
Arm Announces Client CPU Roadmap For Laptops - redial
https://www.arm.com/company/news/2018/08/accelerating-mobile-and-laptop-performance
======
notafraudster
Oddly, what I'd really like to see is ARM enter the NUC space. Maybe I'm the
only one, but I'd like be able to pay $200-400 for a small, low power usage,
decently performant machine. The 8th generation Intel NUC are good, but 28W
TDP and it'd be nice to get it much, much lower than that. I know these are a
small fraction of the overall market but personally I think it'd be cool.

~~~
sorenjan
I find it odd that there's so little choice between Raspberry Pi and Intel
NUC. With all these high powered mobile phones there should be plenty of chips
that would be fast enough. I can buy a phone with CPU, GPU, battery, modem,
screen, etc for $100, but there's very little cheap low powered PCs.

~~~
giobox
Have you tried looking much? There's actually a fair bit of choice, and has
been for the past few years, with many quad-core ARM based Pi competitors in
the sub $100 market these days, all using various mobile phone style CPUs:

> [https://all3dp.com/1/single-board-computer-raspberry-pi-
> alte...](https://all3dp.com/1/single-board-computer-raspberry-pi-
> alternative/)

The reason you don't see them all that often is that none of them have close
to the popularity of the Pi, and therefore don't have nearly as good community
resources. The Odroid boards seem to have fairly active Reddit communities
from what I've seen, but haven't tried using one personally.

>
> [https://www.hardkernel.com/main/main.php](https://www.hardkernel.com/main/main.php)

~~~
dcbadacd
> The reason you don't see them all that often is that none of them have close
> to the usability of the Pi

I think what OP wanted is _usable_ NUC alternative on ARM (popularity is the
result of that and is really proportional), so little ARM hardware is
tolerably compatible with Linux (be it GPU driver, network driver, bootloader
or whatever else cr*p ARM hardware makers keep to themselves), unlike NUCs
which is actually really nicely compatible with Linux.

~~~
giobox
> I think what OP wanted is usable NUC alternative on ARM (popularity is the
> result of that and is really proportional)

There's a little truth to that, but it also overlooks the huge effort the Pi
Foundation has made to foster a community, which I think is the one thing the
Pi team do that other board manufacturers simply haven't come close to
matching.

I'd personally argue it's the work of the Pi Foundation that has lead to the
boards success more so than the boards themselves, which to be honest are
increasingly pretty under powered compared to almost all rivals and have very
long intervals between upgrades. It has probably also helped that the Pi
Foundation is a charity promoting CS education in schools, rather than a
commercial enteriprise.

~~~
imtringued
I don't think so. I feel like the Pi is dragging down the rest of the industry
by using broadcom chips based on a GPU that has been obsolete for a long time.

~~~
geezerjay
How can the Pi be dragging down the industry that it created and is still
dominating by a hefty margin? People already have plenty of alternatives but
somehow their price/performance ratio renders them to obscurity. Perhaps that
must mean something.

~~~
oarsinsync
A small player in an industry doesn't have the volume to drag down the
industry, only the dominant player does.

The dominant player in this instance is insisting on using chipsets that are
effectively obsolete when compared to the competition.

As a result, the community that they command continues to work on supporting
this obsolete hardware, rather than newer hardware.

Network effects exist here just like in many other industries.

------
bobthedino
I think it's amusing to remember that ARM started off in fancy 32-bit high-
performance desktop machines:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acorn_Archimedes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acorn_Archimedes)

~~~
LeoPanthera
The Archimedes was so far ahead of its time that no-one really knew what to do
with it. They ended up in schools, especially in commonwealth countries,
mainly because Acorn's previous big success, the BBC Micro, had been
specifically targeted at schools.

But in 1987 the ARM was so astoundingly powerful that it should have become
the king of the workstation market. A failure of marketing, perhaps.

~~~
cmrdporcupine
It doesn't help that they didn't ship it with Unix, which is what workstations
ran back then. Porting System V to it and selling it with it may have helped.

Then again, both Atari and Amiga tried that with their 030 machines and had no
success. They were not taken seriously as workstation vendors (in the then
lucrative workstation market) in many cases because of the brand on the box. I
distinctly remember a UnixWorld article about the Atari TT030 with the
headline "Up from toyland" (above an otherwise positive review)

~~~
LeoPanthera
They did ship it with Unix. RISC iX was actually available before RISC OS was.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RISC_iX](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RISC_iX)

------
cesarb
Will we be able to run our own Linux kernels on these laptops? "In January
2012, Microsoft confirmed it would require hardware manufacturers to enable
secure boot on Windows 8 devices, and that x86/64 devices must provide the
option to turn it off while ARM-based devices must not provide the option to
turn it off.[15]"
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secure_boot](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secure_boot))

~~~
mjg59
This is no longer the case in the current hardware certification requirements

~~~
abrowne
It's no longer required that you are able to turn it off on x86-64, that you
can't turn it off on ARM or both?

~~~
floatboth
From what I've seen on the internet, you can turn secure boot off, select USB
boot, but a blank screen after that with linux/aarch64 images.

We really need to get these laptops (NovaGo etc.) into the hands of
experienced developers to figure out what the deal is.

------
jsnell
My impression is that every time ARM release a new big core (e.g. A73, A75)
they project massive improvements. And then what's actually sold shows half
the expected speedup, due to the design not clocking anywhere near as high as
ARM projected. Given that history, why is everyone so willing to take these
latest numbers at face value?

~~~
cbhl
Does anyone actually take "next gen is XX% faster" numbers at face value?
Apple, Intel, all say things like this, and real world performance is always
worse than the marketing since the tests run in ideal conditions (say, on AC
power) but the real world conditions are always worse (say, throttling down
the CPU to save battery).

In my mind, there are two big questions: (1) is it fast enough for users, and
(2) will users be able to run business-critical x86 / Windows software on it?

(1) was pretty bad with the first ARM-based Chromebooks, which could handle at
best 3-4 tabs, but has started getting better (see the Samsung Chromebook
Plus).

(2) boils down to whether the relevant parties can get x86-on-ARM emulation
working. I feel like Microsoft had a pretty good tech demo of this at a past
Build conference, but I wouldn't be surprised if non-technical reasons prevent
it from shipping.

~~~
AnssiH
The x86-on-ARM emulation has already been in production for a while, has it
not?

The various Snapdragon 835 powered Windows laptops use it AFAIK.

~~~
SyneRyder
Yep, it's already shipping on the Qualcomm HP Envy x2. Performance of x86-on-
ARM seems to be mixed/disappointing so far, but the bigger catch seems to be
that it doesn't support x64 yet:

[https://www.thurrott.com/windows/windows-10/154821/hp-
envy-x...](https://www.thurrott.com/windows/windows-10/154821/hp-
envy-x2-qualcomm-review-check-app-compatibility)

~~~
mehrdadn
Any idea if it's going to come to phones by any chance? I initially thought
they meant phones, but after a while they seemed to say they meant laptops.

Also, regarding x64, I believe it was due to patent issues, not because they
somehow thought x86 is enough for anybody.

~~~
Erlich_Bachman
Limbo emulator has existed for a while and you can use it to run x86 (x64?)
Windows, for example, on a normal android phone. (It is slow, of course.)
[https://limboemulator.weebly.com/](https://limboemulator.weebly.com/)

------
lamlam
Do ARM chips have ME or PSP equivalents? It would be great to be able to buy a
new machine and use something like coreboot without having to use hacks to
disable ME.

~~~
ZiiS
You already can buy an extremely high performance workstation without ME or
PSP or equivalent; they are just a bit pricy.
[https://www.raptorcs.com/content/TL2WK2/intro.html](https://www.raptorcs.com/content/TL2WK2/intro.html)

~~~
monocasa
The Talos has the BMC (Baseboard Management Controller) that runs a full Linux
distro off the side and is connected to the network.

The only reason why it might not be considered a ME or PSP replacement is that
the user can control the signing keys.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenBMC](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenBMC)

------
blinkingled
I am holding on to x86 until ARM figures something out on standardization like
in PC space. If I need to have custom kernel, boot loader and rely on GPU
drivers from different vendors for each computer I am going to buy - no
thanks.

~~~
userbinator
This, exactly this. The PC (technically the AT) grew so much because it was
originally an open platform and almost completely standardised and documented.
There have been many recent efforts to lobotomise it but it still remains
mostly standard and well-documented.

ARM platforms are extremely diverse largely due to the fact that its cores are
integrated into SoCs for a wide range of uses, and I'd say the majority of ARM
SoCs in use don't even have any public documentation. This is particularly
true of those used in smartphones and tablets.

Or put it more bluntly, "legacy-free means compatibility-free."

------
keithmancuso
Is this the best evidence yet that Arm Macs are, in fact, coming in 2020?

~~~
thought_alarm
Apple's software engineering team doesn't have the bandwidth to transition the
Mac to a new architecture, and neither does their hardware team.

And nobody wants a stripped-down, locked-down version of MacOS-Lite.

So, no.

~~~
endorphone
Apple's software and hardware teams are absolute monsters compared to when
they made the transition from PowerPC to x86. The toolset and maturity for
cross-platform compilation is dramatically more advanced and mature. They
could absolutely do this, and it seems eminently likely that they will in the
near future.

~~~
matwood
I would also bet the already have full macOS running on ARM internally. I
think we are seeing the proof of this in the new libraries being released to
support the iOS like apps (News and Stocks) on the Mojave.

~~~
pducks32
When they transitioned to Intel they even said they had internal Macs running
on Intel for years waiting for this day.

~~~
gsnedders
AFAIK, they essentially "just" maintained the x86 port of NeXTSTEP throughout
the entire migration from NeXTSTEP to Mac OS X.

I wouldn't be amazed if they supported big-endian PPC still for the sake of
maintaining portability, though I feel that's less likely than little-endian
ARM.

------
floatboth
Now we really need (non-Qualcomm) SoC makers to get on board with actually
making laptop/desktop-grade chips. Rockchip RK3399 and Marvell Armada 8k are
big steps in the right direction, but we need _more_ power (and PCIe lanes).

~~~
bradfa
And we need SoCs with 64 bit wide data DDR buses. Most of the existing non-
server SoCs are only 32 bit DDR interfaces, so you can't use off the shelf
DIMMs which limits so many of these existing cheap ARM "maker" board to having
soldered down RAM and less than amazing memory performance.

~~~
floatboth
Marvell Armada 8k (MACCHIATObin) takes a full size DIMM (apparently with ECC
support, even). Not that cheap though… but cheaper than, say, the Overdrive
1000.

------
transpute
Will the new CPUs implement DRTM (dynamic root of trust, similar to Intel TXT)
for Windows 10 SystemGuard? This appears to be planned for Qualcomm Arm CPUs
that support Windows 10 and x86 emulation.

[https://cloudblogs.microsoft.com/microsoftsecure/2018/04/19/...](https://cloudblogs.microsoft.com/microsoftsecure/2018/04/19/introducing-
windows-defender-system-guard-runtime-attestation/)

 _> "Windows Defender System Guard runtime attestation, which is built into
the core Windows operating system, will soon be delivered in all editions of
Windows. Windows Defender System Guard runtime attestation, like Credential
Guard, takes advantage of the same hardware-rooted security technologies in
virtualization-based security (VBS) to mitigate attacks in software."_

~~~
tomp
What's the benefit of hardware-based security tech? Is it actually doing
anything _special_ , or just doing what security software is doing, but in
hardware?

~~~
zitterbewegung
Take for example the secure enclave on an iPhone. If the FaceID / TouchID was
implemented in software then you could read it from memory if you compromise
the A11 chip. Instead you have to now compromise both the secure enclave and
the A11 since it is isolated from the A11.

~~~
tomp
Why would that be any more than 2x harder?

~~~
michaelt
General-purpose processors have to be secure while executing untrusted code,
providing a large number of features, and providing good performance.

The secure enclave isn't subject to these constraints, allowing for more
conservative design decisions.

You've found a privilege-escalation attack that can let sandboxed apps escape
their sandbox? Still secure if the chip can't run apps in the first place.
You've found a bug in the USB disk mode emulation code? Still secure if the
chip doesn't have any USB code on it. You've found a bug in branch prediction?
Still secure if your chip didn't use it. You've found a way to abuse the third
party developers' debugging interface? Still secure if your chip provides no
such interface...

------
lx3459683
Is this the beginning of the end for x86?

~~~
kyriakos
Probably not. Arm is power efficient but still x86 performance is ahead. At
some point you need a balance between battery life and performance.

~~~
dsr_
If everything goes right for ARM, next year's CPU line should be single-core
competitive against Intel's laptop line; the year after, ARM could be ahead.

Meanwhile, AMD's CPUs are winning on price/performance and pure performance
for multi-core in the server market, and it looks like they're going to be
competitive with Intel on basically every desktop area.

Intel has a marketing advantage. That's pretty much it.

~~~
dman
Just built a 64 core workstation based on AMD Epyc cpus, seeing how fast my
simulation workloads run on it brings a smile to my face.

~~~
effie
I can appreciate the fun to be had with so many core cpu, but did you actually
measure the performance? According to Passmark, both single and multithread
performance of EPYC is very poor [1][2]. Passmark database is years in
building and very informative, but I think for EPYC that is an erroneous
result. Could you run Passmark benchmark on your rig to get another data point
public?

[1]
[https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=AMD+EPYC+7501&id=31...](https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=AMD+EPYC+7501&id=3153)

[2] Compare that with performance and price of something like E5-2670 from
2012:
[https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Xeon+E5-2670+...](https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Xeon+E5-2670+%40+2.60GHz&id=1220)

~~~
dman
Will give that a try tonight. Have to warn you that right now 1 of my DIMM was
bad, so the system is running with only 15 DIMMS (which is an unsupported
config) so the results might be suboptimal until I receive a new DIMM from the
seller.

~~~
effie
That's great, looking forward to the results. But, there's no rush. If you'd
like to measure today anyway, please just make sure the result doesn't get
reported to Passmark database so as not to spoil the small dataset with a
biased result. Good luck with the replacement, hope it will stay solid from
now on.

~~~
dman
Just realised that Passmark does not have a Linux benchmark program, so wont
be able to run it.

~~~
effie
Ah, that's a shame. I'd love to know how much faster the Epyc is than the
E5-2670. Could you try to run sysbench to get some numbers? Here are mine:

# sysbench --test=cpu run --max-requests=20000 Test execution summary: total
time: 25.9014s total number of events: 20000 total time taken by event
execution: 25.8983 per-request statistics: min: 1.27ms avg: 1.29ms max: 3.19ms
approx. 95 percentile: 1.29ms

# sysbench --test=cpu run --max-requests=20000 --num-threads=16 Test execution
summary: total time: 1.6859s total number of events: 20000 total time taken by
event execution: 26.9264 per-request statistics: min: 1.26ms avg: 1.35ms max:
3.59ms approx. 95 percentile: 1.51ms

~~~
dman
[dman@epyc ~]$ sysbench --test=cpu run --max-requests=20000 WARNING: the
--test option is deprecated. You can pass a script name or path on the command
line without any options. WARNING: --max-requests is deprecated, use --events
instead sysbench 1.0.14 (using bundled LuaJIT 2.1.0-beta2)

Running the test with following options: Number of threads: 1 Initializing
random number generator from current time

Prime numbers limit: 10000

Initializing worker threads...

Threads started!

CPU speed: events per second: 1461.82

General statistics: total time: 10.0004s total number of events: 14621

Latency (ms): min: 0.67 avg: 0.68 max: 1.76 95th percentile: 0.69 sum: 9997.72

Threads fairness: events (avg/stddev): 14621.0000/0.00 execution time
(avg/stddev): 9.9977/0.00

[dman@epyc ~]$ sysbench --test=cpu run --max-requests=20000 --num-threads=128
WARNING: the --test option is deprecated. You can pass a script name or path
on the command line without any options. WARNING: --num-threads is deprecated,
use --threads instead WARNING: --max-requests is deprecated, use --events
instead sysbench 1.0.14 (using bundled LuaJIT 2.1.0-beta2)

Running the test with following options: Number of threads: 128 Initializing
random number generator from current time

Prime numbers limit: 10000

Initializing worker threads...

Threads started!

CPU speed: events per second: 47980.46

General statistics: total time: 0.4152s total number of events: 20000

Latency (ms): min: 0.68 avg: 2.06 max: 111.24 95th percentile: 3.36 sum:
41275.73

Threads fairness: events (avg/stddev): 156.2500/118.37 execution time
(avg/stddev): 0.3225/0.06

Let me know if you want me to run any other benchmarks.

~~~
effie
Thanks. I just ran v1.0.14 the same way and got 793 events/s singlethread and
10264 events/s multithread (16) on the E5-2670. So you've got single thread
almost 2x faster and multithread almost 5x faster. In singlethread, that's
much better than what I expected of low frequency Epycs. You've got a nice
snappy machine there:) Interestingly, the performance per thread in
multithread is 641 on E5-2670, while only 374 on Epyc. Probably there's some
massive thermal throttling going on Epyc. With _that_ fast cores, one should
get at least 1491x64=93504 without throttling.

~~~
dman
I think the problem size is too small. Dialling up the max requests and
setting thread count to 64 yields the per thread in multi thread to 1104. (I
am guessing the the scheduler will take a while to bring all 64 threads up, so
on small problems one might not see the full benefit of available parallelism,
but this is just an armchair hypothesis).

[dman@epyc ~]$ sysbench --test=cpu run --max-requests=2000000 --num-threads=64
WARNING: the --test option is deprecated. You can pass a script name or path
on the command line without any options. WARNING: --num-threads is deprecated,
use --threads instead WARNING: --max-requests is deprecated, use --events
instead sysbench 1.0.14 (using bundled LuaJIT 2.1.0-beta2)

Running the test with following options: Number of threads: 64 Initializing
random number generator from current time

Prime numbers limit: 10000

Initializing worker threads...

Threads started!

CPU speed: events per second: 70704.31

General statistics: total time: 10.0014s total number of events: 707263

Latency (ms): min: 0.68 avg: 0.90 max: 25.23 95th percentile: 1.50 sum:
638330.33

Threads fairness: events (avg/stddev): 11050.9844/1635.68 execution time
(avg/stddev): 9.9739/0.02

~~~
effie
That's interesting, same increase in requests makes little difference on my
machine, I get 10432 for multithread (16). I noticed above you have used 64
threads on 64-core system - does that give you better result than using 128
threads? It shouldn't, SMT should give you some increase in speed. At least on
my 8-core system, using 16 threads gives 10432, while using 8 threads gives
only 7311.

------
raverbashing
I wonder if they (ok, maybe not them, they're ip only) will deliver the 7nm /
5nm processes

~~~
monocasa
In practice, ARM works very closely with the foundaries despite not selling
chips. A process agnostic dump and run won't let you hit the perf that you'd
expect.

------
caffed
IMHO, ARM performance is "good enough" for consumption and light
editing/creation.

The real test for this is software.

Anyone remember this?
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FX!32](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FX!32)

Exactly...

~~~
kalleboo
No, but I do remember this
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_68k_emulator](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_68k_emulator)
and this
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosetta_(software)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosetta_\(software\))

------
ksec
When you factor in NAND, RAM, Wireless Network, at what point will the lower
CPU price be irrelevant for leaving the x86 Desktop ecosystem? Ryzen 3 2200G
cost only $99. So Assuming everything else being the same, would you pay $99
more for the NUC or board?

It is the same reason why x86 doesn't work out when it is moving into mobile
space, same reason ARM doesn't work out moving up to Notebook Desktop space.

Two more years down the road I wouldn't be surprise to see a Dual Zen Core, 64
Vega APU selling for $59 or less.

------
digi_owl
I am of two minds about this.

While i want to see the x86 desktop get a serious contender once again, it has
risen on the back of a very open and modular platform.

But ARM based products are virtual black boxes by comparison.

Thus i worry if ARM rising to the challenge on the desktop will lead to an
acceleration of the trend of "devicification" the desktop.

------
keymone
I wonder how close are Mill cpus to hitting the market

~~~
monocasa
Years out.

------
acd
Ponder what that means for Intel.

Given that. AMD has licensed cpu to China Hygon AMD now has competitive gaming
CPUs ARM is releasing laptop cpus

~~~
phkahler
>> Ponder what that means for Intel.

Umm not much? Intel mostly runs Microsoft software, and what could be worse
than Windows on low-end x86? Windows on ARM...

~~~
surajrmal
Are you dismissing the server market? It's entirely Intel, and mostly not
windows.

~~~
phkahler
Yes, I'm dismissing the server market when the discussion is around ARMs
"Client CPU Roadmap".

------
nathell
Will these chips have an equivalent of Intel IME? If not, I'll switch in a
second.

------
bitL
I'd rather have a 10GHz CPU in a laptop than another mediocre CPU to the mix
:-(

------
martin_bech
If I had the balls, I would be shorting Intel so hard right now..

~~~
bufferoverflow
I wouldn't. The computing power requirements are growing exponentially, and
Intel is the biggest player with the most RnD money. Server CPUs are mostly
Intel. Laptop CPUs are mostly Intel. Desktop CPUs are mostly Intel.

~~~
martin_bech
I get that, and the requirements for cloud vendors, will most likely keep
growing. But Intel has already lost and even given up on mobile cpus/socs. If
they loose the laptop space, desktop will not be far off. I can easily see
them loosing the laptop space, if arm designs kan win on price and energy
efficiency, and match them on low-mid performance.

~~~
surajrmal
Desktops and laptops are largely flanking verticals to help defend the real
money maker, servers. Even if they start to lose laptop/desktop market share,
it'll still take a while for someone to loosen their hold on the server
market.

~~~
BuckRogers
So in other words, as he said, he would short Intel because they hold all the
market, and have nowhere to go but down. As you said, even if they lose
consumer shares, it'll just be a matter of time before someone loosens their
hold on servers.

------
baybal2
I'm expecting first comments in spirit "without Windows it's dead on arrival."

To them¸ I tell that dozens of makers of ARM laptops in China could not be
wrong manufacturing a product at huge profit for over a decade (yes, the
netbook wave has ceased much in the Western world, but the need for cheap,
near disposable machine that can send email and read simple websites is still
around)

Cheap laptops made on prehistoric Via Wondermedia chips are made by tons and
are flooding places like Africa and India
[https://www.alibaba.com/trade/search?fsb=y&IndexArea=product...](https://www.alibaba.com/trade/search?fsb=y&IndexArea=product_en&CatId=&SearchText=arm+laptop)

~~~
SmellyGeekBoy
Without Windows? Are people genuinely not aware of this?

[https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/arm/](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-
us/windows/arm/)

~~~
baybal2
Very well aware, but one has to get a SoC that had Microsoft's blessing, for
which I assume they charge a lot.

~~~
wyldfire
$860 USD [1], $700 USD [2] - Snapdragon 835. Seems pretty competitive IMO.

[1]: [https://www.amazon.com/HP-Detachable-Snapdragon-
Processor-12...](https://www.amazon.com/HP-Detachable-Snapdragon-
Processor-12-e091ms/dp/B07C7XY7GS)

[2]:
[https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07CYX3DG8](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07CYX3DG8)

