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It’ll take them years to catch up with Arm chips.
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Qualcomm CEO Outlines Plans to Compete With Apple Silicon, Handle Apple's Shift to In-House Modems
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Their processor is too complex and too huge JUST with the CPU. If they were to add more to that, the yields per wafer would dwindle precipitously. They COULD produce SoC if they were to drop backwards compatibility BUT with AMD out there ready to jump on any misstep, they’re not gonna do that.
In this world of Apple vs. everybody else, QCOM does not have to beat Apple chips, just be on par and everyone would support behind her against Apple, with cheaper products. INTL and AMD are losing because they have no chip with power-efficient for laptop. INTL and AMD will collaborate with QCOM because this is "Apple against the world" game; one is vertical integration the others are horizontal integration.
Just my $0.02, but I think everyone should be Cheering for QCOM to succeed.
For arguments sake, assume they produce a chip that has 80% of the CPU & GPU perf of what Apple offers in their latest M-series chip @ the time that QCOM releases their first chip.
That first QCOM chip will go into alot of laptops (from alot of manufacturers), some of which will run bootleg'd versions of macOS, which will then put some price on Apple to lower the prices of their M-series Macs !
The consumer wins in the end !
Would you pay $599 for Dell's version of a MacBook Air, knowing it had (ONLY) 80% of the CPU & GPU perf of the Apple product ?
I'll bet alot of people will !
BTW, Apple's M-series chips are leveraged from their A-series chips.
NO reason QCOM can't OR won't do the same with their SnagDragon chips.
And, they probably will include 5G support on-chip !
And if they were smart, they would include Custom Processing Blocks for select Photo & Video applications.
Apple isn't as safe as many think !
Disclaimer: I'm an EE, who has worked @ Qualcomm on their most-leading-edge SnapDragon chips !
For arguments sake, assume they produce a chip that has 80% of the CPU & GPU perf of what Apple offers in their latest M-series chip @ the time that QCOM releases their first chip.
That first QCOM chip will go into alot of laptops (from alot of manufacturers), some of which will run bootleg'd versions of macOS, which will then put some price on Apple to lower the prices of their M-series Macs !
The consumer wins in the end !
Would you pay $599 for Dell's version of a MacBook Air, knowing it had (ONLY) 80% of the CPU & GPU perf of the Apple product ?
I'll bet alot of people will !
BTW, Apple's M-series chips are leveraged from their A-series chips.
NO reason QCOM can't OR won't do the same with their SnagDragon chips.
And, they probably will include 5G support on-chip !
And if they were smart, they would include Custom Processing Blocks for select Photo & Video applications.
Apple isn't as safe as many think !
Disclaimer: I'm an EE, who has worked @ Qualcomm on their most-leading-edge SnapDragon chips !
Even if Qualcom could get an M1 comparable ARM chip out now there is hardly any software to run on an ARM windows machine. There won't be significant demand for at least a couple of years.. and if it isn't managed properly industry and consumers that get their fingers burned will shy away.
How will big corporate move users across? That needs to be thought about. Large IT teams will need to be able to move users smoothly across in batches and not a Big Bang migration - they won't have the capacity or expertise to do that. What apple was able to do was quite simply staggering. I can't see that working so well in the Windows world with different AMD and Intel chips etc.
Consumers will need to be convinced too - Intel branding is pretty strong.
Then there is the licensing / contracts from Intel and AMD - they won't go down without a fight and will likely offer significant discounts to try and keep a strangle hold.
How will big corporate move users across? That needs to be thought about. Large IT teams will need to be able to move users smoothly across in batches and not a Big Bang migration - they won't have the capacity or expertise to do that. What apple was able to do was quite simply staggering. I can't see that working so well in the Windows world with different AMD and Intel chips etc.
Consumers will need to be convinced too - Intel branding is pretty strong.
Then there is the licensing / contracts from Intel and AMD - they won't go down without a fight and will likely offer significant discounts to try and keep a strangle hold.
Maybe Apple arm is better than intel...because if you compare qualcomm arm for windows vs intels windows is a night and day difference and intels is so much better than arm
Again, you dont get the point...we already have qualcomm into surface pro x...but its very slow and kind of trash of a product
If you want arm...you need to have a proper arm OS with developers by your side and also build in house your own arm SoC+your own OS to be optimised at the bones....So, again...its not so easy to compete with Apple...almost impossible at this point
So, Qualcomm already failed twice building arm for windows, so why are you talking about ?
Dont get me wrong, i want the windows platform to come where mac on arm is...i mean delivery that kind of power with so low resources is mind blowing and it just got started
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Wasn’t this what Intel was afraid of would happen after the release of Apple's M1?
Snapdragons are crap compared to A-series chips, they are consistently 2 years behind performance-wise, and they already leveraged their best snapdragon to a laptop, it was called SQ1 and powered the Surface Pro X, with unsurprising dismal results.
Now, I agree more competition on ARM desktop computing can only be good news. Except for Intel of course.
Exactly this, I promised to never buy another Mac(Previous mac was 2012 MBA) but the M1 Mini was too tempting. I hate Mac OS but I put up with it because the value for the M1 Mini was too great, if Microsoft provides support for M-series Macs, I will keep buying them.
If Qualcomm can come close to M series performance and Microsoft supports these chips I will buy a PC with a Qualcomm chip. If the Performance sucks I will just buy M series Macs and hope that Microsoft will sell windows license for them. IMO Intel messed up, I loved my Dell Axim V51, they should never have ditched arm, they could have owned the market if they did not sell their xscale division.
Isn’t that what MS said at the Winn11 announcement? That it will support Arm?
Also, one of the surface tablets has a Qualcomm chip and is runng Arm Windows and available for purchase, so, these guys are quite deep into it already
How many Apple-designed modems have they shipped? Intel's modems were a failure, Apple will figure it out but Qualcomm has a few more years before they have to worry about Apple's modems. Just like Apple has a few years before they have to worry about Qualcomm's ARM chips.
Maybe Apple arm is better than intel...because if you compare qualcomm arm for windows vs intels windows is a night and day difference and intels is so much better than arm
Again, you dont get the point...we already have qualcomm into surface pro x...but its very slow and kind of trash of a product
If you want arm...you need to have a proper arm OS with developers by your side and also build in house your own arm SoC+your own OS to be optimised at the bones....So, again...its not so easy to compete with Apple...almost impossible at this point
So, Qualcomm already failed twice building arm for windows, so why are you talking about ?
Dont get me wrong, i want the windows platform to come where mac on arm is...i mean delivery that kind of power with so low resources is mind blowing and it just got started
Maybe you didn't bother reading. Current Qualcom SOC's are based on ARM off-the-shelf designs. The design being discussed here is a custom design with the help of ex-Apple engineers. Will it be as good as the M1? Probably not, but you can't directly compare it to the chip in the surface pro because its not from that lineage any more than the Intel Core series CPUs aren't based on the Pentium 4, which is exactly what this article was about.
I think the wolf is Sheep clothes is Microsoft. Have a look on the internet with Windows 10/11 scaled and running on an older Mobile phone. Just think no translation level for the apps and all 100% windows apps. Might not be now but its coming.
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You can get a more performant desktop than the M1 Mac mini for the same or less money. M1 is a mobile x86 killer but for desktop with greater power and thermal headroom it does not compete, especially in graphics. My 3 year old 2700X desktop was cheaper 3 years ago than a comparably specced Mac mini today and it benchmarks just as fast or faster depending on the test. However it is larger and consumes more power, but for a desktop that isn't as big of a deal I'd say.
I agree but I think it will be very easy convince people that Arm based PC's are the future, Apple has shown the world that they are. M-Series chips make the case for Arm based PC's. That said, every Native Programs that works with M-series macs can be easily ported to Arm PC's
win11 insider already has arm support..i have it installed on the surface pro x
We actually need more competitors to Qualcomm, not Apple. Apple only makes chips for themselves, so whatever improvement they made is self contained. Qualcomm on the other hand have arguably made a monopoly of SoCs and modems on Android. Exynos is a minority, and mediatek only exist at the lowest end. Everything else is Qualcomm and it’s not good. Look how at Android Wear and how Qualcomm made the platform stagnant. It would be bad if Qualcomm became the only ARM SoC for laptops, they would drag their feet as slow as intel did. Qualcomm talked big, but their laptop chips are sad, even with Microsoft working closely with them. This means Qualcomm doesn’t actually feel any competition.
Thanks for confirming, not following the Windows world closely anymore…
I kind of see this as a win-win. Apple shoves the entire industry into competitive mode, which ultimately benefits us, as the consumers. Apple chips will stay in Apple products and if QCOM can make chips that are just as viable for non-apple products, those of us who purchase these products will be very happy, and there will be choice. If Apple then gets concerned that QCOM is catching up to them or starting to retake market share, then they step up their game, etc, etc..
The M1 is, IMO, one of the most significant inventions to come out of Apple in a long time and really flipped the laptop game on its head. And as someone who often has to use Windows simply because the applications I run are not available on Mac, having stronger options for the non-mac portable market is huge.
The M1 is, IMO, one of the most significant inventions to come out of Apple in a long time and really flipped the laptop game on its head. And as someone who often has to use Windows simply because the applications I run are not available on Mac, having stronger options for the non-mac portable market is huge.
Problem in the laptop market is that there is Intel and AMD, so HUGE entry barriers for a newcomer… need to have deep pockets and get a major player behind you and supporting you, and beat AMD/Intel by performance AND price… there are plenty rumors out there, egg AMD working on Arm, MS etc… not disagreeing with you, competition is a good thing!
Good Point: "it sounds better."they will not compete with Apple ... they will compete with AMD and Intel ... but it sounds better