Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Qualcomm Marketing Executive Calls Apple's 64-Bit A7 Chip a 'Marketing Gimmick'
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Where do they show this?
Quote: "The simple fact of moving to 64-bit does little. It makes for slightly faster computations in some cases, somewhat higher memory usage for most programs, and makes certain programming techniques more viable. Overall, it's not hugely significant."
So again, where do the benchmarks show "increased performance" (as in "being relevant to end user experience") "over and over again"?
That is about the move to 64bit - not about other architectural benefits or optimizations.
This guy should be fired if he has any position that required tech knowledge. It's a fact software teams have already started taking advantage of the 64bit architecture in the 5s.
Being somebody who works with digital audio, how the ***** are you going to tell me that 64bit is a marketing gimmick? In the present/near future I guarantee this technology allows me to do more things with audio when I'm away from my main computer, and only have my phone.
These companies need to stop hating
and start trying to innovate/compete and beat them, rather than just a bunch of idle talking.
Qualcomm - If you need somebody to fill his position who knows marketing AND tech, give me a shout. I'm not cheap though....
Being somebody who works with digital audio, how the ***** are you going to tell me that 64bit is a marketing gimmick? In the present/near future I guarantee this technology allows me to do more things with audio when I'm away from my main computer, and only have my phone.
These companies need to stop hating
and start trying to innovate/compete and beat them, rather than just a bunch of idle talking. Qualcomm - If you need somebody to fill his position who knows marketing AND tech, give me a shout. I'm not cheap though....
Sorry fellas, I'm not as drunk on the kool-aid yet. I will say if Apple would give me millions of dollars worth of free marketing with the release of their new phone, I also would tout having taken "full advantage of 64-bit".the lastest infinity blade game takes full advantage of 64-bit.
The reviews on the other hand paint a different story... "from my time playing this game on both the iPhone 5 and the iPhone 5s, the differences are there, but are slightly minimal." Overall, the chip is great, but the 64-bit is marketing hype that has fanboys falling all over each other.
The guy is absolutely, 100% spot-on.
People, I get that many of you have blind love for all things Apple, but that doesn't mean that you can't admit that sometimes, Apple's rhetoric doesn't match up with the evidence. For those of you who aren't relatively new to the Apple bandwagon, who remembers the "Megahertz Myth"?
The best argument is the one made above by one poster about future-proofing things. But real-world performance gains today? Give me a break.
I'd agree with him and you, If it wasn't for the fact that the article basically said:
"64 bit is worthless for mobile devices"
Then....
"We're developing a 64 bit mobile chip too!"
Of course 64 bit is completely useless. That's why every new computer comes with a 32bit processor
Nothings wrong with 32Bit as long as all RAM and addressable HW fits into 4GB.
64Bit math might speed up some things, but thats not the common meaning of "64Bit".
If that A7 is so much faster running 64Bit code than 32Bit code than it doesn't mean that 64Bit makes things faster, it only means that Apple did alot of compromises in the chip when running in 32Bit mode.
Beyond the usual delusion on this site, I think most sane people agreed that this was more getting ready for the 'next generation' of phones (like in 2-4 years) so that applications are already able to handle the transition gracefully from now until then. Not just be a fire drill when iOS (whatever) is released when apps HAVE to be 64 bit to be compatible.
Sorry fellas, I'm not as drunk on the kool-aid yet. I will say if Apple would give me millions of dollars worth of free marketing with the release of their new phone, I also would tout having taken "full advantage of 64-bit".
Well said. I've been an avid Apple user since the late 1980s, with the IIc being the first computer in my home. I've drunk the Kool-Aidand then had to vomitenough times to do my homework before taking a sip.
Hmm.. funny
You don't come out with it first so its a gimmick. Yet you say you are producing a 64-bit mobile chip soon.
In the end, the A7 is still much faster, 64-bit or not.
You don't come out with it first so its a gimmick. Yet you say you are producing a 64-bit mobile chip soon.
In the end, the A7 is still much faster, 64-bit or not.
As so often, completely missed the point. The benefit of the 64-bit CPU is not that it is, you know, 64-bit. The main point lies in the increased register count and extended instruction set. The reason we are seeing better performance with the Apple's A7 in 64-bit mode is mostly because the compiler can pack more data into the registers, thus reducing expensive RAM access. If the chief marketing officer of Qualcomm is not aware of these architectural changes then I must really fear for Qualcomm's future...
P.S. The absolutely same thing is also true for the desktop PC 64-bit transition. With the difference that the memory address pressure did become more pronounced there. Still, there are very few client applications which actually need an address space of more then 4GB (and the fact that the vast majority of windows applications are still 32-bit proves it).
P.P.S. From reading this thread is becomes painfully clear that A7 critics here never programmer in assembler or looked at the ARM instruction set. For example, this quote
P.S. The absolutely same thing is also true for the desktop PC 64-bit transition. With the difference that the memory address pressure did become more pronounced there. Still, there are very few client applications which actually need an address space of more then 4GB (and the fact that the vast majority of windows applications are still 32-bit proves it).
P.P.S. From reading this thread is becomes painfully clear that A7 critics here never programmer in assembler or looked at the ARM instruction set. For example, this quote
The 64-mode offers more registers, wider registers (which is important for SIMD floating-point operations!) and more instructions. How are you going to compensate for these things when running 32-bit code, which has NO way to express them? Of course, they could have designed an additional 32-bit instruction set that contains all these new features. It wouldn't help the existing applications either, as they still must be recompiled to take advantage of it.
Last edited:
Normal competitive practice *Steve Jobs did it himself
What is the correct strategy if you're a company who does not provide a product capability that your competitors do? Publicly claim that capability is not important until you have added that capability (or something better) yourself.
Eg. Steve Jobs said video on an iPod wasn't important (reacting to another device that could do it) — then it was suddenly a great feature once the "video iPod" was released.
What is the correct strategy if you're a company who does not provide a product capability that your competitors do? Publicly claim that capability is not important until you have added that capability (or something better) yourself.
Eg. Steve Jobs said video on an iPod wasn't important (reacting to another device that could do it) — then it was suddenly a great feature once the "video iPod" was released.
Actually it's not; but it is more for future proofing.
When expanding to 64-Bits it means that they can use many of the elements from OSX that are 64 bit optimized. iOS, at the core, is a spinoff of OSX; they used much of the same core files and structures. OSX has moved over to 64 bits and they have optimized it for 64 bit usage. Now they are doing the same thing with iOS. What this means is that some things are are 64bit processed can be done faster. One example would be 3D transforms; they can be done faster using 64 bits over 32 bits. Same thing with memory fills, copies, or moves. Will it give huge real world performance boots? No, but it will be noticeable if the software is using sections that have been optimized. Thus iOS will get the most benefits from the optimizations already done for OSX.
Now, real world performance is significantly faster for the A7 than anything out there. This is likely due to the new design, better pipelining, etc of the A7 then the fact that it is 64 bit. That is very true. But making the move NOW to 64 bit will play a much bigger part in the future.
It is also marketing. Most people don't know anything about processors; if you say that the new A7 has a better branch prediction unit or an advanced prefetch for the cache; they are lost. But tell someone that it has 64 bits over 32 bits and they understand that because they know that 64 is bigger then 32.
Of course, because at some point in the future, it will make sense. Anyone not working on developing 64-bit mobile chips is inherently behind the curve. But that does not logically mean that there is any performance benefit today, nor does it mean that 64-bit is necessary for the usual reasons (e.g., memory addressing) today.
With MIPS, you can compile the programs that don't need more than 4GiB of memory in N32 mode, which is 64-bit without the disadvantages.
You can use in this way the additional CPU features, while the pointers remain small at 32 bits.
One of the advantages of the classic SGI machines.
You can use in this way the additional CPU features, while the pointers remain small at 32 bits.
One of the advantages of the classic SGI machines.
He's not entirely incorrect.
But he sure as hell sounds like a sore loser.
There are absolutely tangible benefits to moving to 64bit. Similar to how we saw benefits when the desktop space moved to 64bits
Except, RIGHT NOW, we're not seeing them. It might take some time and a few years to truly see the benefits of the move.
So "technically" right now, beating your chest that you have a 64bit CPU is mostly marketting.
It's still bloody cool that Apple has a CPU and Platform that has the performance it does
But he sure as hell sounds like a sore loser.
There are absolutely tangible benefits to moving to 64bit. Similar to how we saw benefits when the desktop space moved to 64bits
Except, RIGHT NOW, we're not seeing them. It might take some time and a few years to truly see the benefits of the move.
So "technically" right now, beating your chest that you have a 64bit CPU is mostly marketting.
It's still bloody cool that Apple has a CPU and Platform that has the performance it does
In Apple's specific implementation of ARM64, encoding, decoding, object allocation, and object destruction are about twice as fast. If your app does any of these things, you should recompile for 64-bit ASAP.
You ask for an example. The vast majority of iOS video players are not HW accelerated. Even those that use HW acceleration can only do so for H.264 files. The end result is skipped frames and heavy battery usage. With decoding being twice as efficient, video players should be greatly improved.
I suspect Infinity Blade III saw improvements related to object creation and destruction, and similar complicated games should see similar improvements.
I'm assuming you aren't trolling and you asked the question because you genuinely wanted to know what improvements there are by switching to ARM64. If so, you can read more here.
Of course they do. The 64-bit ISA mandates some execution paths be wider or able to handle larger arguments.
Otherwise, it's like arguing an engine that users higher octane fuel and a higher compression ratio is only better because of one or the other. They come together.
And sorry, but making the suggestion that they make these execution path improvements without going to ARMv8 is a garbage, empty argument.
Where do they show this?
Quote: "The simple fact of moving to 64-bit does little. It makes for slightly faster computations in some cases, somewhat higher memory usage for most programs, and makes certain programming techniques more viable. Overall, it's not hugely significant."
So again, where do the benchmarks show "increased performance" "over and over again"?
People are pointing at 64-bit as an empty marketing gimmick. What were they going to do? Deny it was 64-bit? Say it wasn't future proofed? They made it better, but they also made it 64-bit. But they talked about both. People latched onto 64 bit because they found it easier to dismiss as a marketing gimmick. The plain truth is that it's faster at 32 bit executable and it's also faster because it utilizes the ARMv8 ISA.
These tests over at Anandtech show that 64 bit executables straight up have an advantage.
I sure hope you weren't trying to imply that's me. If you were, I'd suggest you scroll up to my previous comments. Or the things I've said in the last TEN YEARS in my time on this site...
Someones jealous of Apple's A7 because his snapdragon CPU is rubbish.
Marketing Gimmicks you say? Lets Replace '64-Bit' with 'Quad-Core' and 'Apple' with 'Qualcomm' on what this 'Marketing Executive' said, and it'll be truthful.
Heres my fun little edited version, not to be taken seriously (not that that matters)
"I know there's a lot of noise because Qualcomm did [quad core] on their snapdragon," said Phil Schiller in an interview. "I think they are doing a marketing gimmick. There's zero benefit a consumer gets from that."
A benefit of quad core is more powerful multitasking and rendering, but that is not relevant in today's smartphones or tablets, Schiller said. The Galaxy S4 is way behind the performance of a 5S, despite it being quad core and having a much higher clock speed"
"Predominantly... you need it for bandwidth addressability. That's it. You don't really need it for performance, and the kinds of applications that quad core get used in mostly are large, server-class applications," said Schiller.
The "quad core" snapdragon is not just a marketing gimmick, but neither is it an amazing breakthrough that enables a new class of applications. The truth, as happens often, lies in between.
The simple fact of moving to quad core does little. It makes for slightly faster computations in some cases, somewhat higher CPU usage for most programs, and makes certain programming techniques more viable. Overall, it's not hugely significant."
Marketing Gimmicks you say? Lets Replace '64-Bit' with 'Quad-Core' and 'Apple' with 'Qualcomm' on what this 'Marketing Executive' said, and it'll be truthful.
Heres my fun little edited version, not to be taken seriously (not that that matters)
"I know there's a lot of noise because Qualcomm did [quad core] on their snapdragon," said Phil Schiller in an interview. "I think they are doing a marketing gimmick. There's zero benefit a consumer gets from that."
A benefit of quad core is more powerful multitasking and rendering, but that is not relevant in today's smartphones or tablets, Schiller said. The Galaxy S4 is way behind the performance of a 5S, despite it being quad core and having a much higher clock speed"
"Predominantly... you need it for bandwidth addressability. That's it. You don't really need it for performance, and the kinds of applications that quad core get used in mostly are large, server-class applications," said Schiller.
The "quad core" snapdragon is not just a marketing gimmick, but neither is it an amazing breakthrough that enables a new class of applications. The truth, as happens often, lies in between.
The simple fact of moving to quad core does little. It makes for slightly faster computations in some cases, somewhat higher CPU usage for most programs, and makes certain programming techniques more viable. Overall, it's not hugely significant."
He's CEO of a competitor company, what's he supposed to say. Yea, great job Apple I should have thought of doing that first, gotta hand it to you. Of course not, his job is to exploit the slightest hole in their victory to his advantage. Of course it's not true, he knows it, but no CEO in his right mind is going to tell his investors yup this is what we should have been doing all along.