
AMD reveals roadmap for ARM and x86 SoCs - deviceguru
http://linuxgizmos.com/amd-reveals-arm-and-x86-soc-and-apu-plans/
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Qantourisc
Still waiting on a replacement for my Phenom II x4 955 ... I love how they
added more cores in the last 4 years, but the single threaded performance has
barely grown to the benchmarks I could look up. Lets just hope their high
dense library lib, and other enhancements will save speed-up their single core
speed. Then they get more money.

Why am I waiting for AMD, and don't I buy an Intel? I'd like to support
competition in the market.

If I'm misinformed and the new CPU's ARE faster, give me a poke.

~~~
sliverstorm
The latest out of Tom's Hardware[1] seems to indicate that the combination of
improvements in threading and modest improvements in the recent CPUs adds up
to appreciable gains vs. the old Phenoms.

If you're laser-focused on single-threaded performance, steamroller is
probably the one to look out for. They claim 30% improvement in ops per cycle.

[1]: [http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/piledriver-k10-cpu-
overc...](http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/piledriver-k10-cpu-
overclocking,3584-18.html)

~~~
Qantourisc
Oo new review I didn't see yet: 12% increase, but since I'm @3.2Ghz, that's a
50% increase! Juicy.

And yes my single-threaded performance is the one I focus on, because the
multi-threaded things, I can wait on :)

Thanks for the info.

~~~
Osiris
3.2? My FX-8320 runs at 4.8ghz. Even if single threaded isn't improved, the
headroom for a higher clock is there, thus giving overall better performance.

~~~
zanny
But you are probably pulling 160+ watts do accomplish that. On modern Intel
parts, you can push 4.5 around 120 - 130. That means significantly less
cooling requiremenets, so you could stick the chip in a smaller chassis, etc.

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skylan_q
_But whereas Intel divested itself of its ARM-based XScale chip business
several years back, AMD let it be known earlier this year that it planned to
expand into ARM territory._

1) Bravo on moving to ARM, AMD! 2) It's not like you had a choice. :p

They're focusing on making themselves the premiere chip designer while Intel
seems to be more strategically focused on manufacturing.

~~~
zokier
> They're focusing on making themselves the premiere chip designer

considering that AMD doesn't have any fabs, that's kinda obvious.

~~~
skylan_q
They still have a large stake in GloFo, but you're right. It's been the trend
for a while.

~~~
ksec
I thought they recently decide to sell those off as well.

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simcop2387
I would honestly like to see what happens if AMD makes a heterogenous CPU. one
with say 4 arm cores and 4 x86 cores. where you could shut off the x86 cores
if you didn't need them.

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kevinnk
While this would be cool, I'm not exactly sure under what circumstances this
would be useful.

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InclinedPlane
A tablet that could run x86 applications as needed but wasn't optimized for
them.

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jonmrodriguez
Why not just run a VM, and use the saved die area for more cache?

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InclinedPlane
Everyone's always had this idea, and it has very rarely proven to be terribly
practical in reality. The few times that VMs of different hardware tend to be
practical are when there is an enormous gap in performance between the
emulated hardware and the host hardware (such as with old game consoles and
arcade hardware).

~~~
zurn
I don't think it has been tried too many times in practice, because software
binary translation is so proven (eg. like in android x86, or rosetta on mac,
or fx!32 on nt, etc etc). Itanium is the only one that comes to mind. Any
others?

Then there are several that have lower level "programmable microcode" kind of
level in the hardware, ranging from the Transmeta stuff to mainframe-era
writable control store...

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devx
> The “Hierofalcon” series also provides enhanced security with support for
> ARM TrustZone technology and a dedicated cryptographic security co-processor

I'm always going to see stuff like that in a very suspicious way from now on,
considering NSA has succeeded in putting backdoors in "encryption hardware".

> The “Adelaar” GPU family will deliver rich 3D graphics, multi-display
> support and support for DirectX 11.1, OpenGL 4.2

Sure, support the very latest DirectX, but only 2 versions behind OpenGL with
your _future_ new GPU. Way to go, AMD!

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sliverstorm
_considering NSA..._

ARM Holdings is a French company. You probably don't need to worry about drop-
in masks from them.

 _only 2 versions behind OpenGL..._

It sure doesn't make sense why they didn't announce support OpenGL 4.4. I
mean, the spec was released 6 weeks prior to the announcement- that's
practically forever ago!

~~~
perpetuated
ARM is British and based in Cambridge. There's some worry there.

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tbirdz
Does anyone have any idea what the price on these things will be when they
come out? I know AMD's x86 cpus are usually cheaper than Intel's, and given
that ARM cpus cost less than x86 ones, this should also decrease the price.

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pstuart
This could go well with their SeaMicro acquisition.

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rbanffy
How Linux-friendly are these x86 SoCs? Are there good open-source drivers for
their GPUs?

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drill_sarge
recently really good progress has been made with the free amd drivers, also
kernel 3.11 supports now the dpm (power management). also the uvd (video
decoder) is working well. But if you want to play games or need maximum 3D
performance there is no way around the proprietary fglrx driver from amd atm,
although the free drivers keep getting better and better in this section.

