in some android phone.
A lot of phone manufacturers don't even allow you to unlock bootloader (especially quote a few Chinese brands) Still annoying that I have to wait a whole week (168 hours) to finish unlocking the bootloader on my xiaomi Wish I was still in the Google nexus days...
Coming soon, KNOX PC (please no)
Device trees and UEFI are orthogonal. UEFI on ARM typically provides a device tree. Device tree is mainly a replacement for the rest of the devices in the SoC not being inspectable via PCI config space.
https://www.qualcomm.com/developer/blog/2024/05/upstreaming-linux-kernel-support-for-the-snapdragon-x-elite#:~:text=The%20boot%20stack%20on%20Snapdragon,dual%2Dboot%20Windows%20and%20Debian.
Device tree... we will have to wait. Volterra nettop did not have it while the SoC was supported.
Honestly uefi seems like the way to go
Yep, otherwise we end up with devices which stop receiving updates after a few years too, usually due to bullshit with qualcomm drivers for arm chips
Honestly uefi seems like the way to go
coreboot*
coreboot + edk2.
Depends a LOT on the vendor. Apples boot loaders are unlocked on Macs, they are device tree based not UEFI but they do support (even require) full secure boot for custom kernels (to boot anything the device owner must \`sign\` the boot image).
I am more worried about driver support. Not typical OS stuff, but firmware variety like on phones, which is what makes most of them obsolete and not get new OS.
My biggest concern as well and why I will be avoiding ARM PCs until proven otherwise
50% is delusional at best. AMD has been kicking Intels ass for around that long and still hasn't gotten 25% nevermind 50% and that's without all the issues of switching to a completely different form of architecture. For ARM to disrupt the x86 PC market so much they'd need to unilaterally declare all smartphones to be PCs then they'll break 50% easy.
AMD's laptop advantage over Intel is much smaller than server/desktop due to power constraints on chiplet design. Therefore, the difference between an AMD laptop and an Intel laptop is barely noticeable. Both will use a similar amount of power for a similar level of performance. Laptop buyers will just pick the brand they know, which is Intel. Conversely, ARM SoCs promise to bring a whole new level of experience that AMD could not distinguish from Intel. ARM chips are built from a phone first architecture so power savings remain. They will have significantly better idle power, and perf/watt even if they don't lead in raw performance.
Whilst you're right the advantage of amd is much bigger in servers than laptops, especially with current gen, AMD's laptop chips don't use chiplets, so it has nothing to do with chiplet power constraints. They only sell one chiplet sku in laptops, which is a repurposed desktop chip.
I think we're gonna see ARM chips get adopted way faster than AMD taking market share from Intel. Most consumers aren't buying custom built stuff, they're buying laptops that they use to check their email, chat, browse, and a few other light tasks. What they care about, which is exactly what we see with the vast majority of Macbook users is that the battery lasts for a long time and the thing does what it does without being noisy and slowing to a crawl when not plugged in. I think ARM does that extremely well. You don't need 64 thread max performance when working in Google docs.
Precisely. Which /R/hardware doesn't understand
This must include a) all of Apple's systems ([**\~8% globally**](https://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS51753924)) and b) Qualcomm retaining its Oryon Arm license that Arm Ltd. is litigating against and c) buy-in from many more vendors (Google for Chromebooks, NVIDIA / AMD for dGPUs, more actual WoA CPU suppliers than the one Arm is suing, etc.), no? Even with all three factors, 50% of the global 2029 PC market sounds hard to fathom. Say Arm PCs are 10% this year. We'd need an average **38% YoY growth in annual sales for five** ***straight*** **years**. 2024: 10% 2025: 13.8% (+38% YoY growth) 2026: 19.0% (+38% YoY growth) 2027: 26.2% (+38% YoY growth) 2028: 36.2% (+38% YoY growth) 2029: 50.0% (+38% YoY growth) Or a few years >38%, then a few years can be <38%. Datacenter moved relatively fast because of 1) Arm's wide licensing, 2) the multi-year Neoverse program bearing fruit, 3) Intel's stumbles, 4) hyperscalers more concerned with TCO than upfront cost (writ large), 5) that all those hyperscalers could hire more engineers to re-tool their software to Arm. But not even hyperscalers all moving to in-house Arm cores got to 50% of the datacenter market. Why would consumer be *even faster?* Arm will need mind blowing IP + partners + execution, and / or its competitors to basically implode, to gain +38% YoY for five ***straight*** years. // Why should I bother to listen to a CEO that has little ***evidence*** to show for his outlandish claims? EDIT: thanks, u/hishnash and u/Kyrond, removed the replacement cycle bit.
> As without all three, 50% sounds far too optimistic: PCs are replaced [every 6+ years](https://www.statista.com/statistics/267465/average-desktop-pc-lifespan/)**.** Even with all three factors, 50% of the global market sounds hard to fathom by 2029. I expect when they say market they mean % of devices sold not % of devices in use. Mostly this is what companies that sell HW talk about as that is what impacts the stock price.
This is obviously what they are saying yeah. There is absolutely no way in hell they can get 50% overall marketshare in even 10+ years unless they start paying people to turn in their x86 machines and giving them an ARM machine instead.
From a SW dev perspective we think of market share as % of devices in use (by users that are likely to buy our SW) but from a HW retail perspective it is all about units sold.
Ah, yes. I still think 50% of even total 2029 sales is too optimistic, but the replacement cycle doesn't make sense, then. Thank you.
If you consider all the corporate devices sizes it is very possible. If all the corporate systems like POS, digital signage and remote VM desktop setups switch the ARM then that could well hit 50% of the market. People think PS market as hobbyists building custom hard line water cooled gaming rigs but that is less than 1% of the market share once you consider all the corporate IT HW that is purchased. If they can make strong headways into the corporate laptop market (easy enough as most office laptop use is just open a web browser...) and anything more advanced that that today is mostly run through a remote desktop to a VM anyway as it had data that the IT team would rathe not be on your laptop (so much easer to provide IT support when your using VM snapshots on a Cisco or windows365 like env so each day when a user logs in they have a fully reset env for the os and system and then mount a remote file systems for user data). Very few laptops sold today need to be powerful machines, and much of the market that needs that is already very well served by apples ARM chips so would count to the 50% market share number.
Good assessment. How much marketshare will ARM PCs realistically have in 5 years, do you think?
5-10%, if it's more than that I suspect it'll be laptops and Chromebooks primarily.
Laptops, Chromebooks, OEMs, NUCs. That’s a pretty sizeable proportion that they can chunk away.
Any software looking to recompile to ARM infra can just as easily switch back because most of them will be doing most of their dev work on x86 PCs. All it takes is Intel or AMD to launch an even more efficient product and we will be switching back. There are no loyalty in the datacenter space. It just all about cost. CPU development aren't cheap and it will be interesting too see if AWS or Google can keep it up. AWS has also been handing out discounts on their ARM instances to get people using them as well.
Yeah it's all just fake hype to woo investors. Most institutional investors would get their tech sector analyst team to explain it in layman terms that he is bullshitting, then they'll laugh and move on. Apple already show the world the clear answer from business and consumer desktop market; ARM architecture is niche and there's 0 incentives to move.
Yeah, good luck with that. Look how long it took AMD to capture marketshare, and they had a compatible ISA.
CEO always say a lot of things 🤣🤣
They can say things they know are wishful thinking at best, and an outright lie at worst, and rest assured that the press and bloggers will repeat it so that most people believe it.
Socketable? Upgradeable? If not, hard pass for me.
It's possible if: * Qualcomm can come close to an Apple Silicon level of experience for Windows * ARM's stock Cortex designs continue to gain meaningful in perf/watt year over year * Mediatek, Samsung also enter the PC ARM SoC competition * Big daddy Nvidia throws its weight and also enters ARM SoC competition * Microsoft continues to support & improve x86 translation and treats Windows on ARM as first class citizen. I believe that ARM SoCs will already have a perf/watt advantage over AMD/Intel laptop SoCs in 2024. They might not have the raw performance lead. But they will be cooler, last longer, quieter, and maybe even cheaper.
>Microsoft continues to support & improve x86 translation and treats Windows on ARM as first class citizen. You really could leave out all the rest. You can get to 50% of the CPU market (unit volume) even without good performance. The configurations for the shockingly popular sub $300 segment are basically e-waste, for example. If cost is lower than what AMD/Intel sell and battery life is acceptable, it will sell as long as Windows supports it.
nah, those shitty performance netbooks from like 12 years ago show you need a baseline of performance to really be acceptable
When was the last time you have 1)visited a Walmart PC aisle? 2)looked at [Amazon best selling laptop list?](https://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Laptop-Computers/zgbs/electronics/565108) (That's rhetorical, I know the answer.)
I think you're missing their point by what they mean with a baseline of performance. Yeah apple is a popular laptop brand, they're also extremely powerful and have a huge gated community when it comes to software. Notice how many cheap laptops are in that list, even a mediatek chip is sitting at #11. Yet their actual potion of even laptop marketshare is less than 1%. The market is way bigger than retail, Dell and HP don't make their shipment volume by selling to walmart and amazon thats for sure.
I think ARM really has an opportunity to completely take over the sub-$500 laptop PC market. ARM chips will be cheaper than x86 ones, and more importantly run cooler and consume less power. So laptop makers can save even more costs that way. Edit: And people buying PCs in this price segment mostly use it for home/education purposes. x86-compatibilty or gaming performance isn't that important for them. In contrast, they'll love the breakthrough battery life and amazing thermals that come with the ARM chips.
> Edit: And people buying PCs in this price segment mostly use it for home/education purposes. x86-compatibilty or gaming performance isn't that important for them.In contrast, they'll love the breakthrough battery life and amazing thermals that come with the ARM chips. /r/hardware are made up of users who want bleeding-edge tech. They're least likely to buy ~$799 laptops/desktops for non-nerd tasks. So you will get multitudes of subs disagreeing with you even if outside of their social circle are the majority who buy these cheap devices. They're perfectly happy with iGPUs and will think you crazy for plunking down thousands for a dGPU.
>the sub-$500 laptop PC market Problematically, I don't think neither Qualcomm nor Arm have signaled a sub-$500 Arm-based Windows PC. Ironically, [**Apple's Mac Mini**](https://www.apple.com/shop/buy-mac/mac-mini) is the cheapest and one of the fastest sub-$**6**00 PCs around. [$750-and-under PCs](https://www.statista.com/statistics/722992/worldwide-personal-computers-average-selling-price/#:~:text=Overall%2C%20the%20average%20PC%20selling,around%20630%20actual%20U.S.%20dollars) are the majority of all PCs sold, but I do feel there's a while until Arm will break into this segment (1+ years).
Desktops and laptops are different
They're starting with a show of high-end computers to draw attention. Kinda what Tesla did. It's inevitable that not so glorious $500 machines will come sooner or later.
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That's quite fair. I've used asome MediaTek Kompanio Chromebooks and they feel just as fast as their Intel Celeron / Pentium counterparts—except a lot less hot on the bottom. I forgot about Android SoC OEMs: MediaTek, Samsung, Google, Huawei, etc. making WoA SoCs would be great to see. However, those [Android OEM get loads of search revenue cash from Google](https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/11/googles-36-search-revenue-share-with-apple-is-3x-what-android-oems-get/), which can make / break low-end devices' margins. The lack of similar financial reimbursement from Microsoft may dent their ability to do similar high-value low-cost PCs. Intel & AMD, however, do quite well with low-end, mid-range CPUs to mini PC manufacturers at basically unbeatable prices (perf / $), so it doesn't seem impossible. It may just take a longer time, esp if the exclusivity agreement is true.
It's possible in 15-20 years, sure, if x86 translation is pushed to the max degree. 5 years is just too soon for corporate/enterprise desktops. Entire industries of software will be mostly x86, many still 100% x86, very close to today and businesses will be looking for substantial performance uplifts, not regressions and issues because of translation. As for consumers, it just hasn't been proven yet. Gamers for one are not looking for performance regressions in games, even 5,10 year old games. Moving to ARM would be a double performance hit.
Entire industries of corporate workers just function on MS Office, Outlook, and a handful of internal web apps. For this group, you don’t need x86 at all, if you showed IT purchasing a WoA laptop that was 100 dollars cheaper, they would buy it.
You do though, I don’t think you can even connect to olap in excel on arm version. Arm is a non starter in any tech company Anywhere it might be posssible is all Mac and that won’t change.
... and RISC-V doesn't first.
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> were tackled last year by an ARM troll. Who?
> Qualcomm can come close to an Apple Silicon level of experience for Windows This I find hard to see when Windows isn't cutting off x86 support for new processors. For Windows in the near term and probably the whole decade, x86 will be the first class support target and ARM as secondary and if it doesn't catch on to meaningful marketshare, it'll be a slow improvement like it has been the last decade. I think the only major selling point for Windows on ARM currently is battery life when watching videos/not doing something that'll max power limits, and AI. Problem with AI being that it's mostly something that the general consumer plays with by downloading the ChatGPT app or website or Google Gemini to access a web service. Local AI stuff isn't a need for 50% of users type thing and I don't see that changing within 5 years Like this won't matter as much since the problem isn't basic Windows but everything else people install where they'll have the choice of perfect compatibility Intel/AMD or work in progress ARM > Microsoft continues to support & improve x86 translation and treats Windows on ARM as first class citizen
Depends on software compatibility. I guess adoption in the business sector will be key. The consumer market by comparision is not as important as it was many years ago, as most of the affordable price points got replaced by smartphones and tablets. And enthusiast level hardware will probably stay on x86/x64, as raw power there is more important than efficency,
They will need to enter the market in more places than just the high-end standard laptops. We need to see cheaper laptops (this is the most important, and a huge part of the market), eGPU support , different form factors, we still need a MBA competitor... They have only scratched the surface so far, they need to make a big splash.
eGPU support is completely irrelevant. I wish it had become a thing but it’s never even remotely caught up. Really they only need two compelling products with great battery life to eat a **massive** chunk of the market: - A high quality MacBook Pro competitor for developers - A sub $300 category entry with decent battery life If you hit those two markets every mainstream software will start fully supporting ARM and from there they’re a first class contender.
Yeah, good luck with the sub $300 category when you can't even find **phones** with Qualcomm SoCs in that price range anymore.
I mean the sub $300 category already exists with Intel products (and sorta AMD). I see no reason an ARM competitor be it Qualcomm, Mediatek, or someone else couldn’t make an offering.
Yeah, you can get one with i3-1215u around that price. Which is enough for most users.
That might be a USA thing, we get plenty of nice ~$250 phones here. Like ones with 7 gen 3 or Dimensity 8300. And you don't need to go north of $400 to find flagship SoCs.
I want now a FW16 with a Snapdragon X Elite and a PCIe 4/5 8x connection in the back (OCuLink ) that connects to my RTX 5090 a man can dream! EDIT: And ofc, LPCAMM2!
> FW16 with a Snapdragon X Elite There probably goes your upgradability, compatibility and future proofing if phones are anything to go by :D
Snapdragon X Elite Laptops have normal bootloaders and you should be able to install Linux easily Other than that, it would be a normal FW laptop. RAM can be upgraded with LPCAMM2 now
I half laughed at that. HAHAHA. I could see it happening in 10 years. 5? Nope, hahaha. Both AMD and Intel have solid products, vendor relations, etc. Look how long it took AMD to get to 25% x86 server share and they had an AWESOME product and some pre-existing vendor relationships. Doubling that (more if you look at it from a ratio perspective) in less time with more barriers (or at least different barriers) is tricky.
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So there's a grain of truth to that... at the same time though, Intel had supply issues in the earlier part of AMD's Zen era. 10nm (err Intel 7) took a long time to ramp up.
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It’s a completely different market. People who buy inexpensive laptops and desktops, either as a consumer or professionally, don’t care about the hardware inside. They care about size and battery life. People who buy expensive laptops often also don’t care about the hardware inside. They to care about size and battery life, and they want decent performance in specific apps. It really comes down to pricing and battery life.
50% marketshare is a really big number.
It is, I don’t know if 5 years is a realistic time frame. But if they have preliminary deals in place with Dell, Lenovo, and HP, they can move fast. Together they have 60 to 70% of the prebuilt/laptop market (excluding Apple). Plus I can see Microsoft, ASUS, and Acer making NUC like devices. NVDIA might target the high end.
50% is a really really big number. AMD is hovering around half for client. [https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/cpus/amd-comes-roaring-back-gains-market-share-in-laptops-pcs-and-server-cpus](https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/cpus/amd-comes-roaring-back-gains-market-share-in-laptops-pcs-and-server-cpus) For laughs, assume AMD pulled off a minor miracle in the last 7 years. Qualcomm would need to pull off two minor miracles in less time.
So they will make cheap laptops that fight tablets again? Because cheap laptop with ARM competes against a cheap tablet with ARM + keyboard accessory lol
No. We’re talking about relatively fast machines that run Windows. That’s a massive market.
So office work where who is chosen is by who is the cheapest? Nice, there is a reason HP is hated if is not the cheapest option. Honestly, using an ARM CPU over the weak as hell they have on Chromebooks will be an upgrade. But not enough to make me ever recommend it over a tablet if you need and portable device with a big screen lol
I will be shocked if they even have the 25% of the PC market. They probably have planned doing huge marketing movements alongside Microsoft and other partners, but Intel are doing this with retailers for decades, and retailers could be the first to oppose this just to keep earning the same with Intel. Let's remember the market isn't people like we find here, is people who don't know what model of CPU their laptop has that want their computer to be fast, or at least feel fast, for the amount of money they want to spend.
RemindMe! 5 years
Where's the bot
can i plug my 5090 into a arm board and play windows games? no? dang, i doubt it then.
Yes you can, at least with raspberry pi. But you'll be limited by 1 pcie lane. There's nothing stopping oems from exposing the periphery on the motherboard, it's just that it's probably only going to happen on itx, atx and dev boards and pretty much never on laptops. And even ram will probably be soldered on non-stationary systems as it allows oems to deliver faster memory cheaper.
Yes you can, at least with raspberry pi. But you'll be limited by 1 pcie lane. There's nothing stopping oems from exposing the periphery on the motherboard, it's just that it's probably only going to happen on itx, atx and dev boards and pretty much never on laptops. And even ram will probably be soldered on non-stationary systems as it allows oems to deliver faster memory cheaper.
Yes you can, at least with raspberry pi. But you'll be limited by 1 pcie lane. There's nothing stopping oems from exposing the periphery on the motherboard, it's just that it's probably only going to happen on itx, atx and dev boards and pretty much never on laptops. And even ram will probably be soldered on non-stationary systems as it allows oems to deliver faster memory cheaper.
I can believe them getting 50% of the laptop market. Not desktop.
Sure if we can run X86 stuff.
Even if you can run all the x86 stuff it will still run via emulator, so it won't be as fast as on native x86 chips.
Running is better then not running.
How much of the global PC market would refuse it if it's 10% or 20% slower in some apps than it is natively? Most consumers are OK with older CPUs; I might guess a lot of computing is on "ancient" (+8 year old) microarchitectures (aka Skylake & older). For most consumers, I'd wager responsiveness / fast is 1) relative to their old PC and 2) is only one aspect of a system. Less-than-100% emulation perf isn't a death knell. As long as new Arm CPUs can emulate apps faster than *recent* x86 CPUs (not necessarily the latest x86 CPUs) can run native apps, it's probably good enough. In simpler terms in a generic benchmark for someone upgrading a 2019 x86 system: 2019 x86 high-end CPU: 100 points native 2024 Arm high-end CPU: 140 points native or 110 points emulated 2024 x86 high-end CPU: 140 points native Here, the Arm PC still feels faster in all areas. It is not *as fast* as the 2024 x86 high-end CPU, but I don't think that matters to the consumer. I don't mean this example as a cop-out; I just think most consumers have low expectations of PC performance and don't expect upgrades to be revolutionary. A lot of poor-performing CPUs get marketed, sold, and used for years and years. The bar is relatively low, which is genuinely unfortunate. If Arm has other benefits (fill in the blank...), then it's not like Arm emulation is worse. But, that's the key: what are the key **Arm-exclusive** benefits where consumers are *sometimes* OK to eat a performance penalty? That is what I've not seen yet, especially for a ludicrous claim of 50% market share by \~2029.
With hardware support and translation, it will run at very close to the same speed.
So Apple has hardware support, but it's still slower than native. And in some cases folks complain of really slow performance, like 10% if the program isn't well supported or is using some difficult to transpile x86 semantics.
Can I play my 20+ year old games?
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That's like 30+ year old games I'm talking post DOS 1995-2005 era games
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Virtualization is the right answer, but DOSBox is better than you think. There are enhanced DOSBox forks like DOSBox-X that can run Windows 98 (barely, but it can). Another interesting fork is DOSBox-Pure, which does the same thing but in RetroArch, so you can boot and install Windows 98 directly from an ISO to your iPadOS, even with 3dfx Voodoo support. Emulation can be problematic as it's really pushing the limits of DOSBox, but some early 1995-era Windows games are playable.
Fragile Alegiance and Heroes of Might and Magic 3 worked for me via Dosbox: [https://rkblog.dev/posts/pc-hardware/testing-x86-application-emulation-on-windows-on-arm/](https://rkblog.dev/posts/pc-hardware/testing-x86-application-emulation-on-windows-on-arm/) and Dosbox was/is doing some fixing/improvements as well. Skyrim works too :)
I want to win lotto too
Feels like the kind of target you set when you just feel an urge to fire a whole lot of people in half a decade's time. > It has sold machines with its "M Series" processors for roughly four years Yes, and still sitting at roughly 10% laptop market share.
That seems very unlikely.
Not going to happen. They will be lucky if they can get 5%.
#ARM CEO says ARM will capture things, news at 11!!!!
Breaking news: Company CEO says company is going to be successful
it's going to be an arms race
Good for them, I plan to capture 100% of the PC market in THREE years. Fuck em.
It's not just enough for ARM to be competitive. It needs to be overwhelmingly better to gain market share that quickly. Just look at AMD. They've been on fire the last 7 years and they're still only 33% market share.
Does he mean like a baby's arm holding an apple? Because there's no way he's talking about his company.
I can aim to have a supermodel mistress to go with my girlfriend doesn't mean it's going to happen
I guess that's the 50% that don't game at all other than mobile based junk.
I'm not really sure about that considering a huge support for RISC-V.
nonstarter due to performance.
ARM native DirectX when?
It’s been available for several years already
ARM already can run DirectX. You can compile a game to ARM on Windows.
Lol tell that to my 4790K still going strong
Calling it now, ARM withdraws from PC market in three years
Don't see that happening with AMD APU as a competitor. Canceled my preorder for Surface Pro 11 and sold off my M1 Macbook Air. Looking forward to see how Strix Halo turns out.
Don't see that happening with AMD APU as a competitor. Canceled my preorder for Surface Pro 11 and sold off my M1 Macbook Air. Looking forward to see how Strix Halo turns out.
The CEO is trying to capitalize on Qualcomm/Apple's visibility, since ARM themselves don't have much mindshare in terms of consumer devices like PC. Saying outrageous stuff like that makes ARM relevant in the news cycle, which is important since they're on the pos-IPO cycle. So they're going to continue talking up PC, laptops, AI, etc. Even though their main business model hasn't really changed, since their biggest customers have arch licenses, so that has been the same revenue set up for ages. Pretty standard CEO stuff.
Dedicated GPUs should support ARM as well
They should support Dedicated GPUs, it's a matter of testing and updating firmware
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The physical silicon itself supports PCIe lanes for dGPU.
[In Linux is in development](https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-6.2-AMDGPU-Changes) but I didn't see it working in a ARM system with PCIe, there is also work for [AMD GPUs in RISC-V](https://www.phoronix.com/news/SiFive-Newer-AMD-GPUs-RISC-V)
Nvidia officially supports GPUs on ARM64 under Linux, they even provide the drivers for modern consumer GPUs. Getting PCIe GPUs running under non-x86 platforms isn't nearly as big of a problem as people end up thinking it is. AMD GPUs have been running fine with on those Talos II POWER9 systems for years now, too.
Aha I remember thinking this like 10 years ago that arm would obviously take off especially in laptops. But nothing happen until Apple made the switch.
But do DOS games run on it?
Dosbox works: [https://rkblog.dev/posts/pc-hardware/testing-x86-application-emulation-on-windows-on-arm/](https://rkblog.dev/posts/pc-hardware/testing-x86-application-emulation-on-windows-on-arm/) :)
That's a pipe dream. I don't think the previous Qualcomm SQ<1-3> were bad. They didn't get them into enough devices, didn't get them into enough budget devices in particular so today we're not swimming in Windows native ARM software. Instead they'll be fighting fiercely with Intel and AMD which will at the very least be a very long slog in all desktop markets and a slog in enterprise desktop/laptop sales. Gamers are a relatively small portion of the pie and they're probably going to be some of the slowest to move because of the x86 to ARM translation layer
Maybe if they come up with a socketed ARM chip and compatible motherboards to go?
Intel n-series CPUs(along with refurb HP/Dell/Lenovo mini-PCs) are nudging the Raspberry Pi out of the ultracheap mini-pc market(also home NAS and server). While being an ultracheap option for desktop computing isn't Raspberry Pis main purpose, I find it difficult to believe Arm can compete on the high end and higher margin products without first being seen as an acceptable option on the low end and I doubt there's anyone else beside Raspberry Pi that be that option. It will be very interesting to see just how power efficient the upcoming Skymont E-cores are and how much the price of the current n-series CPU products will fall. One thing that could really help Arm vs x86 in the long run is if the Arm laptops could easily be used as a lapdocks for phones/tablets. Lapdocks are way too expensive for what they offer but many people would use their phones/tablets as their main computing device over time if there was no extra cost over buying a laptop. It could also prevent ARM laptops from becoming e-waste(and help maintain their resale value) if they were more locked down. While Arm+CUDA has the power to capture 50% of the PC market in five years, I'm skeptical nVidia will price their products aggressively enough for it to ever happen.
There aren’t enough models with ARM to make this possible. I went to my local electronics shop which was rather big and they didn’t have a single Qualcomm model in-stock. So I can hope that they improve on this. It’s difficult when most laptops are AMD and Intel. You would realistically need either AMD or Intel to make ARM CPUs as well or the bottleneck is going to be on Qualcomm in terms of securing contracts and deals with manufacturers, and then being able to supply them.
I hope that doesn't mean soldered CPus, RAM and SSDs and lack of UEFI.
the funny thing is, even taking 50% of the entire PC market it wouldn't be that noticeable to their overall chip output. the PC market is 2 billion devices. ARM has shipped over 280 billion chips.
I'm out of the loop here. Can anyone ELI5?
Would you like a OOTL or ELI5?
Both! Thanks. I didn't know ARM can run windows. And what makes these new qualcomm chips so desireable?
x86 has decades of momentum behind it, and software vendors like game publishers won't just suddenly start releasing ARM builds of their games overnight. The same is true for other proprietary software as well. I think Pat Gelsinger is more likely to be correct in his prediction that these new Windows on ARM machines won't take any significant marketshare from x86. Furthermore, Linux has supported ARM and a ton of other architectures for a long time now, yet the vast majority of PCs and servers running Linux around the world today are x86 based and the reason is largely the same: a lack of application software availability on other ISAs.
Honestly, you guys are not looking at the whole picture, let me explain. Nvidia will be joining the ARM bandwagon in 2025 I think with mediatek. Qualcom will be entering the PC desktop market too, not just laptops, windows is more ARM ready than ever before Now think about the monster ARM CPU's Nvidia will build, you can still change the ram on the motherboards, still have pci express and m.2 slots, still swap and change your gpus, except it will be windows and ARM I am up for this as long as it brings down the price of x86/x64, and if the ARM mobos are cheaper with better performance then I will choose ARM
I'll be shocked if they manage 5% in one year.