points by p1necone 3 days ago | 0 comments
The vibes I'm getting are that x86 is on its way out - apple switched, and mainstream laptops are releasing with fast snapdragon chips - I'm thinking both Intel and AMD risk becoming obsolete if they keep focusing on x86 chips.
Anyone with insight into the industry know how much institutional knowledge would be relevant still with an ISA switch?
[–] p1necone 2 days ago
[–] layer8 3 days ago
Windows-on-ARM market share seems to be stagnating at a low-ish single-digit percentage, I don’t see it overtaking x86 anytime soon.
[–] aclmakes 3 days ago
hearing that google switched to arm for their servers because it was much more efficient for compute vs power used per space is what made me finally think everything might be switching to arm. it took apple a bit of time to switch over, software growing pains for users early on, but my gosh have their products just continued to take off.
so now mobile, desktop and server all looking good with ARM? i can't see why it would go backwards at all.
[–] trynumber9 3 days ago
Not really getting that impression from AMD. On the call Su talked up EPYC "Venice" (a series of x86 chips) as a major component of their Q4 and 2027 guidance.
[–] p1necone 3 days ago
That's what I'm saying - I think both AMD and Intel risk becoming obsolete dinosaurs if they keep focusing on x86, which is what they seem to be doing.
[–] trynumber9 2 days ago
But it's selling well for them? I'm not sure I get the problem.
[–] p1necone 2 days ago
Every once ubiquitous dead technology was selling well shortly before it wasn't, so not sure what your point is here.
[–] pjmlp 3 days ago
Windows on ARM is hardly going anywhere, and outside HN bubble, Windows x86 has a worldwide market share of 70%.
Also beware of what you wish for, that is basically the end of PCs when it comes to be, the dream of OEMs, going back to fully vertical integration as all computers used to be in the last century, with exception of PC clones, thanks to IBM failing to control the ecosystem.
[–] mepian 3 days ago
Before IBM PC there was the open ecosystem of the S-100 bus.
[–] pjmlp 2 days ago
There was, how well did it take off versus the Apple, Acorn, Atari, Amigas, C64, MSX, ZX Spectrum of the day?
It didn't, other than in some niches.
I reckon 5 years from now it'll be obvious that x86 is on its way out, and 10 years from now it'll be replaced by ARM in all but narrow backwards compatibility demanded use cases.
I also predict that the survival of both Intel and ARM as big players in the market is contingent on them switching in the same timeframe. If they don't, they're dead (of course, if they try to switch and botch it, they're dead too - but baking that into a prediction feels a bit no-true-scotsman esque).
I'm hopeful that manufacturers will ship regular socketable ARM cpus just like they do with x86 now, but who knows whether that will be the case or if we'll move more towards everything being soldered on all in one solutions.