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Qualcomm Marketing Executive Calls Apple's 64-Bit A7 Chip a 'Marketing Gimmick'
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Hmm yeah 64 bit is total hype really. But I have read it brings improvements to the camera but when you look at the Nokia Lumia 808 and 1020 then again it seems hype.
I agree with those stating this is something for the future, but I am not talking about a year or 2 but way beyond that, because it's a phone, I struggle to think what people are going to do on a 4" screen with a 64bit CPU? Gaming doesn't really count as the graphics come from the PowerVR chip. 64bit will make more sense in a tablet in 2 years time say where it has the screen real estate to be useful but Jesus they need more than 1GB of Ram to make it useful.
I would also state this is a bit of sour grapes because Apple beat them to it.
And I really have to laugh at everyone talking about computers here, yeah tablets and computers I get, but again a phone with a 4" screen compared to your desktop? hahahaha yeah right.
I agree with those stating this is something for the future, but I am not talking about a year or 2 but way beyond that, because it's a phone, I struggle to think what people are going to do on a 4" screen with a 64bit CPU? Gaming doesn't really count as the graphics come from the PowerVR chip. 64bit will make more sense in a tablet in 2 years time say where it has the screen real estate to be useful but Jesus they need more than 1GB of Ram to make it useful.
I would also state this is a bit of sour grapes because Apple beat them to it.
And I really have to laugh at everyone talking about computers here, yeah tablets and computers I get, but again a phone with a 4" screen compared to your desktop? hahahaha yeah right.
I don't think it would do anything.
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64-bit only making sense if you have 4GB of RAM or more (or whatever the urban legend is). He seems to imply that 64-bit doesn't do anything if you only have 1GB of RAM.
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Perhaps having a 64bit system means a bit more pointing towards a bigger iPad? I class tablets as computer replacement devices these day's, so it would make sense to make a bigger one.
Look at the 20" 4K tablet Panasonic has launched for the professional market, ditch the laptop and take a tablet. And the Surface Pro.
meh who knows.
Look at the 20" 4K tablet Panasonic has launched for the professional market, ditch the laptop and take a tablet. And the Surface Pro.
meh who knows.
Off base.
The processor gets instructions from cache and will not load two instrcutions into the execution unit.
Cache is filled via the external DDR interface and the size of that DDR bus has nothing to do with cache line size or processor bus width. External DDR bus will not be 64 or or even 32 bits wide.
The ARM64 architecture has the following:
New instruction set, A64
Has 31 general-purpose 64-bit registers.
Has separate dedicated SP and PC.
Instructions are still 32 bits long and mostly the same the 32 bit architecture
THIS IS IMPORTANT -> Has paired loads/stores (in place of LDM/STM).
Most instructions can take 32-bit or 64-bit arguments.
Nothing said about multiple 32 bit arguments.
Multiple arguments would make it a SIMD architecture and for ARM the SIMD stuff is in the DSP extensions. Things like MAC, etc.
Addresses assumed to be 64-bit.
Advanced SIMD (NEON) enhanced
Has 32× 128-bit registers (up from 16), also accessible via VFPv4.
Supports double-precision floating point.
Fully IEEE 754 compliant.
AES encrypt/decrypt and SHA-1/SHA-2 hashing instructions
Also note that the speedup seen in games from A6 to A7 is the newer GPU.
It's Imagination Technologies four core PowerVR G6430.
The older A6 GPU was 266 MHz triple-core PowerVR SGX543MP3
Not sure of the speed but faster and one more core.
So people stop saying the graphics are faster because the A7 is 64 bit.
The graphics are faster because it has a killer GPU.
The Snapdragon uses Adreno GPUs from ATI now AMD, Adreno is an anagram of Radeon.....
Anyway.....
64 bit is not the primary reason it's faster.
The architecture is different with different, more modern GPUs.
That's pretty much what he's saying in your quoted bit. He's not saying its the only advantage of 64-bits, but it's one of the major ones.
It's not that 64-bit is ONLY good for allow the OS and various programs to take advantage of a larger memory pool, but generally 64-bit only start making significant gains over 32-bit in performance when you're crunching large amounts of data. And to crunch large amounts of data, you need more ram.
As is, there are advantages to the iPhone now having a 64-bit CPU, but other than an occasional few odds and ends here and there, but nothing dramatic. It's not something most end users would notice. It sounds more advantageous to programmers and developers, rather than "olol 64-bit look my games run twice as fast".
It's a hell of a lot more than a gimmick [sic], as any of us who have compared the 5S with the 5 when rendering complicated Web pages or images.
It'd be nice to have 2GB of RAM to play with, however, when the real 64-bit application development starts.
It'd be nice to have 2GB of RAM to play with, however, when the real 64-bit application development starts.
Ahh, an article by an Apple Zealot which is completely unreferenced. That article would have taken a LONG time to write and yet he couldn't find the time to include any citations (which would have taken a relatively short amount of time). I wonder why that would be?
I dunno. He sounds about right, and makes a few good conclusions.
If he's an Apple zealot, he's a more tempered one.
I see my data on the bus widths between the CPU and it's L1/L2 caches is a bit out of date (though, I thought L1 cache was 128 bit in width, at least for x86. Not sure about ARM).
I know what 64 bit allows and I know the tricks/hoops that have to be jumped through to get 32 bit to do the same things that can be done in 64 bit natively.
The higher number of registers, the ability to directly use 64 bits in computations, the ability to map in that 64 bit space, etc, are all very real benefits. Not all applications will see a benefit from them, but some applications (and some supporting technologies) that we all use do (eg. encryption).
I'm aware of this but the increased addressable RAM is by far the most consumer noticeable aspect of it and i'm completely skeptical about the real-world benefits of this change to 64bit.
As well as this, each of the 1 million apps in existence will need to be ported to the new architecture to see any benefit at all.
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I just really wished he has cited his article. It wouldn't have taken long and would have made the whole thing more credible..
Doesn't the conclusion strike you as contradictory?
I kinda read this as "It really doesn't have that big an impact but I love it and it's awesome!"
Most definitely. I'm not saying 64-bit is completely useless. In fact, it's good that Apple bit the bullet and went ahead and did. The more powerful the iPad becomes (which is the one iDevice that will eventually see the most benefit from 64-bit), the more necessary it becomes. Apple might as well make the jump now and ease developers into it while it's not desperately needed, so they'll be ready to go when it eventually is.
But the iPhone5S as a 32-bit device would look, feel, and run about the same as it does now. You'd see a couple of things that are a little bit slower. But it won't make for a huge difference. Besides encrypting and maybe a few iPhoto filters taking a slight bit longer, the user experience would be exactly the same.
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Yeah, it does sorta feel like he's throwing a bit of hype on at the end. But the way I took it, the new instruction set does make some things a little easier and more streamlined for programmers. And since he seems to be a programmer, he's kinda stoked about it.
No, we simply know that 32-bit processors have been using 256-bit data pathways for many years.
You really don't have a clue here....
64-bit arm paves the way to x86 replacment in Mac
I don't think making their i-devices better was the only goal. Once they have a 64-bit chip, they can keep iterating to make it better. Eventually, it will be good enough to put in a Mac. 64-bit is a requirement there.
They will eventually switch their whole product portfolio to chips they manufacture. They will control much more of their supply chain (and you know Tim Cook loves that). No more dealing with Intel.
I don't think making their i-devices better was the only goal. Once they have a 64-bit chip, they can keep iterating to make it better. Eventually, it will be good enough to put in a Mac. 64-bit is a requirement there.
They will eventually switch their whole product portfolio to chips they manufacture. They will control much more of their supply chain (and you know Tim Cook loves that). No more dealing with Intel.
the qualcomm guy is right
Apple is using "snake oil" marketing to imply that the 64-bit-ness of the A7 is useful.
And the fans buy it. Well, at least the clueless fans buy it.
The A7 is a new architecture, new features, better performance.
Where the A7 performs better, it's because of the new architecture. It's not because the new architecture is 64-bit, it's because it's a better architecture.
But Phil the Schill's marketing team decided to play the old "64-bit" card that they've been deluding the faithful for years for cheap wins. (When has there been a bigger lie (in several dimensions) than "first 64-bit desktop"?)
So sad.
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No more VMware Fusion (or that Russian clone).
Apple is using "snake oil" marketing to imply that the 64-bit-ness of the A7 is useful.
And the fans buy it. Well, at least the clueless fans buy it.
The A7 is a new architecture, new features, better performance.
Where the A7 performs better, it's because of the new architecture. It's not because the new architecture is 64-bit, it's because it's a better architecture.
But Phil the Schill's marketing team decided to play the old "64-bit" card that they've been deluding the faithful for years for cheap wins. (When has there been a bigger lie (in several dimensions) than "first 64-bit desktop"?)
So sad.
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No more VMware Fusion (or that Russian clone).
I realized after posting my long diatribe
, that it appeared you and I were on the same page, just focusing on different aspects of a mutual gripe. Thank you for not taking my post as attacking you (I wasn't) , I just was trying to clarify how I saw things. I am 100% with you on your comment regarding the subset of users you mentioned.
I see where he's coming from, it not factually incorrect rather shortsighted as with the original quote from Western Union regarding the telephone mention it has no value to them over morse code.
The fact is a year or two from now 64-bit will be focus for other companies once they realise it is needed development.
Maybe I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure the move to 64-bit was simply so that developers could more easily write code for both OS X and iOS at the same time.
The performance difference should be almost nothing. (Remember, the A7 is faster as well, but not because of 64-bit).
The performance difference should be almost nothing. (Remember, the A7 is faster as well, but not because of 64-bit).
So how does it help developers to have to target 4 platforms instead of 3?
(x86/x64/arm32 vs x86/x64/arm32/arm64)
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