Qualcomm Employee: 64-Bit A7 Chip 'Hit Us In The Gut'

[Renzatic]

There's a huge difference between pointing out that a compliment isn't warranted and hating something.

For some people, there is no "wow, that's pretty nice", no middle ground. It's either ABSOLUTE CRAP NO ONE WOULD WANT THAT DOES NOTHING or THE GREATEST THING WE'VE EVER SEEN THAT WILL CHANGE EVERYTHING FOREVER!

Everyone's expecting a big iPhone/iPad shake up every year, and what we've got has been pretty incremental since. Yeah, there's been some great ideas and nice improvements, but nothing quite as earth shattering as their unveiling. The problem is, some people compensate for the lack of earth shattering events by making every little evolution into a massive revolution.

64-BITS? THAT'S LIKE 2x THE BITS, YO!

 

[Max(IT)]

Yes, bashing Apple. Because saying they're not the greatest and smartest is now bashing them. I have nothing against the A7, I just don't see it as INNOVATIVE. There's a huge difference between pointing out that a compliment isn't warranted and hating something.

Or not, if your focus is APPLE IS THE GREATEST.

Edit: Also, called it. But this year, when Apple has the newest and fastest chip? Benchmarks will matter again.

I say again: go to learn how ARM licensing works and then you can try again ...

Benchmarks matter for me you because they demonstrate how efficient Apple's design is: they don't need to go quad (ore even eight !) core and above 2 Ghz to get performances.
I don't care if the A7 is amongst the best chips out there. I care that it only needs two cores and 1.3 Ghz to do that.
This is brilliant.

----------

For some people, there is no "wow, that's pretty nice", no middle ground. It's either ABSOLUTE CRAP NO ONE WOULD WANT THAT DOES NOTHING or THE GREATEST THING WE'VE EVER SEEN THAT WILL CHANGE EVERYTHING FOREVER!

Everyone's expecting a big iPhone/iPad shake up every year, and what we've got has been pretty incremental since. Yeah, there's been some great ideas and nice improvements, but nothing quite as earth shattering as their unveiling. The problem is, some people compensate for the lack of earth shattering events by making every little evolution into a massive revolution.

64-BITS? THAT'S LIKE 2x THE BITS, YO!

Your attitude in every post is well known: if it is google / Samsung / Microsoft / whatever than it's real innovation, otherwise if it is Apple .... meh.

Not recognizing the brilliant and efficient design in Apple A7 is just a plain demonstration of a biased comment.

 

[Michael Goff]

I say again: go to learn how ARM licensing works and then you can try again ...

Benchmarks matter for me you because they demonstrate how efficient Apple's design is: they don't need to go quad (ore even eight !) core and above 2 Ghz to get performances.
I don't care if the A7 is amongst the best chips out there. I care that it only needs two cores and 1.3 Ghz to do that.
This is brilliant.

----------



Your attitude in every post is well known: if it is google / Samsung / Microsoft / whatever than it's real innovation, otherwise if it is Apple .... meh.

Not recognizing the brilliant and efficient design in Apple A7 is just a plain demonstration of a biased comment.

So, once again, benchmarks only matter when Apple does well in them. Otherwise, there are excuses for why they don't matter.

 

[Renzatic]

I say again: go to learn how ARM licensing works and then you can try again ...

Benchmarks matter for me you because they demonstrate how efficient Apple's design is: they don't need to go quad (ore even eight !) core and above 2 Ghz to get performances.
I don't care if the A7 is amongst the best chips out there. I care that it only needs two cores and 1.3 Ghz to do that.
This is brilliant.

What you're doing is arguing the benefits of one nearly useless option over another. Multiple identical cores on a mobile processor won't automatically give you any performance gains. Not unless you're using multithreaded applications, of which you'll be hard pressed to find any that utilize more than two on any mobile platform. Apple took the right route by only going dual core for their ARM processors.

...but that doesn't make 64-bit any more useful in comparison. For nearly the exact same reasons, it's nearly useless on mobile, since there aren't any applications that desperately need a 64-bit processor to do their thing. The advantages of the A7 come from its reconfigured instruction set, which is tied to 64-bit processors because...hell...why not.

And what's funny is that the moment 64-bit becomes useful on mobile platforms will be around the same time that multicore processors become equally useful.

So really, arguing that one's better than the other is kinda dumb. In the immediate present, they're both equally useless on your smartphone or tablet.

----------

Your attitude in every post is well known: if it is google / Samsung / Microsoft / whatever than it's real innovation, otherwise if it is Apple .... meh.

Not recognizing the brilliant and efficient design in Apple A7 is just a plain demonstration of a biased comment.

Yeah, I hate Apple so much I only buy iDevices as an ironic hipster statement.

Think of it less as me lambasting everything Apple does, and more about me wanting to reign in the hyperbole. Everyone does interesting stuff at some point, but I'm not gonna say something is absolutely brain melting unless it's truly brain melting.

 

[Max(IT)]

What you're doing is arguing the benefits of one nearly useless option over another. Multiple identical cores on a mobile processor won't automatically give you any performance gains. Not unless you're using multithreaded applications, of which you'll be hard pressed to find any that utilize more than two on any mobile platform. Apple took the right route by only going dual core for their ARM processors.

...but that doesn't make 64-bit any more useful in comparison. For nearly the exact same reasons, it's nearly useless on mobile, since there aren't any applications that desperately need a 64-bit processor to do their thing. The advantages of the A7 come from its reconfigured instruction set, which is tied to 64-bit processors because...hell...why not.

And what's funny is that the moment 64-bit becomes useful on mobile platforms will be around the same time that multicore processors become equally useful.

So really, arguing that one's better than the other is kinda dumb. In the immediate present, they're both equally useless on your smartphone or tablet.

----------



Yeah, I hate Apple so much I only buy iDevices as an ironic hipster statement.

Think of it less as me lambasting everything Apple does, and more about me wanting to reign in the hyperbole. Everyone does interesting stuff at some point, but I'm not gonna say something is absolutely brain melting unless it's truly brain melting.

Well I know you are competent enough to understand what I said, but you won't admit it.
Apple is using a multi core solution just like any other flagship.
But they use a DUAL CORE solution.
You know absolutely well that an 8 core on a smartphone is just ridiculous.
Multi threading is the way to go, for sure, but within limits. You are not going to use Final Cut Pro X on a smartphone, nor Photoshops or Premiere.
Android manufacturer are just pumping up specs as a marketing game to differentiate from others competitors. In almost every test a low clocked dual core like the A7 performs equal, or even better, than quad/eight core high clocked solution from competitors.
Benchmark doesn't count so much, but this is a demonstration.

On the contrary 64-bits are not important for the "bit counting" itself, but because it opens the way to a more efficient instruction set, ARMv8, and future development.

It's still partially marketing, sure, but it is a real step forward.
I'm much more happy with a 64 bit a7 on my iPhone 5S than an hypothetical eight core ARMv7 iPhone 5S.