
Intel knows it's no longer inside - jonbaer
http://www.theverge.com/2016/5/31/11817818/intel-computex-2016-keynote-report
======
walterbell
Have there been studies on the relative software utilization of client
hardware over the years?

If clients are reduced to consumption terminals where special purpose IP
blocks (e.g. video decoding) neutralize the difference between x86 and ARM,
there is less justification for the price premium of a powerful general
purpose CPU.

If powerful clients have large local storage and compute-oriented apps that
are optimized for low-latency human interaction on large desktop monitors or
VR workspaces, then there would be good reason to pay for a general purpose
CPU.

A powerful desktop can also serve as a cloud to mobile devices, but a cloud
server cannot offer the low-latency response of a local desktop. Why discard
the one form factor that can serve both roles?

Is the problem Moore's Law or the lack of desktop software innovation and
business models? If Hollywood can promote business models via PC hardware DRM
(e.g. SGX), can the software industry support hardware for client-oriented
business models?

~~~
stephengillie
The i7 from 2010 still runs fine in my gaming PC. Unlike a Pentium 3 from
2000, there have been no major speed advances in the past 6 years. True,
today's i7 can push 16 threads instead of 8, but even with a full screen game,
YouTube, Twitch, Chrome, and 2 game servers, it barely uses 6 threads.

The devices aren't necessarily disappearing; we just don't need new ones
anymore.

~~~
andyjdavis
I have been looking around for a replacement laptop. Historically I have
primarily looked at 3 numbers. RAM, hard drive size and CPU speed. It is just
for running one or more IDEs so I don't have any particularly special
requirement.

I feel like CPU speeds have plateaued. Not so long ago getting a new machine
after a few years meant getting a new CPU that was vastly quicker whereas all
of the laptops I am looking at are only marginally faster than my ~3 year old
laptop.

My hard drive requirements are not huge so it looks like I am essentially
buying a new laptop just to get more RAM.

~~~
robocat
The most important speed up you can currently get is changing to an NVMe SSD
running at 3 times the speed of a SATA SSD.

However, for many devices it difficult to wade through specs working out if
you are actually getting NVMe (or whether you are just getting M2 SATA at the
slower speed instead).

~~~
kazinator
That is an important speedup if you access a lot of data compared to what your
DRAM can cache, or often do a full reboot (which means cold re-reading a lot
of executable images from storage). Max out the RAM first.

------
astazangasta
Anyone else think this VR stuff is going to crash and burn hard? I'm really
not sure why there is so much optimism around this area, it seems way too
niche to drive general trends in computing.

~~~
bduerst
I'm on the fence because I'm biased against something that requires changing
user behavior, like wearing headgear.

With rehashing of 3D tv in the last few years, it was obvious that it was more
of a product gimmick with manufacturers than real value.

With VR, you're seeing big companies pushing into the space from a spectrum of
angles, ranging from re-imagining the workspace to 3D gaming. The bigger
question is whether or not VR will become commonplace before augmented reality
advances enough to replace it.

~~~
criddell
Other than for gaming and watching certain kinds of videos, I can't see VR (or
AR) being a huge deal. I can think of all kinds of neat things that could be
done with it, but the production costs are just too high and the equipment is
too clunky.

Even in gaming, I expect VR games will be only moderately successful.

~~~
bduerst
I can see AR taking over the workspace, where you put on an ergo headset and
see a digital overlay of multiple screens.

~~~
criddell
I'd be surprised if that became a thing outside of specialized cases like
doctors seeing a patients vital signs and AI advice while they operate.

One thing I've expected to see more of is Second Life. I thought for sure all
the VR hype would reinvigorate Second Life for things like online classes and
virtual meetings.

~~~
bduerst
No way! I can totally see replacing monitors with AR glasses. Six monitors
costs $1,000+, which a headset would probably be cheaper than.

------
projectramo
There is one important additional fact one ought to keep in mind when reading
something like this:

 _Intel derives much of its competitive advantage from its ability to
manufacture._

This means that a lot of Intel's advantage will only express itself when the
market grows really large. There have been a number of times when other
companies beat Intel to a new technology (introducing, say, the 64 Bit chip
several months ahead), but when the market took off and the cycle began, only
Intel was able to deliver in sufficient quantity.

I don't know what the total market for a particular chip is likely to be, or
how fast it will get there.

~~~
nl
This just isn't correct.

Intel's big advantage has been their ability to reliably and continually
improve their manufacturing process, and for this to reliably and continually
deliver performance improvements (the tick/tock strategy).

 _There have been a number of times when other companies beat Intel to a new
technology (introducing, say, the 64 Bit chip several months ahead), but when
the market took off and the cycle began, only Intel was able to deliver in
sufficient quantity._

This is entirely untrue. AMD delivered a better consumer-focused 64bit
architecture, and for an entire generation the Athlon outperformed the
Pentium4. Yes, Intel sold plenty, but AMD did too.

That was the last time Intel made a misstep in their x64 product line.

Nowdays, desktop chips are facing some challenges. TSMC, Samsung and other are
able to deliver plenty of ARM chips to market for the phone and tablet chips.
Nvidia is increasingly eating the compute market.

~~~
projectramo
You've said this isn't correct a few times but nothing you've said in between
contradicts anything you seem to disagree with.

~~~
nl
I read your point as being that they can manufacture large volumes ("only
Intel was able to deliver in sufficient quantity").

This wasn't the case during the x64 transition, which was the example you
used. To quote Wikipedia:

 _In commercial terms, the Athlon "Classic" was an enormous success not just
because of its own merits, but also because Intel endured a series of major
production, design, and quality control issues at this time. In particular,
Intel's transition to the 180 nm production process, starting in late 1999 and
running through to mid-2000, suffered delays. There was a shortage of Pentium
III parts.[citation needed] In contrast, AMD enjoyed a remarkably smooth
process transition and had ample supplies available, causing Athlon sales to
become quite strong_[1]

However, that was during the early 2000s. Since 2007, Intel has continually
improved their processes and architectures on a reliable timeline[2], and
haven't had any significant problems delivering those continual improvements.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athlon#Athlon_.22Classic.22](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athlon#Athlon_.22Classic.22)

[2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tick-
Tock_model](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tick-Tock_model)

~~~
projectramo
Yes, that is what my point was. And yes, your most recent response clarifies
your counterargument.

I assume you meant to say "Since 2007, AMD has continually improved..."

So I stand corrected in that I didn't realize AMD had closed the gap.

However, my point was about the relative manufacturing ability of Intel and
its competitors. Am I to understand your claim that AMD's manufacturing is
(approximately) as good as Intel's at the moment?

I don't have any new information, but its a very, very hard problem. And a
brief google search seems to indicate that AMD has faced more recent
challenges: [http://www.wired.com/2012/03/amd-global-
foundries/](http://www.wired.com/2012/03/amd-global-foundries/)

~~~
nl
_I assume you meant to say "Since 2007, AMD has continually improved..."_

No, Intel is the one with the reliable continual improvement process. That is
their advantage, not ability to manufacture large volumes.

------
mixmastamyk
I wonder if there will soon be room for a non-x86 PC due to the rise of mobile
devices. Don't think there's been one available since the demise of the Power
Mac.

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
Apple have smoothly changed processor architecture twice before, they could do
it again. Maybe they'll go ARM everywhere at some point.

~~~
philippnagel
Is ARM objectively better than x86?

~~~
old-gregg
ARM is better for <5W applications when performance is secondary to power
consumption, but Intel is beating them at performance/watt ratio everywhere
else.

~~~
esturk
So why not use both? Just like iPhones use a M9 processor for some dedicated
computations, why can't MacBooks offload some less intensive computations to
an energy efficient ARM processor.

This in no way eats the x86 market but in fact grows the ARM market.

~~~
redial
If they bring TouchID to the Mac maybe that is what they'll do as it uses the
secure enclave inside the A series processors.

------
leaveyou
>Brian Krzanich said the company's focus was on moving to the cloud, with data
centers and the Internet of Things considered primary growth drivers

Cloud, servers.. I get it, Intel is well established there, but IoT ? Do they
have a foothold in this area ? When I look on their page I don't see anything
promising.. and when I think of IoT, I imagine some low power ARM SOCs like
Raspbery Pis combined with Arduinos rather then anything Intel sells today.

[http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/internet-of-
things/pr...](http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/internet-of-
things/products-and-solutions.html)

~~~
roymurdock
Wind River (Subsidiary of Intel) has a large foothold in the IoT market with
their VxWorks and WR Linux OSs that play in the embedded/MCU market. Also see
their free new open source OS, Rocket, which is being developed as the "Zephyr
Project" in collaboration with the Linux Foundation.

~~~
kevin_thibedeau
Which are mostly running on ARM and PPC. Intel screwed up by dumping Xscale
and their legacy embedded lineup. Windriver isn't going to save them.

~~~
roymurdock
WR is aggressively building out its Helix Cloud platform. Silicon is useless
without the services/app dev/data management backend. If WR can migrate OS
users up to Helix Cloud they can (somewhat) offset losses on Intel hardware
and giving the newer OSs away for free.

------
whazor
Since the transistors in chips are becoming smaller and smaller, heat is an
increasing issue. This is why ARM chips for smartphones and IoT are booming,
because their requirements of small chips are compatible with the shrinking
size of the transistor. Now Intel tries to get a cut of the market, but they
are too late.

Anyway, I think they should keep focussing on making the computer chips and
focus on the temperature problem.

~~~
valarauca1
>Now Intel tries to get a cut of the market, but they are too late.

It's really more complex then that.

x86_64 has a lot of backwards compatibility. Even low power chips made by
Intel typically consume 2-5x the wattage of ARM counter parts. Intel's very
low power line (matches ARM) doesn't actually have the 64bit extension and is
functionally a i586 chip from circa 1999-2003. Modern x86_64 chips have a
whole section of die space dedicated to emulation, re-ordering, re-naming, and
caching for us to pretend x86 is fast.

Then you have monopoly. Intel is the only company making x86_64 chips (Yes
VIA/AMD exist, but collectively they have <10% of the market). They are the
only show in town, it's their prices. While ARM simply licenses it's IP to
other companies, who then compete with one another and drive prices even
lower.

~~~
StillBored
I don't know why the argument that x86_64 has some affect on efficiency keeps
coming up. All modern OoO chips microarch is decoupled from the instruction
decoders. All the "strange" x86 instructions are effectively microcoded, which
doesn't affect the execution performance of the instructions actually
contained in high performance code. In many ways the ability to easily
spill/operate against memory/stack provides instruction density advantages,
and simplifies certain dependency calculations.

So, whether ARM64 has an power efficiency advantage isn't clear at all when
one tries to actually compare them fairly. I frequently see people linearly
scaling power/performance curves, or comparing cores that contain ECC,
significantly more IO, etc against cores that don't and claiming that the core
with 10x the IO bandwidth is somehow less efficient computationally because it
consumes 5 watts more to power a PCIe bus.

So, lets get this out of the way, performance is not linear to power. Simply
having a clock rate 50% faster has a large impact on power given the rough
P=CV^2f equation because often the voltage goes up to support the higher
frequencies. Worse designing for a target top end frequency of 4Ghz may entail
extra pipeline stages/etc than one targeting 2Ghz in the same process. The
result is significantly higher power draw at the same frequency due to the
fact that higher frequencies are supported. Then there is leakage current/etc,
which will be proportional to the number of transistors, so a design with 15MB
of cache is going to waste more on leakage than one with 1MB. The extra 14MB
of cache may only contribute another percent or two to the bottom line in many
workloads, but frequently the difference between a processors at X performance
and one at 1.5X is not due to a single factor but dozens of design tradeoffs
that individually only net small percentage gains.

Bottom line, its better to compare implementations, and when ARM vs x86 chips
are compared on similar grounds, they are a lot closer than you hear in glib
remarks on forums like this. Intel's handicap in mobile (lack of native x86
android apps) and ARM's handicap in desktop/server all really come down to the
software (and maybe in the case of some ARM products what one might consider
alpha/immature products).

~~~
makomk
None of Intel's or ARM's very low power chips for IoT applications are OoO -
uses too much power. Intel have actually resorted to using subsets of x86 on
some of them, and even then they're mysteriously unwilling to release proper
power usage information.

------
B1FF_PSUVM
> if Intel's vision comes to pass then that device — the smartphone — will
> constantly be communicating with Intel-powered data centers

So Intel and Microsoft want to go where IBM and Oracle are withering?

------
frik
@Intel: how about thinking about 10GHz single core CPUs? And where is Atom?
Why are we stuck in 2006 era CPU singe core performance?

@nVidia: how about thinking about affordable high end GPUs? The GPUs got 400%
more expensive since 2011.

It's a pitty that AMD bought ATI, and now they can't compete with Intel and
nVidia. And we all have to suffer and pay higher prices and get less
performance - because no real competition exists any more.

~~~
cfallin
> @Intel: how about thinking about 10GHz single core CPUs?

They tried that -- the Pentium 4. The key design goal was to push clock speed
as high as possible, and they used some crazy tricks, like 30-some-stage
pipelines, a really long instruction scheduling loop with a pretty long
lookahead, a double-pumped ALU with staggered 16-bit half-adds, etc.
Fascinating from a microarchitecture perspective, but the big lesson was that
high clock speeds sacrifice efficiency. The tricks needed to get there cause a
lot of performance outliers/bad cases too -- e.g. the instruction scheduling
replay system on lookahead conflicts was notorious for "tornados" which would
kill IPC. And the branch prediction of the day was somewhat suboptimal for the
pipeline lengths involved.

> Why are we stuck in 2006 era CPU singe core performance?

We aren't! The core microarchitecture teams at Intel and their competitors
have made a lot of incremental progress -- Intel gets about 15% single-thread
performance per generation, for example. No one is evilly scheming and holding
back from turning a knob higher. There's just a lot of really hard
engineering. Clock speed has topped out due to power limitations so we're at
the point of looking for better branch prediction algorithms, cache
replacement algorithms, and lots of little tricks everywhere to optimize bad
cases. It's hard work (this was my job for a bit).

I'd recommend looking at, e.g., the proceedings of ISCA and MICRO conferences
in the 2000-2006 timeframe -- this was when the industry and associated
academia figured out that chasing clock speed was a losing battle after a
certain point.

~~~
sirsar
What does it mean to have a "double pumped" ALU? Google is failing me.

~~~
cfallin
The ALU performs an operation on half of the machine word (16 of the 32 bits)
each half-cycle, i.e., one on the rising edge and one on the falling edge of
the clock. Basically they split the carry chain across two (half-)pipe stages
and then run it twice as fast.

See Hinton et al., "The microarchitecture of the Pentium 4 processor" [1] for
all the nifty details -- pp 8-9, and Fig 7 in particular.

[1]
[http://www.ecs.umass.edu/ece/koren/ece568/papers/Pentium4.pd...](http://www.ecs.umass.edu/ece/koren/ece568/papers/Pentium4.pdf)

~~~
userbinator
That also makes for some very interesting timings, where the instruction runs
faster in the case that there's no carry between the two halves.

From section 2 of this:

[https://gmplib.org/~tege/x86-timing.pdf](https://gmplib.org/~tege/x86-timing.pdf)

"Pentium F0-F2 can sustain 3 add r, i per cycle for -32768 <= i <= 32767, but
for larger immediate operands it can sustain only about 3/2 per cycle."

