Interesting times. I assume Nvidia saw this information before they offered especially the Armv9 ISA. Having the new ISA spec done and a new high performance core design done really does look like good timing to buy ARM.
LOL, Nvidia can license at a reasonable price these cores right now without acquiring ARM for a crazy price. I don't see any combo around, neither deadly. Without x86 you don't go anywere, this is a fact.
X86 is going to be pushed aside as ARM is overtaking them in performance. AMD fanboys have big problems coming into terms with it. Companies rather switch to ARM that's delivering 30% IPC gains nearly every generation than switch from Intel to AMD imo. When you do a platform change, you might as well go all in and make the switch to what is inevitably the future of computing.
LOL :). You looks like a fanboy instead of a person inside the IT. All the hopes of this useless silicon were destroyed a couple of years ago with the return of AMD in server arena. It is a fact x86 now cover all segments of server market, from low core number, to medium core number up to many core number. Right now ARM ISA have lost any momentum in server world, IT managers choose between Intel and AMD, ARM mean nothing....less than zero. About IPC, we will see the Apple track record. Recent A14 showed the end of the stellar IPC scaling. Same will happen to ARM. Unfortunately over a certain limit the bet to increase the IPC have severe diminishing returns, and the cpu complexity rise the power comsumption far more than the performance. Over a certain limit it is better to rise the clock speed than increase the IPC. There is nothing of magic in ARM ISA, it is older than x86. RISC already lose the battle, not a chance at the horizon, only some custom silicon for few companies with exotic needs. Nothing to see here.
You can either believe that ISAs aren't that important, and both CISC & RISC have merged enough that ARM/x86 will be able to keep up with each other on similar nodes, or that there is still some inherent difference between x86/ARM for code density, etc.. Either way x86 either has the advantage (x86 beats POWER at perf/W/$) or it will be able to compete equally in the worst case.
Apple and Amazon have found a different optimization point with lower clock speeds and higher IPC, but that doesn't mean they'll be able to scale it up and still keep a large perf/W/$ advantage. If POWER is anything to go by, it will be far worse perf/W/$ for a 4Ghz+ ARM chip.
You must not read all of the articles from Anandtech.
Amazon has an ARM chip that competes with Xeon and Epyc in single thread performance. It has 64 cores.
Microsoft is pushing Windows ARM again. Apple is going ARM again. Nvidia is the second largest tech company on the planet and they're buying ARM unless someone stops them.
x86 is fine and the AMD chips are seriously good bargain. Having Arm as an competitor will keep the chips fresh. A platform change never goes well and IPC has a very similar watt price no matter Intel, Arm or AMD. Nvidia owning Apples and Amazons transaction IP through Arm aswell as owning almost every phone chip is what makes Arm such a bargain aquisition. Trumpians trying to cut off China from US chip supplies limits gains Nvidia will make on Arm. It might be better to keep Arm british or incorporate in the Netherlands or Switzerland.
I'm not sure that purchasing ARM was a benefit vs licensing ARM, but I can definitely see NVIDIA pushing ARM to design bigger, wider, faster cores that benefit NVIDIA.
Put another way, NVIDIA can get ARM to design a chip NVIDIA wants, whereas before the purchase NIVIDA could only ask and hope ARM would design a chip NVIDIA wants.
This article describes the n2 and v1 designs, but realistically those products aren't actually leading class. By the time they go to market they will be slower than Apple's similarly wide and higher powered designs. With NVIDIA at the help ARM can afford to design a much wider and more powerful core, even if no one other than NVIDIA will license it.
The article talks about the N2 being 250% faster than the Graviton2, at 3GHz. The X1 on which it is loosely based is a 5 wide decoder, 13 stage CPU pipeline. In comparison Apple has a 7 wide decode but only 11 stage CPU pipeline.
Don't underestimate what RISC-V might do to shake them from these plans. Word already goes that many in ARM are looking at switching to avoid giving their competitor-licenser the upper hand.
Exactly. I've phrased it differently though--focused around AMD. Suppose for a while Intel has the high-price game/OEM and suppose that ARM (and eventually Zhaoxin and similar) get the low-cost market. That doesn't leave much for AMD. AMD is doing well in the high-end workstation market but that is a miniscule market.
AMD really needs to establish itself as something other than low-cost to survive the onslaught of coming competitors. As it is, almost anyone can pay TSMC to get a good 7 nm (or smaller process) CPU and they can always undercut AMD on price. AMD has good chips, but it really needs to create a market for itself that isn't so easily undercut.
it's not quite that simple. there's also the aspect of having to build an ecosystem over time. even within x86, a newcomer would have to find partners to make motherboards for its new socket and new BIOS. if they try to make something else that isn't x86, it's even less likely to happen since now you'd also have to count on software developers coding things for your platform.
Nvidia already has large developer base on servers. CUDA and cudNN libraries have been ported over to ARM already. This is Nvidia's checkmate, and x86 market is going to be taken by storm.
Storm that live only in your mind unfortunately. ARM server penetration is near "zero" and this merge will not change anything. It is the ISA that matter, ARM have the wrong one.
AMD fanboy delusion going rabid in your mind. When Amazon is pushing ARM, and Amazon literally controls most of the servers (AWS) they can move their ecosystem over to ARM if they truly want. And there's nothing AMD can do about it. X86 is a legacy architecture on its way out.
That's really dumb claim. Graviton2 is good. No doubt about it. But AWS can't just switch to ARM no matter how much "truly" they wanted it. The market and eco system is just not there yet. You are no better than the AMD fanboy.
""AMD really needs to establish itself as something other than low-cost to survive the onslaught of coming competitors.""
Someone explain to this nvidiot that Amd projects to make 21B in revenue this year and if continues to grow like the last years, which is probable having bought Xilinx, AMD will be making more money that Intel and Nvidia combined. Maybe is Intel and Nvidia that should go low cost? Ever think about that? AMD Ryzen 8000, their hybrid arch is coming in a year and a half and anyone not a delusional fanboy knows its going to destroy all the competition. I mean "efficient" alder lake cores are less efficient than zen2, good luck competing with zen4d and Zen5 performance cores. Really AMD needs to go low cost? Talk about delusion.
And good luck with Nvidia buying Arm lol, so with Arm becoming more successful and with bigger market share, the people that blocked the merger will allow it now. Talking about DELUSION!!
Between ARM, Mellanox, and GeForce, NVIDIA is positioned to start owning supercomputer designs.
They already have a top 10 (7th place) design using AMD's Epyc Mellanox Infiniband switches, and of course NVIDIA's A100 GPUs.
I don't see why they wouldn't replace AMD with ARM given they already have ARM base products, they just needed an ARM core that was equivalent to the best AMD and Intel could offer.
IBM, Apple and Motorola thought the same with Power PC cpus, along with DEC Alpha, Sun Sparc and Silicon Graphics with MIPS processors. All of them are now nice museum pieces. I remember first tests when then monstrous DEC Alpha cpu executed x86 software with speed comparable to 80286 due to software emulation.
Arm does not have some inherent architectural advantage over x86. It needs to be drastically better and execute all x86 software notably faster in order to replace the x86. That won't happen.
On the other hand, while assaulting x86 on all fronts Arm (not by its own doing) left his sides and back unguarded. If Nvidia buys them, they lose their most potent characteristic, the status of neutral Switzerland in semiconductor industry. Chinese companies won't use the architecture if their access to it could be blocked in the future due to the fact that it would be an american company. Europeans would also hesitate using it if they would be unable to sell it to Chinese companies.
RISC-V is years behind the Arm ecosystem but it is an open hardware architecture, meaning there are no restrictions in using it. I would assume that due to the Nvidias past behavior all the large Arm buyers will invest heavily in RISC-V and use Arm only as long as absolutely necessary.
Well, Anandetch benchmarks showcase that ARM has quite huge perf/W advantage over x86. Will love to see Apple ARM Silicon vs Icelake or other Lake.
Also, don't see everyone jumping ARM ship just because Nvidia might/will buy them. Chinese companies can use ARM even after Americans buy them (as long as they aren't banned), they will just pay more focus to tweaking core, I/O and so on. Or maybe even go full custom core.
You're likely right in that the architectural difference is minor, but the devil is in the details (uarch in this case). If you look at the nuvia article, they showed arm has ~4x better perf/watt in geekbench over Intel/AMD. While that's not a definitive benchmark it shows a huge lead on the arm side.
While Apple's cpus are already faster than Intel in some sense, ARM really just needs the better perf/watt to take over laptop and servers, where efficiency is still king. Imagine a laptop that's 2x lower TDP with the same perf. You use less board space, less VRMs, smaller battery. You get ultrabook form factor with gaming perf. That's a game changer.
But you know right, Apple is going full ARM for their 10% Marketshare of Mac OS and less than 10% revenue cut from the same, it's going to an "Onslaught" from the ARM side. I really wonder why people care so much about ARM processors when you have backwards compatibility on x86 unrivaled simply due to the fact how Software is tightly knit to their ecosystem and HW technologies and pricing, on Android any new OS means need blobs from the Chipset OEM, Qualcomm of all has the best in CAF, Exynos has some of them, Mediatek is pure trash along with Huawei. Qcomm 8cx is again a custom solution with no 64bit x86 emulation available and then the speed of emulation as well.
But nope ARM is top and x86 needs to die, always as mentioned here under comments whenever an A series comes or any ARM news comes. Under the hood x86 already is a RISC just like ARM and ARM has always dedicated block IP in the cores and Multicore performance has been always much different along with scaling vs the x86. With the uncontested EPYC7742 ARM should compete and then offer proper price, Altera has to prove, Centriq left after so much noise and R&D, Marvell is now not off shelf, Fujitsu is completely custom made for the specific workloads. I don't get how these ARM whiteknighters want it to replace thereby achieving something great for "Consumer" marketspace, I want to hear what is that current x86 chips are missing on that this great ARM has.
For vast majority of society x86 could die and they wouldn't see difference if they could use browser, office, some simple programmes and games on their PC/laptop. And you already have those programmes for ARM (iPads, Android).
Linux already runs native ARM code using WSL on Windows on ARM, like on the Surface Pro X. The new Edge browser is ARM native and Office 365 is also ARM native with an x86 plug-in interface.
x86-32 translation is usable but slow. x86-64 support is expected to arrive next year so that should take care of older programs that can't be recompiled for ARM. Bit by bit, piece by piece, an ARM native ecosystem is appearing on the consumer side. On servers, Linux and most open source tools have been available on ARM for years.
the backwards compatibility IMO is the strongest argument in favor of x86. it's literally why windows is king on the desktop. frankly windows only didn't dominate the server market for coming late to the party, having a good chunk of your software just break every 1-5 years is a nightmare to every sysadmin and software dev.
5nm parts? Intel at least can't release a 5nm x86 part and are stuck at 10nm. AMD's Zen3 is currently manufactured at 7nm, so we won't be seeing 5nm parts until next year, possibly later if the rumors of Apple buying all of TSMC's 5nm capacity is true.
So the question is who is buying Samsung's 5nm capacity. Those are the ARM chips most likely to compete with Intel and AMD in the short term. Even without Samsung's 5nm capacity, there is still Samsung and TSMC's 7nm/8nm capacity, which still beat's Intel and matches AMD.
Apple can't buy 100% of TSMC's 5nm capacity for more than a quarter or two. TSMC can push more than 50k wafers per month. Apple can get around 500 A14 per wafer. Maybe 300 "A14X". Let's say 450 per wafer on average because A14 is clearly the vast majority, that's over 22 million chips per month. Don't forget by mid next year TSMC could increase capacity to 100k per month.
Those monolithic CPU designs didnt have to compete with the scalability things do now. At the moment and the foreseeable future, it's all about density and performance\watt.
x86 inherently cannot compete without ditching its legacy roots, at which point, what is the point?
"It needs to be drastically better and execute all x86 software notably faster in order to replace the x86"
That's where you err: x86 binary software compatibility is no issue for native cloud workloads (vs. cloud hosting of legacy), because all of that stuff is just re-compiled for ARM.
And while the inherent architectural advantages may not be huge, they seem to be significant enough to allow squeezing significantly more computing out of the same transistor and Watt budget: How much of that is ARM, the architecture vs. ARM the CPU designer I don't know, but for the success vs. x86, that's what counts, power being the main operational expense in any cloud.
And I can't help thinking that there must be something in the ISA, too, because Intel failed to deliver similar amounts of computing power in the <5Watt mobile handset space: It was either more power or less performance, often enough both. Don't think it was because Intel engineers are lazy or stupid, so that leaves something 'inherent' like the ISA still on the table.
And SVE is really, really helpful creating portable libraries for HPC-type code.
Trying to compare Alpha, Sparc, PowerPC, fates etc. with ARM is flawed. The IT landscape is nothing like it was back then.
Now we have billions of pre-existing ARM devices deployed into the hands of consumers, an army of millions of software engineers who are already making arm-compatible software, linux is a seasoned, enterprise-level server platform, and cloud-computing has abstracted hardware so completely that the underlying CPU is irrelevant to most organizations.
No one needs to convince people to reduce their dependence on x86 processors- the inevitable march of progress has already done it.
The difference between ARM and PPC, Alpha, SPARC, MIPS, etc. is that for the past decade, WAY more ARM CPUs have been sold than x86. Sure, a lot end up in phones, tablets, smart toasters, etc., but for consumer-facing applications, a lot already run on ARM. In fact, we're nearing a point where the boxes a developer needs to check are frequently iOS, Android, web, eschewing desktop entirely.
x86 emulation is not NEARLY as important as it was even 5 years ago. Server and DC is a different story (but you generally don't trust 'mission critical' apps to emulation if you don't have to).
The biggest thing holding back ARM is legacy x86 software.
If they get emulation in hardware or software running good enough, doesn't have to match performance just 100% accurate emulation, then Intel and AMD have a problem.
We're at the point where even low end x86 is plenty for 99% of the population. If they can beat a quad core without SMT enabled then it'll be good enough.
That being said 90% of the population only use apps and browse the web, legacy software support is just keeping them out of the mainstream mostly because it has in the past, it's not even an issue until you start talking about commercial applications. Most businesses have some low volume custom software running their business. They can still run ARM for their personal computers.
In Anand's previous, admittedly apples to oranges, comparison: https://www.anandtech.com/show/15578/cloud-clash-a... ARM was doing well against older AMD and Intel CPUs. Things should heat-up if NVidia makes a GPU-centric APU that's ARM based.
ARM started with lower performance CPU cores with low power consumption, AMD and Intel the opposite; now we see each pushing to swap their downside with the upside of the other. Will "physics" win, will it always, and only, be possible to do a certain amount of work while expending a certain amount of energy?
Then consider yourself surprised. SVE is good enough for HPC, SVE2 not so important. There's no time to implement SVE2 this soon. SVE2 is basically extending NEON to SVE-style instructions. Mainly focused on multimedia, DSP, encryption instructions.
But Cortex-Anext could potentially be ARMv9a+SVE2. I'm hoping ARMv9a makes SVE2 mandatory.
Bring it on! A 16 core laptop or tablet chip with the same TDP and IPC as Ryzen 4800U would be a nuclear torpedo aimed at the heart of x86 computing. Qualcomm's 8cx is decent but it's outclassed by Apple's upcoming A14-based MacBook chip and Tiger Lake. A V1-based laptop chip would be a lot more competitive.
Right because cores are the only thing that matters. Why not 400 core laptop chip? As long as I have 400 cores, I can do pkzip and encoding tasks much better than my friends. For people who don't know, CBTM (Character Based Thread Management) is a new technology being developed to make even web browsing much faster with more cores. Each character is actually written with a unique core. Today this does not happen. So yes, the 400 core laptop will be unstoppable.
Wait, I thought Cortex A78 was last of A76 family and it's successor is supposed to be new, clean design core. But if A79 (?) server sibling is still Austin family, then A79 is also Austin and A80 will be Sophia family? Still, looking to Poseidon family as I really loved Cortex A73 design (focus on performance by efficiency rather than by power like A75 did).
Yeah if the A79 is a last hurrah from the Austin design, I wouldn't expect much in terms of IPC from it. But they would benefit from going to TSMC's 5nm node, so performance should still see a healthy boost.
The thing about Neoverse N2/Perseus is that it is not Poseidon which raises doubt about whether it heralds a transition to a new ISA. While you are probably right about a transition to ARMv9+SVE2 being on the cards it could come a bit later than your current prediction.
Weird to describe ARM as beginning with slower cores.
ARM started with way faster core (than 32 bits x86, known as 80386), lower clock speed, nearly 2X less energy consumption. Historically, ARM was winner in both performance and power usage.
Thats really good news. I hope, in 1-2 years, be able to buy a ARM desktop with similar performance found in x86 high end CPUs. With NVidia, shortly we will find ARM platform with high end GPU.
The best scenario would be if a V-Series CPU (more cache, deep pipelines, etc) could be 'reconfigured' in a E-Series CPU by software. Thats sounds crazy, but the reality is that some problems are best suited to a high frequency CPU (V-Series). Other problems are best suited to a high thread count (many E-Series CPUs). Sounds too crazy?
Other question is about memory caches. With 2.5D and/or 3D chips, where memory is near or at the top of the CPU, how many cache/buffer/etc we really need? The silicon area that is used to huge caches, could it be used to more execution cores?
That is an unexpected response in view of the content of the article that sought to set out what has (supposedly) changed. Certainly, there is no obligation on anyone to prejudge this matter but if things go as ARM suggests the "not sure what's changed" line won't carry any weight. So, we have a claim regarding new levels of performance that can't be confirmed at this point but the truth or falsehood of that claim will be easy to judge soon enough. Andrei is right, though. If ARM's performance claims are borne out (without energy efficiency taking a hit), there will be a world of trouble in store for Intel and AMD. Performance and energy efficiency are understandably the key criteria by which to judge the viability of different processor designs. When you do well on both fronts you are doing very well indeed.
If Nvidia's purchase of ARM goes through, it's very likely that Nvidia can become Intel before Intel becomes Nvidia... Kind of a scary situation where Nvidia would control the dominant chip platform by volume (let's be honest, way more phones sold than PCs), on top of its significant lead in GPU/AI perf.
I suppose what happens will all depend on Windows, which already has Arm builds and, from what I read, can run 32-bit x86 applications by emulation (not x64 yet, but I'm sure they could add that). A time may come, and Intel and AMD may have to abandon x86 and start implementing the Arm instruction set for their main CPUs. Quite likely, considering their skill in semiconductor, those will end up being among the best Arm processors (cf. Apple right now).
For my part, being old-school, I hope x86 wins the day and goes on running, but with all these forces pushing Arm, it seems hopeless, like many other things this world has lost, in the name of "progress."
Perhaps, at the end of the day, it won't really matter; we'd still be able to choose Windows and Intel or AMD (or whatever CPU), and everything will work just like it's always done (for the most part).
The GPU could be ARMs trojan horse. Put 16 ARM cores on a 50xx card and enable the developers to run local code. At some point most of the render engine could be executing on the GPU. Linux could be running full time on it.
No discussion about how NV's purchase might affect these launches or future lic access being, er, uh, a little late for everyone but NV from here on? Like Intel not giving chipset info to board makers who were selling AMD stuff decades ago (think ASUS in a whitebox with no silkscreen branding on the board anywhere, no name indicating it was an ASUS board, you just knew from design). I could go on, but if you know the stories, followed the case (I did, owned both stocks repeatedly over the decades) etc, you get what I'm saying. NV is in a powerful position if this deal is done and I don't see trump doing anything but cheerleading this one to hurt china. He will have much more control over NV IN USA than japan/uk.
I might not be able to cut your contract/order, but I can delay it so it doesn't matter anyway, or via other shenanigans (you get the point). Start with apple/samsung/qcom delays, make you first. Boom, NV back in mobile and heading for pc/server boxes where everyone else is usually late in mobile behind apple (for good reason now, behind nvidia instead). If the fastest phone released each year for the next 5 is Nvidia's model (made by them hopefully to move it faster), I'm guessing a lot of share will go their way. Apple is first for a reason, they take most of the high end sales until for holidays until samsung comes later Q1 and holdouts buy them if they hate apple, but being first gets SOME on the fence for sure.
I can buy any cpu/gpu, as I buy for specific reasons (heat/watts/perf, probably in that order - hot place here), and don't care about who it is inside as long as it wins in what I do most and won't drive me out of the room with heat/noise (mostly heat). I can't buy an apple product, at this point it is against my religion...LOL. I won't help you drive me into a submission box. I don't own a steam account either, don't carry a cell (just burner for car issues etc), and will never own a social A-Hole account ;) Just letting you know where I'm coming from. NV already hinted CPU's are coming from them (yeah, that's an option Jen said)...ROFL.
I just took a closer look at the graphic Andrei has used to convey the alignment of 'mobile' and 'infrastructure' CPUs. The common practice when considering ARM CPUs is to date everything from the moment of the IP release. If we were to follow that convention then you would have to say that the Neoverse N1 landed in 2019, not 2018. I wouldn't rule out the chance that Andrei knows something that we don't.
Andrei was right. Compiler writers have started to use SVE2 instructions with N2. N2, evidently, is a Armv8.5-A Architecture processor. It remains to be seen how this relates to a new generation of the ARM ISA, i.e. Armv9, though.
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FreckledTrout - Tuesday, September 22, 2020 - link
Interesting times. I assume Nvidia saw this information before they offered especially the Armv9 ISA. Having the new ISA spec done and a new high performance core design done really does look like good timing to buy ARM.Wreckage - Tuesday, September 22, 2020 - link
10 years from now NVIDIA will be a big as Apple & Microsoft. AMD and Intel shadows of their former glory.Railander - Tuesday, September 22, 2020 - link
noooo stop. i can only handle so much.Dex4Sure - Tuesday, September 22, 2020 - link
Indeed. NVIDIA + ARM are a deadly combo.Gondalf - Wednesday, September 23, 2020 - link
LOL, Nvidia can license at a reasonable price these cores right now without acquiring ARM for a crazy price.I don't see any combo around, neither deadly. Without x86 you don't go anywere, this is a fact.
Dex4Sure - Wednesday, September 23, 2020 - link
X86 is going to be pushed aside as ARM is overtaking them in performance. AMD fanboys have big problems coming into terms with it. Companies rather switch to ARM that's delivering 30% IPC gains nearly every generation than switch from Intel to AMD imo. When you do a platform change, you might as well go all in and make the switch to what is inevitably the future of computing.Gondalf - Wednesday, September 23, 2020 - link
LOL :). You looks like a fanboy instead of a person inside the IT.All the hopes of this useless silicon were destroyed a couple of years ago with the return of AMD
in server arena. It is a fact x86 now cover all segments of server market, from low core number, to medium core number up to many core number.
Right now ARM ISA have lost any momentum in server world, IT managers choose between Intel and AMD, ARM mean nothing....less than zero.
About IPC, we will see the Apple track record. Recent A14 showed the end of the stellar IPC scaling. Same will happen to ARM.
Unfortunately over a certain limit the bet to increase the IPC have severe diminishing returns, and the cpu complexity rise the power comsumption far more than the performance. Over a certain limit it is better to rise the clock speed than increase the IPC.
There is nothing of magic in ARM ISA, it is older than x86. RISC already lose the battle, not a chance at the horizon, only some custom silicon for few companies with exotic needs.
Nothing to see here.
RK7 - Thursday, September 24, 2020 - link
He has a point. You don't really embrace how much faster and cheaper become ARM, do you?ichaya - Sunday, September 27, 2020 - link
You can either believe that ISAs aren't that important, and both CISC & RISC have merged enough that ARM/x86 will be able to keep up with each other on similar nodes, or that there is still some inherent difference between x86/ARM for code density, etc.. Either way x86 either has the advantage (x86 beats POWER at perf/W/$) or it will be able to compete equally in the worst case.Apple and Amazon have found a different optimization point with lower clock speeds and higher IPC, but that doesn't mean they'll be able to scale it up and still keep a large perf/W/$ advantage. If POWER is anything to go by, it will be far worse perf/W/$ for a 4Ghz+ ARM chip.
Wilco1 - Sunday, October 4, 2020 - link
Comparing with Power is not relevant. Arm does indeed have a major advantage, both in ISA and microarchitecture, and it shows: https://www.servethehome.com/?attachment_id=47110Neither AMD nor Intel have anything in the next few years that can match Arm's much higher per-thread and 2x per socket performance.
0ldman79 - Monday, October 12, 2020 - link
You must not read all of the articles from Anandtech.Amazon has an ARM chip that competes with Xeon and Epyc in single thread performance. It has 64 cores.
Microsoft is pushing Windows ARM again. Apple is going ARM again. Nvidia is the second largest tech company on the planet and they're buying ARM unless someone stops them.
Dismissing ARM is short sighted as hell.
https://www.anandtech.com/show/15578/cloud-clash-a...
808Hilo - Thursday, September 24, 2020 - link
x86 is fine and the AMD chips are seriously good bargain. Having Arm as an competitor will keep the chips fresh. A platform change never goes well and IPC has a very similar watt price no matter Intel, Arm or AMD. Nvidia owning Apples and Amazons transaction IP through Arm aswell as owning almost every phone chip is what makes Arm such a bargain aquisition. Trumpians trying to cut off China from US chip supplies limits gains Nvidia will make on Arm. It might be better to keep Arm british or incorporate in the Netherlands or Switzerland.michael2k - Wednesday, September 23, 2020 - link
I'm not sure that purchasing ARM was a benefit vs licensing ARM, but I can definitely see NVIDIA pushing ARM to design bigger, wider, faster cores that benefit NVIDIA.Put another way, NVIDIA can get ARM to design a chip NVIDIA wants, whereas before the purchase NIVIDA could only ask and hope ARM would design a chip NVIDIA wants.
This article describes the n2 and v1 designs, but realistically those products aren't actually leading class. By the time they go to market they will be slower than Apple's similarly wide and higher powered designs. With NVIDIA at the help ARM can afford to design a much wider and more powerful core, even if no one other than NVIDIA will license it.
The article talks about the N2 being 250% faster than the Graviton2, at 3GHz. The X1 on which it is loosely based is a 5 wide decoder, 13 stage CPU pipeline. In comparison Apple has a 7 wide decode but only 11 stage CPU pipeline.
Hifihedgehog - Thursday, September 24, 2020 - link
Don't underestimate what RISC-V might do to shake them from these plans. Word already goes that many in ARM are looking at switching to avoid giving their competitor-licenser the upper hand.mdriftmeyer - Friday, September 25, 2020 - link
Five years from now, Nvidia, will be selling off ARM.senttoschool - Tuesday, September 22, 2020 - link
Always said this: The biggest competitor to Intel and AMD is ARM, not each other.ARM is coming for the laptop and server space. Desktop will be a given once ARM penetrates those two markets.
The momentum is all on ARM’s side as Apple will lead the assault on laptops and Amazon will lead the assault on servers.
dullard - Tuesday, September 22, 2020 - link
Exactly. I've phrased it differently though--focused around AMD. Suppose for a while Intel has the high-price game/OEM and suppose that ARM (and eventually Zhaoxin and similar) get the low-cost market. That doesn't leave much for AMD. AMD is doing well in the high-end workstation market but that is a miniscule market.AMD really needs to establish itself as something other than low-cost to survive the onslaught of coming competitors. As it is, almost anyone can pay TSMC to get a good 7 nm (or smaller process) CPU and they can always undercut AMD on price. AMD has good chips, but it really needs to create a market for itself that isn't so easily undercut.
Railander - Tuesday, September 22, 2020 - link
it's not quite that simple. there's also the aspect of having to build an ecosystem over time. even within x86, a newcomer would have to find partners to make motherboards for its new socket and new BIOS. if they try to make something else that isn't x86, it's even less likely to happen since now you'd also have to count on software developers coding things for your platform.Dex4Sure - Tuesday, September 22, 2020 - link
Nvidia already has large developer base on servers. CUDA and cudNN libraries have been ported over to ARM already. This is Nvidia's checkmate, and x86 market is going to be taken by storm.Gondalf - Wednesday, September 23, 2020 - link
Storm that live only in your mind unfortunately. ARM server penetration is near "zero" and this merge will not change anything. It is the ISA that matter, ARM have the wrong one.Dex4Sure - Wednesday, September 23, 2020 - link
AMD fanboy delusion going rabid in your mind. When Amazon is pushing ARM, and Amazon literally controls most of the servers (AWS) they can move their ecosystem over to ARM if they truly want. And there's nothing AMD can do about it. X86 is a legacy architecture on its way out.dotjaz - Sunday, September 27, 2020 - link
That's really dumb claim. Graviton2 is good. No doubt about it. But AWS can't just switch to ARM no matter how much "truly" they wanted it. The market and eco system is just not there yet. You are no better than the AMD fanboy.nvidiot101 - Tuesday, March 22, 2022 - link
""AMD really needs to establish itself as something other than low-cost to survive the onslaught of coming competitors.""Someone explain to this nvidiot that Amd projects to make 21B in revenue this year and if continues to grow like the last years, which is probable having bought Xilinx, AMD will be making more money that Intel and Nvidia combined. Maybe is Intel and Nvidia that should go low cost? Ever think about that? AMD Ryzen 8000, their hybrid arch is coming in a year and a half and anyone not a delusional fanboy knows its going to destroy all the competition. I mean "efficient" alder lake cores are less efficient than zen2, good luck competing with zen4d and Zen5 performance cores. Really AMD needs to go low cost? Talk about delusion.
And good luck with Nvidia buying Arm lol, so with Arm becoming more successful and with bigger market share, the people that blocked the merger will allow it now. Talking about DELUSION!!
michael2k - Wednesday, September 23, 2020 - link
Between ARM, Mellanox, and GeForce, NVIDIA is positioned to start owning supercomputer designs.They already have a top 10 (7th place) design using AMD's Epyc Mellanox Infiniband switches, and of course NVIDIA's A100 GPUs.
I don't see why they wouldn't replace AMD with ARM given they already have ARM base products, they just needed an ARM core that was equivalent to the best AMD and Intel could offer.
bigvlada - Tuesday, September 22, 2020 - link
IBM, Apple and Motorola thought the same with Power PC cpus, along with DEC Alpha, Sun Sparc and Silicon Graphics with MIPS processors. All of them are now nice museum pieces. I remember first tests when then monstrous DEC Alpha cpu executed x86 software with speed comparable to 80286 due to software emulation.Arm does not have some inherent architectural advantage over x86. It needs to be drastically better and execute all x86 software notably faster in order to replace the x86. That won't happen.
On the other hand, while assaulting x86 on all fronts Arm (not by its own doing) left his sides and back unguarded. If Nvidia buys them, they lose their most potent characteristic, the status of neutral Switzerland in semiconductor industry. Chinese companies won't use the architecture if their access to it could be blocked in the future due to the fact that it would be an american company. Europeans would also hesitate using it if they would be unable to sell it to Chinese companies.
RISC-V is years behind the Arm ecosystem but it is an open hardware architecture, meaning there are no restrictions in using it. I would assume that due to the Nvidias past behavior all the large Arm buyers will invest heavily in RISC-V and use Arm only as long as absolutely necessary.
Tabalan - Tuesday, September 22, 2020 - link
Well, Anandetch benchmarks showcase that ARM has quite huge perf/W advantage over x86. Will love to see Apple ARM Silicon vs Icelake or other Lake.Also, don't see everyone jumping ARM ship just because Nvidia might/will buy them. Chinese companies can use ARM even after Americans buy them (as long as they aren't banned), they will just pay more focus to tweaking core, I/O and so on. Or maybe even go full custom core.
gescom - Tuesday, September 22, 2020 - link
"Chinese companies can use ARM even after Americans buy them (as long as they aren't banned)"Thanks but no thanks for this kind of offer.
Tabalan - Tuesday, September 22, 2020 - link
Well, if you apply this thinking they should try to avoid Intel, AMD, Nvidia, MS, Google and other American giant corporations.Railander - Tuesday, September 22, 2020 - link
dont they already? last i checked many services of the companies you listed have already been blocked at the Great Firewall for many years.omi-kun - Tuesday, September 22, 2020 - link
You're likely right in that the architectural difference is minor, but the devil is in the details (uarch in this case). If you look at the nuvia article, they showed arm has ~4x better perf/watt in geekbench over Intel/AMD. While that's not a definitive benchmark it shows a huge lead on the arm side.While Apple's cpus are already faster than Intel in some sense, ARM really just needs the better perf/watt to take over laptop and servers, where efficiency is still king. Imagine a laptop that's 2x lower TDP with the same perf. You use less board space, less VRMs, smaller battery. You get ultrabook form factor with gaming perf. That's a game changer.
Quantumz0d - Tuesday, September 22, 2020 - link
But you know right, Apple is going full ARM for their 10% Marketshare of Mac OS and less than 10% revenue cut from the same, it's going to an "Onslaught" from the ARM side. I really wonder why people care so much about ARM processors when you have backwards compatibility on x86 unrivaled simply due to the fact how Software is tightly knit to their ecosystem and HW technologies and pricing, on Android any new OS means need blobs from the Chipset OEM, Qualcomm of all has the best in CAF, Exynos has some of them, Mediatek is pure trash along with Huawei. Qcomm 8cx is again a custom solution with no 64bit x86 emulation available and then the speed of emulation as well.But nope ARM is top and x86 needs to die, always as mentioned here under comments whenever an A series comes or any ARM news comes. Under the hood x86 already is a RISC just like ARM and ARM has always dedicated block IP in the cores and Multicore performance has been always much different along with scaling vs the x86. With the uncontested EPYC7742 ARM should compete and then offer proper price, Altera has to prove, Centriq left after so much noise and R&D, Marvell is now not off shelf, Fujitsu is completely custom made for the specific workloads. I don't get how these ARM whiteknighters want it to replace thereby achieving something great for "Consumer" marketspace, I want to hear what is that current x86 chips are missing on that this great ARM has.
Tabalan - Tuesday, September 22, 2020 - link
For vast majority of society x86 could die and they wouldn't see difference if they could use browser, office, some simple programmes and games on their PC/laptop. And you already have those programmes for ARM (iPads, Android).serendip - Wednesday, September 23, 2020 - link
Linux already runs native ARM code using WSL on Windows on ARM, like on the Surface Pro X. The new Edge browser is ARM native and Office 365 is also ARM native with an x86 plug-in interface.x86-32 translation is usable but slow. x86-64 support is expected to arrive next year so that should take care of older programs that can't be recompiled for ARM. Bit by bit, piece by piece, an ARM native ecosystem is appearing on the consumer side. On servers, Linux and most open source tools have been available on ARM for years.
Railander - Tuesday, September 22, 2020 - link
the backwards compatibility IMO is the strongest argument in favor of x86. it's literally why windows is king on the desktop. frankly windows only didn't dominate the server market for coming late to the party, having a good chunk of your software just break every 1-5 years is a nightmare to every sysadmin and software dev.michael2k - Wednesday, September 23, 2020 - link
5nm parts? Intel at least can't release a 5nm x86 part and are stuck at 10nm. AMD's Zen3 is currently manufactured at 7nm, so we won't be seeing 5nm parts until next year, possibly later if the rumors of Apple buying all of TSMC's 5nm capacity is true.So the question is who is buying Samsung's 5nm capacity. Those are the ARM chips most likely to compete with Intel and AMD in the short term. Even without Samsung's 5nm capacity, there is still Samsung and TSMC's 7nm/8nm capacity, which still beat's Intel and matches AMD.
dotjaz - Sunday, September 27, 2020 - link
Apple can't buy 100% of TSMC's 5nm capacity for more than a quarter or two. TSMC can push more than 50k wafers per month. Apple can get around 500 A14 per wafer. Maybe 300 "A14X". Let's say 450 per wafer on average because A14 is clearly the vast majority, that's over 22 million chips per month. Don't forget by mid next year TSMC could increase capacity to 100k per month.Samus - Wednesday, September 23, 2020 - link
Those monolithic CPU designs didnt have to compete with the scalability things do now. At the moment and the foreseeable future, it's all about density and performance\watt.x86 inherently cannot compete without ditching its legacy roots, at which point, what is the point?
abufrejoval - Wednesday, September 23, 2020 - link
"It needs to be drastically better and execute all x86 software notably faster in order to replace the x86"That's where you err: x86 binary software compatibility is no issue for native cloud workloads (vs. cloud hosting of legacy), because all of that stuff is just re-compiled for ARM.
And while the inherent architectural advantages may not be huge, they seem to be significant enough to allow squeezing significantly more computing out of the same transistor and Watt budget: How much of that is ARM, the architecture vs. ARM the CPU designer I don't know, but for the success vs. x86, that's what counts, power being the main operational expense in any cloud.
And I can't help thinking that there must be something in the ISA, too, because Intel failed to deliver similar amounts of computing power in the <5Watt mobile handset space: It was either more power or less performance, often enough both. Don't think it was because Intel engineers are lazy or stupid, so that leaves something 'inherent' like the ISA still on the table.
And SVE is really, really helpful creating portable libraries for HPC-type code.
grant3 - Wednesday, September 23, 2020 - link
Trying to compare Alpha, Sparc, PowerPC, fates etc. with ARM is flawed. The IT landscape is nothing like it was back then.Now we have billions of pre-existing ARM devices deployed into the hands of consumers, an army of millions of software engineers who are already making arm-compatible software, linux is a seasoned, enterprise-level server platform, and cloud-computing has abstracted hardware so completely that the underlying CPU is irrelevant to most organizations.
No one needs to convince people to reduce their dependence on x86 processors- the inevitable march of progress has already done it.
sing_electric - Wednesday, September 23, 2020 - link
The difference between ARM and PPC, Alpha, SPARC, MIPS, etc. is that for the past decade, WAY more ARM CPUs have been sold than x86. Sure, a lot end up in phones, tablets, smart toasters, etc., but for consumer-facing applications, a lot already run on ARM. In fact, we're nearing a point where the boxes a developer needs to check are frequently iOS, Android, web, eschewing desktop entirely.x86 emulation is not NEARLY as important as it was even 5 years ago. Server and DC is a different story (but you generally don't trust 'mission critical' apps to emulation if you don't have to).
0ldman79 - Tuesday, September 22, 2020 - link
The biggest thing holding back ARM is legacy x86 software.If they get emulation in hardware or software running good enough, doesn't have to match performance just 100% accurate emulation, then Intel and AMD have a problem.
We're at the point where even low end x86 is plenty for 99% of the population. If they can beat a quad core without SMT enabled then it'll be good enough.
That being said 90% of the population only use apps and browse the web, legacy software support is just keeping them out of the mainstream mostly because it has in the past, it's not even an issue until you start talking about commercial applications. Most businesses have some low volume custom software running their business. They can still run ARM for their personal computers.
Rοb - Tuesday, September 22, 2020 - link
In Anand's previous, admittedly apples to oranges, comparison: https://www.anandtech.com/show/15578/cloud-clash-a... ARM was doing well against older AMD and Intel CPUs. Things should heat-up if NVidia makes a GPU-centric APU that's ARM based.ARM started with lower performance CPU cores with low power consumption, AMD and Intel the opposite; now we see each pushing to swap their downside with the upside of the other. Will "physics" win, will it always, and only, be possible to do a certain amount of work while expending a certain amount of energy?
michael2k - Wednesday, September 23, 2020 - link
https://nvidianews.nvidia.com/news/nvidia-introduc...They already do.
SarahKerrigan - Tuesday, September 22, 2020 - link
I would be extremely surprised if these are SVE1 designs, even though ARM isn't confirming SVE2.dotjaz - Sunday, September 27, 2020 - link
Then consider yourself surprised. SVE is good enough for HPC, SVE2 not so important. There's no time to implement SVE2 this soon. SVE2 is basically extending NEON to SVE-style instructions. Mainly focused on multimedia, DSP, encryption instructions.But Cortex-Anext could potentially be ARMv9a+SVE2. I'm hoping ARMv9a makes SVE2 mandatory.
serendip - Tuesday, September 22, 2020 - link
Bring it on! A 16 core laptop or tablet chip with the same TDP and IPC as Ryzen 4800U would be a nuclear torpedo aimed at the heart of x86 computing. Qualcomm's 8cx is decent but it's outclassed by Apple's upcoming A14-based MacBook chip and Tiger Lake. A V1-based laptop chip would be a lot more competitive.AMDSuperFan - Tuesday, September 22, 2020 - link
Right because cores are the only thing that matters. Why not 400 core laptop chip? As long as I have 400 cores, I can do pkzip and encoding tasks much better than my friends. For people who don't know, CBTM (Character Based Thread Management) is a new technology being developed to make even web browsing much faster with more cores. Each character is actually written with a unique core. Today this does not happen. So yes, the 400 core laptop will be unstoppable.dotjaz - Sunday, September 27, 2020 - link
Geez, you are so dumb. A 16c/16t X1/A78 will match Zen2 8c/16t in both thread count and performance while using less power.That's the point.
Nobody is mentioning 400 core(sic) laptop but you. Oh poor dumb you.
Dex4Sure - Tuesday, April 13, 2021 - link
AMD fanboys are not known to be very smart. A lot of them sound like football fans.PixyMisa - Tuesday, September 22, 2020 - link
With TSMC's 5nm, AMD could do a 16-core laptop chip at 25W. With 16 Vega / Navi CUs as well.dotjaz - Sunday, September 27, 2020 - link
And with the same 5nm, ARM can do 32-core laptop chip at 25W with 24-core G78+ as well. ARM can always match SMT with physical core.What's your point?
dotjaz - Sunday, September 27, 2020 - link
Why would you use V1 on a laptop? It's not designed for it. And it will never happen.You'll see X1 based laptop, probably next year.
Lutchu - Tuesday, September 22, 2020 - link
Typo for server in the first paragraph.Tabalan - Tuesday, September 22, 2020 - link
Wait, I thought Cortex A78 was last of A76 family and it's successor is supposed to be new, clean design core. But if A79 (?) server sibling is still Austin family, then A79 is also Austin and A80 will be Sophia family? Still, looking to Poseidon family as I really loved Cortex A73 design (focus on performance by efficiency rather than by power like A75 did).Andrei Frumusanu - Tuesday, September 22, 2020 - link
Supposedly there was a change in the roadmap, and Austin will be doing an additional generation.Tabalan - Tuesday, September 22, 2020 - link
Good to know, thank you for this insight.So if A79 is last minute addition, performance gains will be in line with A78?
aryonoco - Tuesday, September 22, 2020 - link
Yeah if the A79 is a last hurrah from the Austin design, I wouldn't expect much in terms of IPC from it. But they would benefit from going to TSMC's 5nm node, so performance should still see a healthy boost.Tabalan - Wednesday, September 23, 2020 - link
Cortex A78/X1 will be on 5 nm and I believe than A79 will be on same process node. Sophia family might be on 3 nm.ChrisGX - Thursday, September 24, 2020 - link
The thing about Neoverse N2/Perseus is that it is not Poseidon which raises doubt about whether it heralds a transition to a new ISA. While you are probably right about a transition to ARMv9+SVE2 being on the cards it could come a bit later than your current prediction.iAPX - Tuesday, September 22, 2020 - link
Weird to describe ARM as beginning with slower cores.ARM started with way faster core (than 32 bits x86, known as 80386), lower clock speed, nearly 2X less energy consumption.
Historically, ARM was winner in both performance and power usage.
mkanada - Tuesday, September 22, 2020 - link
Thats really good news. I hope, in 1-2 years, be able to buy a ARM desktop with similar performance found in x86 high end CPUs. With NVidia, shortly we will find ARM platform with high end GPU.The best scenario would be if a V-Series CPU (more cache, deep pipelines, etc) could be 'reconfigured' in a E-Series CPU by software. Thats sounds crazy, but the reality is that some problems are best suited to a high frequency CPU (V-Series). Other problems are best suited to a high thread count (many E-Series CPUs). Sounds too crazy?
Vitor - Wednesday, September 23, 2020 - link
Well, as soon as Apple decides to make CPU with a 65W TDP, especially in 3nm, x86 will fade away even for deskops.mkanada - Tuesday, September 22, 2020 - link
Other question is about memory caches. With 2.5D and/or 3D chips, where memory is near or at the top of the CPU, how many cache/buffer/etc we really need? The silicon area that is used to huge caches, could it be used to more execution cores?webdoctors - Wednesday, September 23, 2020 - link
Pretty skeptical, x86 is pretty firmly entrenched.AMD tried to do custom ARM servers a few years ago and it died. Not sure what's changed...
ChrisGX - Tuesday, September 29, 2020 - link
That is an unexpected response in view of the content of the article that sought to set out what has (supposedly) changed. Certainly, there is no obligation on anyone to prejudge this matter but if things go as ARM suggests the "not sure what's changed" line won't carry any weight. So, we have a claim regarding new levels of performance that can't be confirmed at this point but the truth or falsehood of that claim will be easy to judge soon enough. Andrei is right, though. If ARM's performance claims are borne out (without energy efficiency taking a hit), there will be a world of trouble in store for Intel and AMD. Performance and energy efficiency are understandably the key criteria by which to judge the viability of different processor designs. When you do well on both fronts you are doing very well indeed.sing_electric - Wednesday, September 23, 2020 - link
If Nvidia's purchase of ARM goes through, it's very likely that Nvidia can become Intel before Intel becomes Nvidia... Kind of a scary situation where Nvidia would control the dominant chip platform by volume (let's be honest, way more phones sold than PCs), on top of its significant lead in GPU/AI perf.GeoffreyA - Wednesday, September 23, 2020 - link
I suppose what happens will all depend on Windows, which already has Arm builds and, from what I read, can run 32-bit x86 applications by emulation (not x64 yet, but I'm sure they could add that). A time may come, and Intel and AMD may have to abandon x86 and start implementing the Arm instruction set for their main CPUs. Quite likely, considering their skill in semiconductor, those will end up being among the best Arm processors (cf. Apple right now).For my part, being old-school, I hope x86 wins the day and goes on running, but with all these forces pushing Arm, it seems hopeless, like many other things this world has lost, in the name of "progress."
Perhaps, at the end of the day, it won't really matter; we'd still be able to choose Windows and Intel or AMD (or whatever CPU), and everything will work just like it's always done (for the most part).
GeoffreyA - Wednesday, September 23, 2020 - link
Realised it's because of Wow64 that Windows on Arm only supports 32-bit x86.Thala - Thursday, September 24, 2020 - link
Windows ARM already has a dual WoW layer for both 32 bit ARM and x86. They can just add a third for 64bit x86.nemi2 - Thursday, September 24, 2020 - link
The GPU could be ARMs trojan horse. Put 16 ARM cores on a 50xx card and enable the developers to run local code. At some point most of the render engine could be executing on the GPU. Linux could be running full time on it.TheJian - Saturday, September 26, 2020 - link
No discussion about how NV's purchase might affect these launches or future lic access being, er, uh, a little late for everyone but NV from here on? Like Intel not giving chipset info to board makers who were selling AMD stuff decades ago (think ASUS in a whitebox with no silkscreen branding on the board anywhere, no name indicating it was an ASUS board, you just knew from design). I could go on, but if you know the stories, followed the case (I did, owned both stocks repeatedly over the decades) etc, you get what I'm saying. NV is in a powerful position if this deal is done and I don't see trump doing anything but cheerleading this one to hurt china. He will have much more control over NV IN USA than japan/uk.I might not be able to cut your contract/order, but I can delay it so it doesn't matter anyway, or via other shenanigans (you get the point). Start with apple/samsung/qcom delays, make you first. Boom, NV back in mobile and heading for pc/server boxes where everyone else is usually late in mobile behind apple (for good reason now, behind nvidia instead). If the fastest phone released each year for the next 5 is Nvidia's model (made by them hopefully to move it faster), I'm guessing a lot of share will go their way. Apple is first for a reason, they take most of the high end sales until for holidays until samsung comes later Q1 and holdouts buy them if they hate apple, but being first gets SOME on the fence for sure.
I can buy any cpu/gpu, as I buy for specific reasons (heat/watts/perf, probably in that order - hot place here), and don't care about who it is inside as long as it wins in what I do most and won't drive me out of the room with heat/noise (mostly heat). I can't buy an apple product, at this point it is against my religion...LOL. I won't help you drive me into a submission box. I don't own a steam account either, don't carry a cell (just burner for car issues etc), and will never own a social A-Hole account ;) Just letting you know where I'm coming from. NV already hinted CPU's are coming from them (yeah, that's an option Jen said)...ROFL.
ChrisGX - Thursday, October 8, 2020 - link
I just took a closer look at the graphic Andrei has used to convey the alignment of 'mobile' and 'infrastructure' CPUs. The common practice when considering ARM CPUs is to date everything from the moment of the IP release. If we were to follow that convention then you would have to say that the Neoverse N1 landed in 2019, not 2018. I wouldn't rule out the chance that Andrei knows something that we don't.ChrisGX - Tuesday, October 13, 2020 - link
Andrei was right. Compiler writers have started to use SVE2 instructions with N2. N2, evidently, is a Armv8.5-A Architecture processor. It remains to be seen how this relates to a new generation of the ARM ISA, i.e. Armv9, though.https://gcc.gnu.org/git/?p=gcc.git;a=commitdiff;h=...
dotjaz - Friday, November 6, 2020 - link
Annnnnnnnnnnd N2 is v8.5a