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Qualcomm's M1 Rival to Be Available in PCs by Late 2023

TheYayAreaLiving 🎗 said:
in 2023-2024, Apple will be far ahead. Qualcomm CEO needs to know Apple is already working on M2 and M3 Apple Silicon Chip, 😝
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The M2 CPU should be basically 20% faster because of better cores.
The M2 GPU should be 50% faster because of more cores.

The CPU trend is not so good, and GPU needs more cores because in the end the M1 GPU was not as good as it seemed.

The M3 will have to be much better than this for Apple to continue to succeed with Apple Silicon. And they should release them every 1 to 1.5 years, not every 2 years.
 
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I very much welcome this. Having a MacBook Air-like laptop running Windows would be neat.

However, one big issue I see is that Windows users would expect legacy software support. Windows 10/11 can run (excuse my French) some really old and obscure ****.
Apple kicked 32bit support out a good while ago. For Windows that’s still something people expect to be able to use.

Sure, you could offer Intel machines that do that in one corner of the store, and the new cool ARM machines in the other. But not everyone follows tech trends and you would 100% get people buying an ARM machine and then complaining that they can’t run their old 32bit x86 stuff.
 
EugW said:
In the interest of competition, I hope the Windows speed on these will be better, both through improved chip designs and improved Windows optimization on ARM.
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I don't think this is competition in the normal sense. Aren't these all being made by TSMC?
 
Unless Qualcomm was able to leapfrog Apple Silicon with something orders of magnitude faster with low power consumption, this Windows PC development doesn't have much impact if any for Apple. Intel is the target.
 
Jimmdean said:
Intel rival, not Apple. Other chip designs have existed forever and Apple still maintains its market share. But Intel and AMD should be at least a little worried - Qualcomm is certainly not doing this for an OS other than Windows.

Their statement that they are shooting to compete against Apple is very telling though - they see them as #1. That has to hurt for Intel.
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Good I hope it hurts. Going on 20 years waiting for them to put out a decent tablet CPU they deserve to get blasted out of the space. I'm crossing my fingers for Nuvia.
 
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Unregistered 4U said:
Apple has no competition. 🙂 If someone wants to run macOS and macOS applications, they’re buying a Mac, regardless of what it costs. If the number one priority is having the best price/performance in any tasks/applications that are cross platform, they’re always going to find that in a non-Apple system.

It may help keep prices lower on the PC side as Qualcomm competes on price, but no impact on the Mac side.
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That's not strictly true. Apple doesn't compete among commodity PC makers, but there is still competition at the system level, just like there's competition among smartphone vendors. Sure, you'd need to change operating systems, and maybe application workflows, to change from Apple, but you can. Just like you would need to make the same sacrifices to change to Apple. It sounds like a growing number of people are making that sacrifice since the M1 released.

That said though, I agree Qualcomm isn't really competing head to head with Apple. They're providing components to suppliers, some of which would like to carve some marketshare back from Apple, but Intel has the most to lose here, obviously. Assuming Apple doesn't trip, even if Qualcomm matches them generation to generation, Apple's worst case is that they are competing against other Arm systems just like they used to compete against other x86 systems.

And frankly, this just serves to give credibility to Apple's decision, creates a market, and makes Apple look more like a technology leader.

"Welcome, Qualcomm. Seriously."

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iLondoner said:
Unless Qualcomm was able to leapfrog Apple Silicon with something orders of magnitude faster with low power consumption, this Windows PC development doesn't have much impact if any for Apple. Intel is the target.
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It really doesn't even matter if it leapfrogs Apple Silicon. We always put so much focus on the ceiling of performance that we fail to notice how much the floor has been raised. The cheapest Mac you can buy today is a beast compared to the cheapest PC you can buy. Today, in 2022, you can buy a Core i3 HP all-in-one for under $400 that barely has enough horsepower to keep up with Windows Update and was probably already out of date 5 years before it was designed. A bare bones M1 MacBook Air will probably still be running whatever you throw at in 5+ years from now.

In five years, if the next "killer app" is something that requires decent CPU/GPU power (think AR/VR or something like that) a lot of Mac users will be potential customers even on several years old off-the-shelf computers. ARM-based PC, even if they are faster, will still be a niche market as software and os support will be fragmented and the average PC customers will still be price focused and tempted by low-price. out-of-date specs most likely fulfilled by X86/64 chips. On the other end of the consumer spectrum, high-end gamers that will still build their own rigs with what ever parts allows them to feel like their endless tinkering results in performance bragging rights. Real or imagined.
 
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Spock said:
I like that the x86 market it about to be shaken up a bit more. I think are in for an interesting few years as ARM starts to cover more ground. I think that when another big player like Dell or HP start releasing ARM computers, Intel and AMD need to start getting a little nervous. I think ARM is the future.
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I think you might be right. And if the other big player - Microsoft - get's more involved by turning their Tech preview version of Windows on Arm into a retail product, that will fuel the fire even more. And likely bring Dell or HP to the table quicker, if they're not quietly moving in this direction already.

And it will probably drive more software vendors to make their windows apps support Arm as well as x86/64.

And it will probably mean better virtualisation options through WoA under tools like Parallels and vmWare.
 
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mabhatter said:
If Windows marched their software updates on the same schedule Apple does 50% of Windows software simply wouldn't keep up. Lots of Enterprise apps only have one version that's even compatible with Windows 10 since 2015. 2015 was iOS 9 era. Many manufacturing systems still run Windows 7 or XP even because the new software doesn't support existing machines worth millions.

Microsoft has to keep all that baggage available with some form of compatibility even in Windows 11. Or they would leave tens of thousands of businesses behind. And businesses and business software (Servers, SQL, Visusl Studio, etc) is what pays Microsoft's bills, they make little money off PCs.
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I totally get it.
Microsoft should keep Windows 10 going for compatibility and remove garbage from Windows 11. Ask businesses to keep using and supporting Windows 10/XP. There is no way that old software is secure and/or feasible in the long run. Ive been an IT professional for years and just could not convince corporations to upgrade. The only way is to force them slowly.

When we installed Macs into enterprise, our support calls were reduced by 50-60%. Though I will say, it was a really hard to convince them.
 
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Even if Nuvia matches the efficiency in hardware that Apple has with the M series, Nuvia cannot tune Windows to leverage the hardware improvements.
Apple is unique in this space in that Apple makes the hardware and software and can design each to perfectly match up and take advantage of each other's features.
 
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bsbeamer said:
Finally saying goodbye to Snapdragon would mark the end of an era. Not convinced it will happen.
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Why do you think it won't be Snapdragon-branded? It'd be ridiculous for Qualcomm to throw that brand recognition out the window in favor of a new, unknown name.
 
grjj said:
Even if Nuvia matches the efficiency in hardware that Apple has with the M series, Nuvia cannot tune Windows to leverage the hardware improvements.
Apple is unique in this space in that Apple makes the hardware and software and can design each to perfectly match up and take advantage of each other's features.
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You think Qualcomm isn't working closely with Microsoft on this?

Also, remember: Qualcomm's products are mobile-first. These will probably go into laptops and 2-in-1 devices, exclusively. Don't think these will go into desktops with their 100W+ power supplies and large thermal envelopes, like the M1 Ultra.

So, M1 and Nuvia would be a direct comparison. Let's see how they do.
 
rpe33 said:
wow, it's crazy how far ahead of the game Apple Silicon is.
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This is where Apple really shines. Same thing applies the A-Series processors in the iPhone/iPad. They’ve typically been significantly faster than competition, and it still generally out performs some of the newest competitor chips when comparing older A-Series.
 
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