Qualcomm Marketing Executive Calls Apple's 64-Bit A7 Chip a 'Marketing Gimmick'

[macduke]

Leaving aside the fact that the A7 actually is much faster—you have to look at the bigger picture, as Apple often does.

This guy mentions ram as a reason for 64-bit. While that is true, what would you have Apple do? They're fast approaching 1 million apps on the app store. By providing a 64-bit chip today, developers will have plenty of time to ready their apps for a couple years down the line when mobile devices begin breaking the 4GB threshold. Apple will have a rock-solid foundation of 64-bit apps and years of hardware ready to go and Android will have nothing because manufacturers waited until there was "real benefit" to put such a chip in their machine. This should also enable Apple to drop 32-bit support from iOS before Android, which I presume would provide some benefit? By 2016 or 2017 the iPhone 5 and below probably won't get iOS 10...err I mean iOS X.

The other thing is the iPad. It will probably get more ram before the iPhone line, so it will need 64-bit sooner rather than later. And with rumors about a larger, "iPad Pro" type machine, we could end up with 4GB earlier than we expect!

Lastly is the prospect of A series chips in future Macs. Considering how much code OS X and iOS share, and considering Apple's penchant for low-power consumption and high performance, is it really that crazy? Apple successfully navigated the switch from Power PC to Intel, and while it's kind of a pain, I think it's within the realm of possibility that they could do the same with ARM. Consider this: the iPhone 5S benchmarks around 2550 on Geekbench, and the iPad was usually 10-22% faster over the past two generations than the iPhone. So it's possible the new iPad could bench close to 3000! Now consider the top-end MacBook Pro Retina benches around 13000, and it would only take four A7X chips to get within that range, right? Up their clock speeds and you could surpass that.

I know the numbers probably don't transfer as literally as I've laid it out, but it's probably a fairly close guess? Any CPU engineers care to chime in?

I'd love to get a quad-core A7X iPad Pro with 4GB of ram, 12" screen and some real pro-level graphics editing and web design apps. Perhaps it would bench close to a MacBook Air? Haha, someday I hope that I can remove the desk and iMac from my office and just have a bean-bag chair and a big-ass iPad. Make it happen, Apple!

 

[gnasher729]

Don't get it twisted.
The A7 64 bit architecture is currently faster due to changes in the pipeline and overall architecture. Currently there are no 64 bit apps, so you cannot demonstrate any improvement due to 64 bit.

So yes, it is marketing hype.
You don't need 64 bit integers in a mobile application. When you start moving large data sets around and you need memory pointers larger than 32 bits, it matters.

64 bit in desktop architectures mattered because you needed more than 4 GB of memory. Unless you use a windowing scheme, which is real inefficient (look at 286 and 386 processors) you can't access a bunch of memory.

So currently it's hype. In a year maybe not.

My god, just click on the link in the article and you'll see what advantages 64 bit has an iOS. If you paste the link to the instruction manual into google, you can get a manual as well. Double the number of registers. Encryption and decryption support in hardware. Plus a whole bunch of tricks that Apple uses in MacOS X in the 64 bit version are suddenly available in iOS as well (tagged pointers, _isa tricks, C++ string handling). In addition, removal of ARM features that limit processor clock speed.

 

[xensaenigma]

he is harsh but he is telling the truth


and btw, no one would ever notice the difference between an iPhone 5 and a 5s

except for some games, otherwise, 99.9% of people would not notice during their daily regular use

I don't think this observation applies to this discussion. Most people's day to day needs would be met with the 3GS. This is about technical dominance... deal with it.

 

[ISanych]

Of course 64 bit is completely useless. That's why every new computer comes with a 32bit processor

Main advantage of 64bit processors is ability to address more than 4Gb of RAM (usable amount of RAM usually less for 32 bit OSes (2/3Gb for Windows)). So if you don't have much RAM 64bit programs could be less effective than 32bit (pointers use 2 times more RAM, programs are bigger caching is less effective). Some programs (encryption tools for example) are much faster on 64bit, but most programs are not. You need couple of years to migrate OS & most of software to 64bit, so it is good step from Apple - but users wouldn't see immediate benefits of 64bit in most cases with current memory amounts.

 

[epollyon]

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-Aid—and then had to vomit—enough times to do my homework before taking a sip.

Old-timey-mac-user here, too. You are right that this happens. Like remember the liquid cooled cube? what a gimmick. or how bout that megahertz myth and everyone moving to ARM a decade later. what a bunch of idiots, am i right?

here is the skinny: the major advantage for 64bit is the larger address space. what does that mean if you're not using all 4+GB of your memory, though? it means your variables can be larger. Larger ints, larger floats, hence easier precise math. you can do the same in 32bit, but with more overhead and coding. therefore you DO get a performance benefit in using 64bit. i don't get why you obviously educated IT people aren't admitting this.

are you insinuating that unless i am using over 4+GB of memory space, there is no point to having 64bit chip and instructions?

As for the benefit for calculations on a phone? this is another flawed dismissal of 64bit computing, because, in fact, our phones do intense processing! i, for one, play lots of games and audio on my phone. I love all the synths and and drum machines on my phone. I can easily max out my resources.

this is sour grapes from so-called experts who don't want to admit that beyond increasing the amount of memory accessible, 64bit also increases the size of the data being accessed and calculated

 

[lightmyway]

It's "The Most Forward-Thinking iPhone Yet"– switching to 64-bit now is a preparation for the future, and is not a big immediate benefit for the 5s. Apple has a multi-year game plan to leave everyone in the dust again, and the 5s's innovations– moving to 64-bit and Touch ID – both point to Apple's future plans.

 

[lilo777]

Of course 64 bit is completely useless. That's why every new computer comes with a 32bit processor

Every new computer also comes with 4GB+ RAM. With Apple greed, iDevices will not get that amount of RAM for many years (Android tablets/phones will probably get it next year).

 

[cube]

People who don't program should shut up about this.

 

[newdeal]

Actually, if you're going with the whole "64 bit is only useful to address more than 4gb of RAM" argument, then nope, it won't be useful this time next year unless these new systems have 5gb of RAM, that's what "more than" means.

Actually with 4gb the system can't address all of the ram that it has it can address slightly less than 4gb

 

[lilo777]

My god, just click on the link in the article and you'll see what advantages 64 bit has an iOS. If you paste the link to the instruction manual into google, you can get a manual as well. Double the number of registers. Encryption and decryption support in hardware. Plus a whole bunch of tricks that Apple uses in MacOS X in the 64 bit version are suddenly available in iOS as well (tagged pointers, _isa tricks, C++ string handling). In addition, removal of ARM features that limit processor clock speed.

What you list are improvements in A7 (new features) unrelated to 64-bitness (apart from the increase in the number of registers).

 

[jclardy]

Chandrasekher goes on to say that Qualcomm is developing a 64-bit chip for use in mobile applications, but that the chip will be more beneficial from engineering efficiency and chip design standpoints, rather than as a consumer-driven feature.

What? You mean Qualcomm is doing the exact same thing! Crazy!

Yes, 64-bit for the most part is a marketing gimmick - but only because saying the chip supports the AArch64 instruction set would be too complex for 95% of Apple's customer base. The simple explanation - it is faster.

Had Apple not moved to 64-bit they could have achieved a faster 32-bit chip. But why not move to 64-bit now and get the transition (For most apps, just a recompilation) out of the way along with the iOS 7 updates?

 

[rmbpuser]

Don't be a sore loser Qualcomm, innovate!

O yeah, and no more super weird samsung like presentations at CES

omg i just googled that out of interest
omg this was waayy worse than scamsung
i feel ashamed for them when i watch it

 

[subsonix]

What you list are improvements in A7 (new features) unrelated to 64-bitness (apart from the increase in the number of registers).

It's improvements to the ARM64 spec, which means if you implement that spec, which Apple has, you get those same improvements.

 

[unlinked]

Don't get it twisted.
The A7 64 bit architecture is currently faster due to changes in the pipeline and overall architecture. Currently there are no 64 bit apps, so you cannot demonstrate any improvement due to 64 bit.

I imagine all the apps that ship with the OS run as 64bit.

 

[paul4339]

Leaving aside the fact that the A7 actually is much faster—you have to look at the bigger picture, as Apple often does.
...

and you forgot to mention that people have been begging Apple to open up AppleTV to make it have game console capabilities.

.

 

[gnasher729]

So how do you explain that some operations are faster running in 64-bit mode than the same operations running in 32-bit mode on the same device on the same chip? Some operations are also slightly slower, but overall, 64-bit performance is faster. And since the system is new, I very much doubt it's even highly optimized for 64-bit code yet. Granted, most of the 64-bit benefits will come in the years ahead, but there is a real, measurable performance benefit right now that's only going to get better.

As an example: The C++ library used by Apple has a significant optimisation that allows C++ strings that fit into three words (with 2 bytes of overhead) to be stored into three words, without any memory allocation. On a 32 bit processor, that optimisation is good for strings up to 10 characters (3 x 4 - 2), like "characters". Strings with 11 or more characters take a lot longer because memory needs to be allocated for them. On a 64 bit processor, the exact same optimisation is good for strings up to 22 characters (3 x 4 - 2), like "This is a long string." Lots of C++ code handling strings will run a lot faster in 64 bit mode because of this.

 

[ckeck]

This reminds me of the Cyrix CEO back in the day bashing Intel and saying they better be scared. Hilarious read actually from a few Boot Magazine / Maximum PC issues.

 

[SockRolid]

[blah blah] ... said Chandrasekher, who previously ran Intel's mobile platforms group.

Aha. That explains it all.

 

[igroucho]

Don't get it twisted.
The A7 64 bit architecture is currently faster due to changes in the pipeline and overall architecture. Currently there are no 64 bit apps, so you cannot demonstrate any improvement due to 64 bit.

all apple apps for ios7 are 64 bit

 

[gnasher729]

What you list are improvements in A7 (new features) unrelated to 64-bitness (apart from the increase in the number of registers).

You didn't read my post. "A whole bunch of improvements made to the 64 bit version of MacOS X are now used in iOS as well. "

 

[jclardy]

What you list are improvements in A7 (new features) unrelated to 64-bitness (apart from the increase in the number of registers).

New instructions - there are many, but a simple example: an integer division instruction. Armv7 doesn't have one so instead you have to use multiple instructions and looping to something simple like 25 / 7. It is probably around nanoseconds in difference, but if you have a lot of them it would be noticeable running an armv7 binary versus an armv8 one.

 

[Iconoclysm]

Every new computer also comes with 4GB+ RAM. With Apple greed, iDevices will not get that amount of RAM for many years (Android tablets/phones will probably get it next year).

iPhones are still consistently outperforming Android phones with more RAM, GHz, and cores. I guess that's Android greed? The OS is quite greedy...the developers are definitely so greedy that they don't do enough work to optimize the OS...yet Apple is greedy for not giving you what you probably don't even need.

 

[SockRolid]

The chip itself is not a gimmick, the "64-bit" marketing hype is, and people here are drooling for more...



Name one way the iPhone 5S experience is improved by being 64-bit instead of 32.

2x better CPU and GPU performance.

Oops. That's two things.

 

[Starship77]

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.

If it was the same architecture, only with 64-bit integers, there would be no performance gain and actually some performance loss...

The advantage comes because it's a new architecture, which also happens to be 64-bit. The advantages are not in the 64-bit itself but in the more modern architecture. But it's much easier to just say: "Hey it's 64-bit now!" instead of explaining the differences between architectures. That's what apple did...

 

[lilo777]

It's improvements to the ARM64 spec, which means if you implement that spec, which Apple has, you get those same improvements.

It does not change anything. Even if those are listed in ARM64 spec they have nothing to do with the bit-ness of the architecture. They can be implemented in 32-bit architecture too.