Nvidia to make Arm-based PC chips in major new challenge to Intel - Desktop ARM and SL, lets discuss!

[elleevelyn]

well whatever happens they all gunna have to wait for another about 10 years before I buy some other maybe one day invention

11 years ago about, I bought a custom-build computer (which took me ages to save up for). I9, 750 SSD, 16GB RAM, 660 GPU.  I also "future-proofed" it so that I could upgrade at some future time to a better graphics card which had not then been made. Which did get made after some while and I went from a 660 to 1050Ti - the max I could get for the ASUS motherboard, so I was pretty happy about that as I was also able to upgrade my monitor to a full 2K from a 1920x1024

and it has gone great for me without any fault and still goes. Then Microsoft Windows 11 Update said I can't update my now apparently potato computer from Windows 10. So start saving up again

I went back to the same build shop three weeks ago, and they made me a new one: i9, 2TB SSD, 64GB RAM, 4070Ti and 4K monitor. I never got a 4090 because was $NZ1000 more- about $NZ600 for a 4080. I already saved up and spent over $NZ5000 on this thing. But one day the 6080/90 will get made and I be able to stick it in

the thing is that I fully expect to not buy another computer for 10 years. And I think that there are lots of people like me - who are on the 10 year plan. We can't just go out and buy a new computer when ever we feel like it, because they cost a lot of money relative to our incomes

Edited October 28, 2023 by elleevelyn
typ

[Henri Beauchamp]

2 hours ago, elleevelyn said:

Then Microsoft Windows 11 Update said I can't update my now apparently potato computer from Windows 10.

In fact, you perfectly can... Micro$oft hid them, but the options to install (or upgrade) to Windows 11 do exist, even on super-old hardware; I installed it on my 4th PC (the ”main PC” I was using back in 2008-2012), which is based on an old Core Quad Q6600 with 8GB RAM and a GTX 460, without EFI (thus without a TPM neither ”secure boot”), and therefore on a MBR disk.

The simplest way to do it is probably via the use of Rufus to setup a bootable USB stick installation drive.

Another option is to install Linux (as a dual boot if you really want to keep Windoze after having tasted to the speed, stability, safety and freedom brought by the Penguin's OS 😜 ); it would juice out the best possible performances from your aging PC.

Edited October 28, 2023 by Henri Beauchamp

[Solar Legion]

3 hours ago, AmeliaJ08 said:

.

Abandoning thread, I wasn't here for some silly PC vs Apple argument that nobody asked for. Requesting deletion, thanks.

 

Welcome to life - things don't go as planned.

No thread deletion required either - we have enough of that as is.

[Love Zhaoying]

Sounds like the OP wanted a "Windows vs. Linux" argument..?

How confusing!

 

[Henri Beauchamp]

58 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Sounds like the OP wanted a ”Windows vs. Linux” argument..?

Well, currently, Linux (and its forks, such as Android) and BSD (and its forks, such as macOS) are immensely more common than Windows for ARM hardware. So... 😛

As for ARM vs x86, here is my stance:

As a Linux user, should we get ARM-based desktop PCs with the same performances as existing high end desktop x86 PCs, it won't bother the least to switch to the ARM solution, much to the contrary !

x86 is an antediluvian, poorly designed ISA (*), which is today impaired by all the compatibility modes it must keep to run old software, causing bloated CPUs full of (mostly) useless parts needed to run those legacy 16 and 32 bits modes, support segmented memory (eeek !) and whatnot... ARM would at least allow to get rid of all this old cruft, once and for all (and yes, at the cost of using emulators for the old software, but those won't suffer from the emulation since they were designed to work on waaaaay slower hardware).

 

(*) If only IBM had chosen Motorola and its gorgeous m68k ISA (32 bits registers, flat memory model, I/O in memory address space), instead of Intel and the 8088 (8 bits, segmented memory, separate I/O ports), we would have gained 10 years of advance in OS design for PCs, instead of waiting before Windows 95 (1995) and Linux (1992) could finally offer true multitasking 32 bits OS for the x86; back in the 80s, we already had genuine 32 bits OSes on the Macs, the Sinclair QL, the Amigas, the ATARIs, and genuine preemptive multitasking on the QL and Amigas...

Edited October 28, 2023 by Henri Beauchamp

[Qie Niangao]

4 hours ago, Henri Beauchamp said:

(and yes, at the cost of using emulators for the old software, but those won't suffer from the emulation since they were designed to work on waaaaay slower hardware)

I think that's the key here. There's a lot of concern from gaming folks about performance of x86 games written relatively recently but not economically viable to port to native ARM: they've outlived their market so there's no revenue to fund further development, but there are still players dedicated to the games. There are other, non-gaming applications in the same boat, presumably, but most commercial apps have enough ongoing sales to fund porting to a new platform, or else they're old enough to get by with emulation (and often not that dependent on performance anyway). So it seems mostly a gamer problem.

That may nonetheless tip the scales for Windows the way it didn't for Macs, I'm not sure, but I haven't really understood why Apple was able to make the switch without much outcry that I can recall. Maybe it's practice from dumping the MC68K, back in the day. Now I'm getting all nostalgic for my Mac 128K.

[elleevelyn]

7 hours ago, Henri Beauchamp said:

In fact, you perfectly can... Micro$oft hid them, but the options to install (or upgrade) to Windows 11 do exist, even on super-old hardware

thanks for this

i am going to give my now old computer to a young cousin who hasn't got one. So I be able to tell them the info you gave, so will help make things ok for them to carry on. At least until one day they leave school and able to earn money to buy their own

i have another real world restriction - lack of space in my dwelling for a second desktop. I also have a laptop, and a tablet, and a pen drawing tablet, two phones (one work and one personal) and nevermind the digital TV as well. Is all a bit of a digital jungle in my place already, and I can't afford at all to go out and buy another house to fit even more stuff in

[Flea Yatsenko]

19 hours ago, Henri Beauchamp said:

Well, currently, Linux (and its forks, such as Android) and BSD (and its forks, such as macOS) are immensely more common than Windows for ARM hardware. So... 😛

As for ARM vs x86, here is my stance:

As a Linux user, should we get ARM-based desktop PCs with the same performances as existing high end desktop x86 PCs, it won't bother the least to switch to the ARM solution, much to the contrary !

x86 is an antediluvian, poorly designed ISA (*), which is today impaired by all the compatibility modes it must keep to run old software, causing bloated CPUs full of (mostly) useless parts needed to run those legacy 16 and 32 bits modes, support segmented memory (eeek !) and whatnot... ARM would at least allow to get rid of all this old cruft, once and for all (and yes, at the cost of using emulators for the old software, but those won't suffer from the emulation since they were designed to work on waaaaay slower hardware).

 

(*) If only IBM had chosen Motorola and its gorgeous m68k ISA (32 bits registers, flat memory model, I/O in memory address space), instead of Intel and the 8088 (8 bits, segmented memory, separate I/O ports), we would have gained 10 years of advance in OS design for PCs, instead of waiting before Windows 95 (1995) and Linux (1992) could finally offer true multitasking 32 bits OS for the x86; back in the 80s, we already had genuine 32 bits OSes on the Macs, the Sinclair QL, the Amigas, the ATARIs, and genuine preemptive multitasking on the QL and Amigas...

The only Adobe software that runs natively on Windows ARM is Photoshop and Lightroom. x86 isn't just about all this old software you're talking about, there's lots of modern proprietary software that doesn't run on ARM at all. A lot of modern content creation software does not work on ARM. I imagine content creators, or people who want to get into it, buying ARM and realizing they only have Blender and everything else needs to be emulated or whatever. I'm sure there's more software that I'm missing, autodesk, adobe, probably a huge list of content creation stuff you'll miss going to ARM. And that's ignoring games. LL won't even support Linux because there's not enough users, you think they're going to make a Windows ARM version?

Modern x86 is just an x86 instruction decoder with an architecture that has nothing to do with the old CISC archs from back in the day anyways. But for serious computer work x86 bringing things like AVX is totally worth it and it's something CISC ARM will never really bring to the table because that's just not what the architecture is for.

A switch to ARM is difficult, most people won't want ARM because the software is missing and most companies won't want to make ARM versions because the customers and users are missing. Apple got away with it because they control the ecosystem. But something like Windows stands hardly any chance.

Linux is probably the best way to use ARM CPUs since there are arm distros. Some distros like Gentoo it wouldn't even matter. In that case, though, you'd have to run qemu with WINE to get Windows x86 programs to work. Yuck.

[Love Zhaoying]

Unpopular opinion from a Programmer point of view, the trend over the past 10+ years is for:

a) Web-based software (except Streaming, definitely not ideal for Games). 

The fact most - if not all - Microsoft Office applications can now be run "web-based" (NOT local on your PC) is an example.

b) "Processor Neutral" Software - for instance, using Java, .Net, etc. (again, definitely not deal for Games).

 

[Henri Beauchamp]

30 minutes ago, Flea Yatsenko said:

The only Adobe software that runs natively on Windows ARM is Photoshop and Lightroom. x86 isn't just about all this old software you're talking about, there's lots of modern proprietary software that doesn't run on ARM at all. A lot of modern content creation software does not work on ARM.

They would run just fine under x86 emulation over ARM, just like what Apple did with Rosetta (and no, I do not like Apple, at all, due to their closed source, closed hardware, and Open Source-hostile policies, not to mention their tax evading policy, but when they do something ”right”, they deserve my recognition for it)...

[Tastic2]

I am running second life just fine without a nvidia card on a arm based Raspberry Pi 4. It runs great through a dx9 to vulkan. 

[gwynchisholm]

On 10/25/2023 at 8:46 AM, Flea Yatsenko said:

How is this different from Tegra

Basically this. The only reason someone would phrase an article about how its going to be competition for intel/amd is because ARM is mildly more prevalent these days outside of the mobile market than it was in 2008.

Article is a big old nothing burger.

Intel is still the dominant CPU choice in the consumer, professional, enterprise and server markets. You dont see AMD ryzen optiplex's, prodesks, thinkstations, etc very often because no business trusts anything that doesnt say "intel vpro" on it. Nvidia is not going to upset that any time soon. Nothing for consumers is fully fleshed out for ARM yet and what is, is currently being dominated by Apple with their in-house ARM chips which are doing wonders for them. I dont think nvidia could get a foothold there either. Because anything they do it with will be seen as a second rate product to what Apple is doing.

Much like what happened to PowerPC ages ago. Nobody cared if anyone else was doing anything PPC, Apple was the baseline for what a PPC system was supposed to be. Regardless if the product is any better, people are very simple creatures and quickly adhere themselves to a perceived standard.

Im not even mentioning anything AMD is doing in the ARM space because they might as well not be, theyre also at the very least not in competition with anything Nvidia ARM simply because AMD's only relevant products are x86.