Qualcomm Looking to Combat Apple Silicon With New Generation of PC Chips

[Cosmosent]

From listening to the CEO on CNBC earlier today, that's NOT my take !

They want to go after the connected 5G market !

That's a different market, the Embedded Chip market !

 

[The_Martini_Cat]

In a way this is not really news yet. But in a couple of years it might be.

 

[HughRR]

It’ll run windows. I’d rather shave my balls with a blunt axe than use windows on ARM.

 

[Kierkegaarden]

the most profitable gaming segment is the mobile one...so x86 is second to arm infrastructure since 2018

Interesting — didn’t know that. Epic should look at getting in on this ?

 

[Analog Kid]

Apple has never been known for high salaries, and Apple is notorious for being a rough work environment for engineers.

And if you tell a CPU designer "We'll double your pay and improve your work/life balance" you're going to get some takers.

High salaries is relative. Apple chip designers do well enough, even by Silicon Valley standards.

If you tell a CPU designer, "How would like to be on the team that sends Intel shopping for cemetery plots?" you're going to get some takers. And there's very few companies that can credibly offer that kind of opportunity.

 

[staypuftforums]

Good for them. Give Apple a run for the money.

Before we just had Intel pretty much, and look what happened to them LOL

Intel just took back leadership position on the desktop with their 12th gen chips.

 

[DeepIn2U]

First off ... Dr. James Thompson lol. Dr of what exactly, the article doesn't mention this.

Qualcomm today announced plans for next-generation Arm-based System on Chips (SoC) designed to rival Apple's M-series chips in the PC space (via The Verge).

At Qualcomm's 2021 investor day event, chief technology officer Dr. James Thompson announced the plans for the new generation of chips. The chips are "designed to set the performance benchmark for Windows PCs" and are being developed by the Nuvia team. Qualcomm acquired Nuvia, a chip startup company founded by former Apple chip designers, for $1.4 billion earlier this year.

Qualcomm said that it will directly compete with Apple's M-series chips, including the M1, M1 Pro, and M1 Max, and hopes to lead the industry for "sustained performance and battery life." Moreover, the company promised that it would be scaling up its Adreno GPUs to offer desktop-class gaming capabilities in future PCs. Qualcomm hopes to be able to send samples to clients in around nine months, ahead of the first products containing the chips launching in 2023.

Article Link: Qualcomm Looking to Combat Apple Silicon With New Generation of PC Chips

Designed to set the performance benchmark for Windows PCs. Yes if it's running a good ARM chip-set it should be the performance benchmark for Windows PC's if not then whats the point of the acquisition and work being done in the first place?! Seems redundant to even mention this which makes me think that redundant thinking will filter on down into the chip design and performance hanging onto legacy code the main reach CISC chips like x86/x86-64 have been lagging and using so much power in the first place.

So in 9mths this is supposed to compete with the M1 - almost a year old now, then the M1 Pro and M1 Max which will have an update 3mths PRIOR to when chip samples go out. Then still compete with these existing in production and in shipping product M-series Apple Silicon chips when Apple has further improved upon those into a second generation?! That's their plan!?? really now?

Best part ...

Qualcomm said that it will directly compete with Apple's M-series chips, including the M1, M1 Pro, and M1 Max, and hopes to lead the industry for "sustained performance and battery life."

Anyone recall GM's CEO response when asked just 30 days ago if it can catch up to Tesla and the CEO said 'absolutely' while nodding her head to say NO. lol. GM = General Morons.

So another surface pro x SQ® 3 ? ))))
you cant compete on PC QUalcomm...its futile since you dont have your own software on that segment

lol ... that SQ1/2/3 is crippled by Microsoft, really should've took advice and then make the chip available as a mass production part and motherboard - but remember Qualcomm doesn't make their own mother boards and until then they'll just be a specialty parts supplier and patent rider. I feel Microsoft hobbled them in the Surface Arm units as Microsoft and intel are huge bed-follows.

I wouldn't be surprised if Microsoft told Qualcomm not to mass produce to protect Intel.

 

[freedomlinux]

Why? When we invented a new architecture in the past we had no assurances that MS would support it. We included them in the process in the hopes that they would, but MS won’t make any promises.

Remember Windows NT for MIPS/Alpha and Windows NT for Itanium?

They definitely ... existed. Lack of software support was a serious problem then.

 

[Spock]

Intel just took back leadership position on the desktop with their 12th gen chips.

And we have yet to see what Apple has been working on for the Apple Silicon Mac Pro..

 

[Marx55]

Competition is good for all.

 

[Rigby]

While I don't see this as a near-term threat to Apple, I'm more interested in whether it could be a threat to x86 and Intel in a couple years, and take some Windows share from Intel in lower powered devices?

They would have to have massive performance improvements over the Intel/AMD chips that will be available by 2023 for anyone to care. In the Windows market nobody will give up x86 compatibility for a small improvement. It's not like the Mac market where Apple can essentially force a switch unilaterally.

 

[ahurst]

They would have to have massive performance improvements over the Intel/AMD chips that will be available by 2023 for anyone to care. In the Windows market nobody will give up x86 compatibility for a small improvement. It's not like the Mac market where Apple can essentially force a switch unilaterally.

If Microsoft can shape up their x86-on-ARM layer to be close to the compatibility and at least ~75% the speed of Rosetta 2, non-x86 architecture should stop being a deal-breaker for the mass market.

If Qualcomm (and others) can get their act together, the value proposition in a year or two will be "very fast, hot laptop with 6-hour battery life and 100% software compatibility" versus "fast enough, cool-running laptop with 20-hour battery life and 99% software compatibility". For companies who only need a few apps to work well and the majority of end-users who mostly use Office and a web browser, that latter proposition will be very appealing. It really comes down to what Dell/HP/Lenovo/etc. decide to do with laptop-ready ARM CPUs.

 

[XXPP]

if only apple paid their designers better to retain them.

Qualcomm paid $1.4 bln

 

[itti]

Always welcome more competitions

 

[sunny5]

Lol, Qualcomms lack software, OS, and support.

 

[840quadra]

That is a really solid team with some deep roots into how ARM advanced from 32 bit to 64. Under mostly Apple's team of engineers and architects, the ARM reference advanced quite quickly with their influence.

I am less skeptical of this report than many on here.

 

[Marshall73]

Microsoft should embrace ARM, make windows 12 ARM only, drop all the legacy crap from windows, would be the best move.

or, move the next Xbox to ARM, higher performance per watt, no need to worry about legacy apps as their team is pretty talented when it comes to backwards compatibility. Then use this knowledge to push windows ARM only.

 

[sideshowuniqueuser]

Everyone is so negative. Come on kids, competition in this space is only a good thing for Apple fans. If there is real competition, then Apple have to watch their prices, and have more motivation to keep on top of making improvements. Everyone is laughing about how far ahead Apple is, but Apple have made the big innovative jump to the M-series, there is not much left to do now except incremental improvements, whereas Qualcomm now own Nuvia, and thus have access to the chip designers that know how AS is built and designed, so they can easily catch up.

And who knows, if the software quality control at Apple keeps on declining, and if Windows ARM gets its act together, and MS can turn Windows into something quite nice to use, and some PC manufacturer can actually get a good design group together and make laptops and desktops that are actually built beautifully and are a joy to use, then maybe one day, us Apple fans will be very very glad to have something to escape to. Sure, that is a lot of if's, but stranger things have happened in history. I for one am quite nervous about where Apple is heading with macOS, and quite frankly, iOS is miles away from perfection, and iPadOS with M1 is a pure joke. Thankfully, the hardware design team has finally got its act together after a 4-5 year hiatus. But the software team, omg, what is happening there?!

 

[mjtomlin71]

if only apple paid their designers better to retain them.

Except that's not why they left. They left to design "server grade" CPU's an area Apple has no interest in.

 

[ian87w]

Well, they better do something. Their current progression is going the wrong way.

 

[mjtomlin71]

Everyone is so negative. Come on kids, competition in this space is only a good thing for Apple fans. If there is real competition, then Apple have to watch their prices, and have more motivation to keep on top of making improvements. Everyone is laughing about how far ahead Apple is, but Apple have made the big innovative jump to the M-series, there is not much left to do now except incremental improvements, whereas Qualcomm now own Nuvia, and thus have access to the chip designers that know how AS is built and designed, so they can easily catch up.

And who knows, if the software quality control at Apple keeps on declining, and if Windows ARM gets its act together, and MS can turn Windows into something quite nice to use, and some PC manufacturer can actually get a good design group together and make laptops and desktops that are actually built beautifully and are a joy to use, then maybe one day, us Apple fans will be very very glad to have something to escape to. Sure, that is a lot of if's, but stranger things have happened in history. I for one am quite nervous about where Apple is heading with macOS, and quite frankly, iOS is miles away from perfection, and iPadOS with M1 is a pure joke. Thankfully, the hardware design team has finally got its act together after a 4-5 year hiatus. But the software team, omg, what is happening there?!

There is nothing magical in Apple's designs. In fab, real estate is expensive, and Apple's SoCs have a no-holds-barred design approach. This is a major advantage in selling "premium" products in any market, they can afford it. You're not going to match Apple's performance without also following their design approach; extremely large caches, more decoders, more controllers, specialized/optimized processing units, etc. Apple doesn't need to worry about the cost of the SoC as that's baked into the cost of the final product and Apple knows ahead of time what kind of volume they can expect too push.

Qualcomm needs to worry about costs and whether there's going to be a mass market for an expensive high performance design.

 

[sideshowuniqueuser]

There is nothing magical in Apple's designs. In fab, real estate is expensive, and Apple's SoCs have a no-holds-barred design approach. This is a major advantage in selling "premium" products in any market, they can afford it. You're not going to match Apple's performance without also following their design approach; extremely large caches, more decoders, more controllers, specialized/optimized processing units, etc. Apple doesn't need to worry about the cost of the SoC as that's baked into the cost of the final product and Apple knows ahead of time what kind of volume they can expect too push.

Qualcomm needs to worry about costs and whether there's going to be a mass market for an expensive high performance design.

You don't think there is a premium market outside of Apple?! Haven't you seen the prices of high end GPU cards? You know, those components that are hard to even get hold of because of massive demand in graphics/gaming/crypto-mining. You don't think an SOC that is as powerful as the M1/Pro/Max/MaxDuo/MaxQuadro will have demand, regardless of the price to match?

 

[Analog Kid]

Intel just took back leadership position on the desktop with their 12th gen chips.

Yeah, and Scotty's back in the engine room screaming "I'm givin' her all she's got, any more power is likely to rip her apart!"

 

[rukia]

Apple has a history of successfully moving the entire Mac market to different cpu architectures on multiple occasions. Despite numerous attempts at cracking the x86 market, with alternative architectures, it's never happened so saying that it's possible just because Apple had success is a false comparison. Even Intel couldn't do it with "Itanic" despite being the 800 lbs gorilla at the time. I'm sure Nuvia has improved QCOM's design so snapdragon mobile users will benefit. Their push into autos will also be bolstered. For x86 I can see MS being a partner with the Surface line and for products like tablets. Mainstream migration of x86 will be extremely difficult because it's not just about a superior CPU. Even something with 10x better metrics is not enough if numerous other factors don't pencil out. Heck, even AMD has struggled with laptop market share despite having a far superior product, with Intel stuck in neutral, and the Zen CPU was already x86. That should give you some insight on how much resistance there is to change in the PC HW and SW market.

 

[Black Magic]

Intel just took back leadership position on the desktop with their 12th gen chips.

Clearly you are not reading the room. If everyone is now making ARM chips, the future of Intel and x86 is looking really dire. I give Intel 10 years tops before they go under. Now you know why they are putting out those Apple bashing commercials. They are worried.