[HN Gopher] x86 is dead, long live x86
___________________________________________________________________
x86 is dead, long live x86
Author : harpratap
Score : 95 points
Date : 2023-07-31 14:05 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (engineering.mercari.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (engineering.mercari.com)
| satanicpanic wrote:
| [flagged]
| retskrad wrote:
| x86 lives on desktop now. Windows, Intel, AMD and Nvidia have
| more or less thrown in the white flag and given the laptop market
| to Apple.
| cardanome wrote:
| Apple products are only dominant the US. For the rest of the
| world they are more of an luxury item.
|
| That said, I am not terribly interested in ARM-based laptops
| for now. Yes, they may be more energy efficient and all but
| that hardly matters to me compared to just having the same x86
| architecture I run on my desktop and servers. That sweet
| binary-compatibility means less headache.
|
| People underestimate the advantages that CPU architecture
| monoculture gave us, though they are getting admittingly less
| important year by year. Maybe one day I am going to run an ARM
| laptop or even RISC-V.
| mpweiher wrote:
| > ... just having the same x86 architecture I run on my
| desktop and servers.
|
| Yep! For me, it's the same ARM64 architecture I run on my
| desktop and servers[1]. :-)
|
| Hetzner's offering is very competitive, cheaper than their
| already rock-bottom x86 offerings. Then there's AWS Graviton,
| Oracle with their free tier (not sure how expensive that gets
| if you actually have to load it) and both Azure and Google
| also have ARM offerings.
|
| [1] https://blog.metaobject.com/2023/05/setting-up-hetzner-
| arm-i...
| agloe_dreams wrote:
| A key element to Apple and ARM and why you are right outside
| the us is this:
|
| 1. Apple's chips are so far beyond everything else that it
| makes obvious sense for Apple only. Snapdragon is at least
| 30% slower single core while having worse Performance per
| watt.
|
| 2. Apple wasn't playing fair with their translation layer.
| The Rosetta layer cheats a little because apple also made the
| chip. The secret sauce is that the M1 has a hardware
| compatibility mode (That technically breaks ARM spec) for x86
| memory order that basically gives near 1:1 performance.
|
| 3. Microsoft heavily botched their ARM rollout (again. Hello,
| Windows RT). The translation layer on W10/11 is just bad, not
| because of bad coding but just the technical limits of what
| they were trying to do.
|
| 4. Google is in a great place with ARM compatibility in
| Chrome OS as the only consumer-facing apps are either built-
| in or on the play store...which was designed for ARM in the
| first place. Problem is that nobody will give them a good
| chip for ChromeOS and the focus is on low end, so Mediatek is
| just cruising.
|
| ARM is a great arch...but right now it is Apple VS x86, not
| ARM.
| yyyk wrote:
| >3. Microsoft heavily botched their ARM rollout (again.
| Hello, Windows RT). The translation layer on W10/11 is just
| bad, not because of bad coding but just the technical
| limits of what they were trying to do.
|
| It's not bad at all, however Intel patents heavily
| restricted the initial implementation, to the point they
| couldn't ship the 64bit emulation. Apple decided to wait
| out the patents.
| ngcc_hk wrote:
| Unfair ... strange use of phrase. Innovative would be a
| better use of word as nothing prepare others to do the same
| ... it is good to have a vendor play differently not follow
| the slow and dominated by arm player c.
|
| The conclusion is on the ball but only current. M1 has been
| a bit old now and if other arm vendor and the two major
| architecture (ibm power for mainframe ... cannot be
| counted) it is at least x86-32 plus x86-64 vs arm vs apple.
| agloe_dreams wrote:
| The wording of unfair is more of a fun use of the word.
| Because Apple vertically integrated the whole product and
| software supply chain, they are singularly able to do
| things others cannot. In that context, if one is playing
| "fair" on the terms of everyone else when they could do
| more...they are losing.
| astrange wrote:
| > That technically breaks ARM spec
|
| It does not (or it wouldn't be there) and they aren't the
| only ARM vendor with TSO (Fujitsu also does it.)
| monocasa wrote:
| Optionally enabling it does break the ARM spec.
|
| Their cores break the ARM spec in other ways too. Added
| instructions for AMX, new guard privilege modes,
| HCR_EL2.E2H can't be disabled, GPRs are clobbered on WFI,
| etc.
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| Unless Apple can deliver a sub-800 dollar product, they'll
| never own the laptop market.
| r00fus wrote:
| Correct. And the fact is, Apple would rather not (as it comes
| with government antitrust scrutiny) Instead they'll focus on
| profit share.
| oaiey wrote:
| Sounds like a bubble thing. Sure x86 may go (as will arm one
| day), but there is a very solid, healthy and huge Laptop market
| outside than Apple.
| aidenn0 wrote:
| Just had a family reunion. The only Apple laptop was my wife's,
| out of about a dozen.
|
| Furthermore their market share has never been over 20% of units
| shipped[1]
|
| 1: https://www.statista.com/statistics/576473/united-states-
| qua...
| jimmaswell wrote:
| Based on what? I would never buy an Apple laptop and no one I
| know has one either. The Windows "gaming laptop" I got a few
| years ago for game dev is perfectly adequate and has features
| missing from Macbooks:
|
| - ethernet port
|
| - hdmi port
|
| - multiple usb A and C ports
|
| - solid keyboard
|
| Same for my work laptop, again Windows/x86 and no one I know
| with a work laptop is supplied a Mac either.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| > Based on what? I would never buy an Apple laptop and no one
| I know has one either
|
| Yes because no one that you know buys an Apple laptop that
| must mean that Apple isn't selling any...
|
| > Same for my work laptop, again Windows/x86 and no one I
| know with a work laptop is supplied a Mac either.
|
| I find the lack of self awareness...amusing.
|
| Because no one you know uses a Mac laptop, that must mean no
| one uses one.
|
| Well my anecdote from working at the second largest employer
| in the US that the vast majority of technical people prefer
| Macs even though they can choose Macs or Windows.
| debugnik wrote:
| They're not arguing that Apple doesn't sell laptops,
| they're refuting that "Windows, Intel, AMD and Nvidia have
| [...] given the laptop market to Apple". Unless one thinks
| the laptop market only exists in the US, this idea simply
| can't match reality, not yet anyway.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| If they are arguing that, don't you think their anecdotal
| "proof" is silly?
|
| > I would never buy an Apple laptop and _no one I know
| has one either_.
|
| >no one I know with a work laptop is supplied a Mac
| either.
|
| I don't know anyone that uses WeChat. Wouldn't that be a
| silly argument?
| debugnik wrote:
| Not if the anecdote contradicts an equally
| unsubstantiated generalisation, honestly. If you're going
| to complain about the quality of the discussion, do it
| with both sides, not just the argument you side against.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| Well, it's really not that hard to search on Google for
| "percent of laptops running ARM" and find something
| slightly less silly than "no one I know owns a MacBook
| nor does anyone I work with"
|
| And the first link is
|
| https://www.patentlyapple.com/2023/02/apple-currently-
| owns-9...
|
| It would be much more substantial than anecdotal what his
| friends and coworkers do.
|
| It's about as bad as the old Slashdot "do people still
| watch TV? I haven't own a TV in 10 years"
| debugnik wrote:
| But why do you expect people to put any effort to answer
| someone that didn't put any either? Subpar comments are
| begging for subpar replies.
|
| If you want to read a non-silly thread, I suggest looking
| for a non-silly opener, this website has more than
| average of those.
| arp242 wrote:
| "Apple isn't selling any laptops" wasn't what was said. The
| original claim was x86 has "thrown in the white flag" and
| that Apple dominates the laptop market, which is a pretty
| ridiculous claim since x86 is still the vast majority of
| laptop sales and Windows is still the dominant laptop OS.
| havblue wrote:
| I don't personally see MacBooks as a viable platform
| either right now, but I would say that this looks like a
| steady decline for windows x86 laptops until Chrome
| laptops take over or an arm-based windows replacement
| takes hold. "Hey this isn't a surrender, it's a war of
| attrition for the next five years!!!"
| arp242 wrote:
| Given that 15-20 years ago almost all laptops were
| x86/Windows, "decline" is pretty much the only direction
| the platform could go in.
|
| I don't expect either x86 or Windows to go away any time
| soon - in general I think x86 has been somewhat unfairly
| maligned, and for most applications (including laptops)
| it works pretty well and is even the best available
| choice. I would prefer to say "diversification" or "the
| existence of actual competition" rather than "decline",
| as that doesn't imply it's going away.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| > I don't personally see MacBooks as a viable platform
| either right now
|
| But yet Apple is selling millions. Someone must see it as
| a viable experience.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| > Apple isn't selling any laptops" wasn't what was said
|
| The parent poster said
|
| > would never buy an Apple laptop and no one I know has
| one either
|
| What relevance then was there in the statement that the
| original poster made?
|
| > Apple dominates the laptop market, which is a pretty
| ridiculous claim since x86 is still the vast majority of
| laptop sales and Windows is still the dominant laptop OS.
|
| Nor did I argue otherwise. I merely called out the
| silliness of the statement that because the parent poster
| "doesn't know anyone who owns one" or that because every
| developer he knows uses a Windows laptop, that his
| anecdotal experience has any relevance.
| katbyte wrote:
| MacBooks now post 2019 have a great keyboard, hdmi and
| multiple usb c ports, as well sd card and headphone jack.
|
| The only thing it is actually missing from your list is
| Ethernet and usb a
| gumby wrote:
| That's what's so great about capitalism: I'm not interested
| in any of those features on a laptop, so Apple is great for
| me.* You do, and several other companies compete for your
| business.
|
| On a desktop (which these days isn't a tower) I do want some
| of those features, and I get them.
|
| * except kbd, and I find the apple kbds just fine -- I even
| survived a couple of rounds of the infamous "butterfly" kbds.
| But I know some people were unhappy and eventually Apple got
| their act together.
| glimshe wrote:
| I would never buy an Apple laptop. I have one for work and I
| hate it. Linux and Windows are by far more productive for me,
| so all I need to do is keep getting better PC laptops. While
| Mac hardware does have a slight edge on cost/benefit at that
| price point, macOS is just too cumbersome for my needs.
|
| EDIT: It's funny to see this downvoted. I'm literally
| speaking of my particular use case and needs! Are there
| people who believe Apples are better in _all_ scenarios?
| adamc wrote:
| The whole "click once on the app for it to wake up, click
| again for it to know which window you wanted" makes using
| Mac OS highly unpleasant on a daily basis. Yes, I'm on Mac
| OS, and no, I don't like it.
| cthalupa wrote:
| As a daily Mac user for about 13 years now I have no idea
| what phenomenon you're talking about.
|
| For any program that is open, even if it hasn't been in
| use for a while, I click it once, and it comes to the
| forefront immediately.
|
| For programs that are not open, I click it once, and then
| if I wait for it to launch, it appears in the forefront.
| If I immediately click back over to my web browser and
| begin using it before the program launches, it does not
| appear in the forefront... because I interacted with
| another program after starting the launch.
| Clamchop wrote:
| They might be referring to how clicks don't register with
| an app until it has focus (the first click being to focus
| it).
|
| On Windows you can, say, click once to pause on a video
| playing in a browser window that doesn't have focus but
| is visible. On macOS, it's two clicks, because you have
| to focus the app first.
|
| I don't care for the behavior but it's so minor to me
| that it carries essentially no weight.
| cthalupa wrote:
| Ah! This does make sense. I mostly run things fullscreen
| on my laptop and use Mission Control to swap windows so I
| really only encounter this when my laptop is docked to a
| larger display.
|
| It doesn't particularly bother me one way or the other to
| the point I didn't even think of this, despite also being
| a daily Windows users on my desktop computer.
| TillE wrote:
| Use Mission Control for everything, it's great.
| zdragnar wrote:
| Except for how there's no stable sort order for windows,
| even if you turn off the setting that's supposed to not
| rearrange it all the time. Mission control was probably
| one of the things I liked least about the Mac when I used
| one for work... To the point that I ended up using
| hammerspoon to create shortcuts to switch between my
| applications directly rather than deal with it.
| holbrad wrote:
| Just chiming in to agree, I don't think we have a single mac
| in our entire company (100's of people). It's all just
| windows/x86 like every other business I've worked at.
| cthalupa wrote:
| MBP once again have HDMI ports and good keyboards. I wouldn't
| mind a single USB-A port but I don't particularly miss it,
| and 3 USB-Cs is plenty for my uses.
|
| I haven't needed an ethernet port on a laptop since the mid
| 2000s troubleshooting why my newly installed stack of Cisco
| switches weren't working, and that sort of use cases is rare
| enough that having a dongle seems fine.
|
| Conversely, about 80% of the people I know use Apple laptops
| for work.
| ezfe wrote:
| MacBook Pros have HDMI ports and many USB-C ports. I also
| don't know any issue with MacBook keyboards except the
| 2016-2019 model years.
|
| I work for a large financial services company and receive a
| MacBook Pro for my work.
|
| My work laptop battery can handle all-day IntelliJ & web
| browsing without charging, I've never heard the fan and the
| laptop stays cool. It has a Geekbench multicore score of
| 13,649.
|
| My personal laptop also lasts that long and stays cool, and
| doesn't even have a fan.
| edgyquant wrote:
| We live in different worlds. All engineers I know have Macs
| and the ones that don't have Linux. The one guy on my team
| who uses windows is a constant problem as he has to find work
| arounds for every process we have/service we build.
| oblak wrote:
| 1. Build a pipeline with macOS in mind (because "All
| engineers I know have Macs")
|
| 2. Complain when the macOS-oriented process doesn't work
| for everyone.
| ezfe wrote:
| I work on a split team, Windows and macOS. We do
| straightforward Java work and most of the problems that
| we have are related to installing command-line software
| on Windows.
|
| Installing Postgres, Redis, etc. on Windows is wildly
| complicated compared to on macOS or Linux.
| jimmaswell wrote:
| Tried WSL?
| WeylandYutani wrote:
| Apple is doing what people hated Microsoft for. It's
| amazing that a closed ecosystem is so welcomed by Apple
| fans. But I suppose man has always been tribal.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| Any closed ecosystem is annoying but I'm not going to
| complain very hard while their desktop market share is
| below 20-25%.
| shortrounddev2 wrote:
| Every company I've worked for provided a macbook to us, and
| all my coworkers use a macbook. When I have the option, I
| pick PC. My last company gave me a choice between mac or
| PC, and I picked the thinkpad. My current company gave me a
| macbook pro, but I opted to use my personal Windows
| machines instead.
|
| I'm the guy who has to come up with a workaround, but it's
| never a problem for others. Usually I'm translating some
| bash command into powershell, which takes maybe 2 minutes.
| Everything else runs just fine, and I don't even need to
| use WSL. Windows is a perfectly viable development
| platform, if you give a shit about learning the differences
| between a unix-like environment and windows instead of just
| copping out and using WSL
| hota_mazi wrote:
| You probably live in the US and parent lives... anywhere
| else in the world really.
| redwall_hp wrote:
| Yep. I work in an entire office of engineers with only Macs
| (mostly ARM ones now) and I only have a Mac at home,
| besides a very old ThinkPad running Ubuntu. (Aside from
| FFXIV on MacOS, I've moved any gaming to PS5 and Switch.)
|
| I haven't actively used Windows since 2008. It's such an
| obnoxious OS to use, and I have never seen a Windows laptop
| with quality in the same zip code as a Mac. There's always
| a terrible touch pad, keyboard flex, plasticky trash fit
| and finish, mediocre display or something that just ruins
| the whole thing.
| selectodude wrote:
| I just received a brand new Thinkpad from work. I don't
| even mind Windows but holy crap is that thing an absolute
| chore to use. I don't understand how this is still an
| issue while Apple has been putting out what amounts to
| the perfect laptop for like 10+ years now.
| innocenat wrote:
| On the other hand, I moved from MacBook to ThinkPad and
| holy crap it's just so much easier to use.
| rejectfinite wrote:
| >I don't even mind Windows but holy crap is that thing an
| absolute chore to use.
|
| What are your issues? I have a T490 that is a few years
| old and its great for my use. But I keep it docked in to
| a monitor and external mouse and keyboard 90% of the
| time.
| hota_mazi wrote:
| > I haven't actively used Windows since 2008. It's such
| an obnoxious OS to use
|
| You might want to modernize your perception of it,
| holding on to 15 year old views is not a very smart move
| in the tech industry.
|
| Windows 10 and 11 are a joy to use, and to develop. I
| used a Mac for 15 years and switched to Windows to
| develop 5 years ago, and now macOS looks extremely
| antiquated and creaky for development.
| Clamchop wrote:
| Sure are a lot of extreme opinions on operating systems
| when they all seem pretty damned similar to me on the
| fundamentals.
|
| Development work strikes me as maybe the least
| distinguishing kind of task to compare them on. Very few
| hard choices to make unless you're developing for Mac or
| iOS.
| shortrounddev2 wrote:
| I like the aluminum bodies of macs, but I hate the flat
| keyboards. In my view, no laptop brand has had a good
| keyboard since the Thinkpad T420.
|
| In terms of build quality, apple laptops are pretty good,
| but I can't stand macOS and apple keeps fucking with
| their ports.
|
| My Inspiron 16 has a good glass screen and a pretty solid
| aluminum body. It's got all the ports I want (HDMI, USB-A
| 3.0, SD card reader, USB-C, and a 3.5mm headphone jack).
| Personally, the macbook pro my company issued me is one
| of my least favorite laptops I've ever used. I also had
| compatibility or performance problems with x86 based
| software when I got my first M1 macbook, I don't know if
| they're improved anything since then
| parineum wrote:
| If your dev environment is meant to be multiplatform, it's
| sounds a lot more like the other developers are checking in
| things that don't work on anything but macs.
|
| Your Linux devs are just used to dealing with it.
| babypuncher wrote:
| Macbooks have HDMI ports and solid keyboards.
|
| I don't see ethernet ports making a comeback on thin laptops
| anytime soon though. They are handy for LAN parties, so bulky
| gaming laptops will keep shipping with them, but for everyone
| else it makes more sense to leave that functionality to a
| dock.
| ngcc_hk wrote:
| Strange and whilst I have 8 macOS and 3 ipad plus 5 iOS devices
| I found in the train everyone use small dell notebook.
|
| I guess like me I like macbook 12 and that is what you use for
| non-desktop like notebook.
| dc443 wrote:
| I've been hoarding apple devices too. I have a 12 inch
| macbook, recently brought it up to Ventura. But the blasted
| thing won't hold a charge. The battery is fine over 90%
| health but something is causing power drain while it sleeps
| even when I try to hibernate it.
|
| It's impossible to find a use case for the thing. I might
| have to sell it.
| o1y32 wrote:
| A few programmers on HN think only they use laptops (and
| specifically Macbooks). Not surprising.
|
| If you just bother to open your eyes just a little bit wider
| you would notice that there is a huge market for Chromebooks,
| budget laptops, gaming laptops, mobile workstations, ultrabooks
| for students, gamers, business people, bankers etc. New things
| are happening every month. We are seeing more efficient laptops
| from Intel and AMD. Companies like Framework are doing actual
| innovations in the decade old laptop area. And there are
| workflows that can only be done on Windows.
|
| Your claim is completely unfounded.
| kens wrote:
| ARM has a lot more market share in people's minds than in
| actual numbers. One research firm says that ARM has 15% of the
| laptop market share in 2023, expected to increase to 25% by
| 2027. (Surprisingly, Apple only has 90% of the ARM laptop
| market.)
|
| In the server market, just an estimated 8% of CPU shipments in
| 2023 were ARM.
|
| https://www.counterpointresearch.com/arm-based-pcs-to-nearly...
| https://www.digitimes.com/news/a20230217VL209/amd-arm-digiti...
| Andrex wrote:
| I keep meaning to research this, and maybe this isn't the
| right place, but how are things going for Linux executables?
| Last I tried Linux on ARM it seemed like application-level
| support for ARM was very spotty.
|
| It doesn't seem like a Rosetta 2-like effort is making it
| into mainline Linux anytime soon, if ever.
| arp242 wrote:
| For open source applications it's generally pretty good.
| Closed source: not so much.
|
| qemu-x86_64 is probably the closest there is to Rosetta; it
| works fairly well and I think conceptually it's identical
| or similar to Rosetta, but I don't really know what the
| performance is like, and it's of course not as
| integrated/automatic as Rosetta.
| zekica wrote:
| IMO, better options are box86/box64 or FEX.
| Andrex wrote:
| Hadn't heard of qemu (in this context), I'll take a look,
| thank you!
| nazgulsenpai wrote:
| I suppose it depends on the distribution but most I've used
| (Manjaro, Void, Alpine) are close to 1:1 with x86. Of
| course third party applications have to compile for ARM if
| they don't intend to distribute source code.
| agloe_dreams wrote:
| That is spot-on. The fact of the matter is that it is Apple
| VS x86, not ARM. The M1/2 have dominant mindshare due to
| being actually better.
|
| On Windows, ARM products just suck. The product is just bad
| because there is no reason to use it. The chips available are
| worse than x86 and then the software issue is bad due to a
| whole set of reasons that Microsoft can't change on their
| own..\ Google has that last 10% probably, ChromeOS moves ARM
| devices all day, every day. Just cheap ones.
| netr0ute wrote:
| Why do these kinds of articles essentially refuse to admit RISC-V
| exists?
| snvzz wrote:
| The context is AWS and there's no AWS RISC-V instances yet.
|
| But worry not, RISC-V is inevitable.
| hedgehog wrote:
| RISC-V is important, and I use it every day for work, but there
| are no mainstream mature server platforms using it and that's
| what this article is about.
| harpratap wrote:
| Cloud world is really slow. Imagine writing about Zen3 Milan in
| Aug 2023 when AMD has already announced Zen4c Bergamo. Actually
| we were "ahead of the curve" since we got access to T2D before
| it was made publicly available in Tokyo region, and even then
| it took several months to get enough capacity in Tokyo to fully
| migrate our production Kubernetes cluster.
|
| I really wish we could test out RISC-V SoCs from the likes of
| tenstorrent, but it's a long journey
| xcdzvyn wrote:
| Because it essentially doesn't? At least when I tried looking a
| few months ago, it was really hard to find any commercially
| available RISC-V SoCs, let alone high performance ones. Sure
| there's little hobbyist boards going for $200>, but that's
| about it.
| jsheard wrote:
| Probably because the article is looking at silicon that's
| actually available today, and big-iron RISC-V silicon akin to
| Xeon/EPYC/Graviton/Ampere is more of a hypothetical at this
| point.
| harpratap wrote:
| We did a migration from GCP's Intel based E2 instances to AMD's
| T2D instances and saw huge 30% savings in overall compute! It is
| similar amount of savings folks got from switching to AWS
| Graviton instances, so looks like AMD might keep the x86 ISA
| still alive
| jeffbee wrote:
| E2 is just extremely old. E2 are a mixed fleet that contain
| CPUs as old as Haswell. Haswell launched over 10 years ago. It
| makes sense that you get a better bang for your buck from using
| something that isn't gravely obsolete. You should also keep
| that in mind when benchmarking E2, since it's a grab-bag of
| CPUs you need to control for the actual CPU type, either by
| specifying the minimum one you require or assuming the worst.
| harpratap wrote:
| That is true. But in cloud our hands our tied, we cannot
| really switch from one one generation to another so easily.
| GCP has so far never launched a new chip while keeping the
| price same or lower. We did same cost/perf analysis on newer
| generation chips like Ice Lake from Intel and even Milan from
| AMD in the form of N2D, but both are quiet expensive for the
| performance uplift they provide. The unique thing about T2D
| is that the price is competitive with 10 year old E2, which
| has been the case only for ARM based CPUs like Graviton and
| Ampere Altra (T2A from GCP)
| jeffbee wrote:
| I get what you mean. For the record, here's a GCP engineer
| holding forth on price/performance ratios who also
| concludes that T2D is optimal. https://medium.com/google-
| cloud/google-cloud-platform-cpu-pe...
|
| ETA: Since you are using Go and targeting a specific modern
| CPU, you may also get a measurable benefit from setting
| GOAMD64=v3, so the go compiler generates code using AVX2,
| BMI2, LZCNT, etc.
| harpratap wrote:
| Thanks, that's a really insightful article!
|
| > Since you are using Go and targeting a specific modern
| CPU, you may also get a measurable benefit from setting
| GOAMD64=v3
|
| That's actually a long pending open issue in our backlog
| :)
| singhrac wrote:
| As a separate data point, I briefly switched one of our servers
| from an r6a.4xlarge (AMD Epyc) to a r6i.4xlarge (Intel Xeon) and
| saw a 30% speedup in our number-heavy compute task. I would love
| to find out why (MKL or AVX512? Do I need to recompile numpy?),
| but for the time being it pays to stay on Xeon.
|
| We eventually switched to m-instances since that fits our
| compute/memory usage better when we're at limits.
| re-thc wrote:
| If it's AVX512, you'll be excited to know that m7a, currently
| in preview has great support for this. AMD Epyc 4th gen i.e.
| genoa is a lot faster.
| amusingimpala75 wrote:
| I would just like to point out that that is not how the saying
| goes. When Queen Elizabeth died it would have been "the queen is
| dead, long live the king", as the dead thing is the predecessor
| and the living thing is the one that follows it
| ihattendorf wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_king_is_dead,_long_live_th...
| !
|
| In this case, the article is implying that Intel (x86) is dead
| to them and AMD (x86) is the successor. Whether Intel is dead
| or not is up for debate (I doubt they are), but the saying is
| used correctly.
| harpratap wrote:
| The dead thing is Intel (x86) and the successor is AMD (x86) as
| opposed to ARM in our case. Isn't it correct?
| re-thc wrote:
| > Isn't it correct?
|
| No. Intel isn't dead. They may be behind (for now) but
| they're definitely catching up and have in a way on the
| desktop.
|
| It's not certain that Intel will die and AMD will for sure
| win. Competition is great.
| saghm wrote:
| If we're going to be that pedantic, we might as well just
| say that because Intel and AMD aren't living entities so
| they can't be "dead". Or we could just accept that the
| original meaning of the phrase has evolved and is flexible
| enough to be used in situations where it's not absolutely
| literal.
| Teever wrote:
| I just closed another post on HN because the top thread
| descended into some bullshit semantics pissing contest so
| I come here and see the same.
|
| Is it just me or has anyone else noticed an increase in
| arguing over the meaning of words on HN lately?
| arcanemachiner wrote:
| Nerds have been arguing online about irrelevant pedantry
| as long as the Internet has been around. And this place
| attracts some pretty hardcore nerds.
| lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote:
| I'd guess it's a timing thing. This site likes to
| prioritize more highly the "current" discussions which
| are generating upvotes as long as they're not also
| generating a ton of downvotes.
| kergonath wrote:
| I've noticed that as well. It beggars belief that people
| are seriously arguing about applying a centuries-old
| foreign metaphors about kings to modern large
| corporations. That's straight over Pedantic territory
| into the Obnoxious Contrarian wilderness. Sigh...
| coldtea wrote:
| Sorry, but you've just noticed it?
|
| Wars about semantics have been standard fare on geekdom
| since the dawn of time, and on Hacker News since the dawn
| of Arc.
|
| What appears as "Obnoxious Contrarian wilderness" is
| good-old hacker "well, actually" pendanticness (with some
| sprinkling of on-the-spectrum focus on details and
| semantics).
| kergonath wrote:
| > Sorry, but you've just noticed it?
|
| Yes, I have noticed "an increase in arguing over the
| meaning of words on HN lately". I also know how to
| discuss the meaning of words and how they form the
| context of a conversation, once taken together.
|
| > Wars about semantics have been standard fare on geekdom
| since the dawn of time, and on Hacker News since the dawn
| of Arc.
|
| Sure, and I enjoy very much some pedantry (and am not
| above doing my bit every now and then), but that's not
| the point. If someone wants to have a heated discussion
| about how a centuries-old metaphor would apply to the
| kings of France but not to a multinational company, then
| sure, have at it, as long as you don't derail otherwise
| useful threads. I will just opt out of spending my time
| that way and instead get some interesting pedantry.
|
| I must admit I am not really sure what image you want to
| imply by "dawn of Arc", though it does go a bit with the
| French king vibe. Would you care to explicit a little?
|
| > What appears as "Obnoxious Contrarian wilderness" is
| good-old hacker "well, actually" pendanticness (with some
| sprinkling of on-the-spectrum focus on details and
| semantics).
|
| Pedantry and semantics are fine, and indeed one of the
| reasons why I am here. But the point beyond that has to
| be knowledge and enlightenment, otherwise it's just, yes,
| obnoxious. There is also a thin line between a good "well
| actually" and a nuisance (not even talking about bad
| faith trolling).
|
| Please note that I did not address any of the people in
| question, because that would be stupid, rude, and
| counter-productive. I am happy if they have their
| arguments on their side. I was just replying to a fellow
| commenter that they were not alone with that feeling.
| There's no need to be rude about it.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > I must admit I am not really sure what image you want
| to imply by "dawn of Arc"
|
| Arc is a Lisp dialect invented by PG whose main notable
| use is that it is the implementation language for HN: the
| "dawn of Arc" is thus a flowery way of saying something
| like "the first concrete steps to the creation of HN".
| kergonath wrote:
| Interesting, I did not know that. Thanks!
| coldtea wrote:
| > _There's no need to be rude about it._
|
| I'm sorry, then! (Was I tho? I thought I answered mostly
| matter-of-factly)
| coldtea wrote:
| > _Is it just me or has anyone else noticed an increase
| in arguing over the meaning of words on HN lately?_
|
| Depends on what you mean by increase, arguing, and words.
| throwaway742 wrote:
| It's unironically one of the things I like about this
| site.
| GauntletWizard wrote:
| Perhaps it would be better phrased as "'intel x86'" vs
| "'AMD x86-64'". Specific sets of mandatory instructions and
| extension parameters - But AMD's set "won" at some point in
| the past, roughly corresponding to the launch of Intel's
| "Core" microarchitecture in 2006 when they started
| competing in the x86 space again
| Clamchop wrote:
| Weird. The topic was the phrase.
|
| Mercari replaced Intel with AMD. One x86 out, another in.
| Usage is correct if figurative.
|
| Article does not claim Intel is dead. States that they are
| "catching up". But for their nodes, Intel out ("dead"), AMD
| in.
|
| It's reasonable.
| coldtea wrote:
| Your point is about the factual statement (whether Intel
| x86 is actually dead).
|
| But this subthread (as started by amusingimpala75), and
| your direct parent's question was about whether the
| idiomatic usage of "(old) X is dead, long live (new) X" was
| correct (given that the author believes AMD taking over
| Intel is the factual case). That is, not about whether the
| factual statement is correct or not, just whether it's
| expressed well idiomatically.
| coldtea wrote:
| > _When Queen Elizabeth died it would have been "the queen is
| dead, long live the king", as the dead thing is the predecessor
| and the living thing is the one that follows it_
|
| And if a freshly dead king is replaced by a new king, it's "the
| king is dead, long live the king".
|
| The predecessor and the living thing doesn't have to be of the
| opposite sex, or use a different term:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_king_is_dead,_long_live_th...
| !
|
| It's a very famous idiom.
| WeylandYutani wrote:
| "The macOS (OS X) version of this game does not work on macOS
| Catalina (version 10.15) or later due to the removal of support
| for 32-bit-only apps"
|
| And that's why x86 is good.
| rideontime wrote:
| I'm failing to see the connection, could you please elaborate?
| m4r1k wrote:
| If you wanna have additional insights, head over my Medium ports
| with SPEC CPU 2017 results. https://medium.com/google-
| cloud/google-cloud-platform-cpu-pe...
| tester756 wrote:
| x86 would be dead if ARM ISA offered like at least 20% perf boost
| or energy savings.
|
| But since ISA doesn't imply perf. characteristics itself, then
| x86 will be alive.
|
| The hard part in changing hardware's stuff is getting software to
| adjust.
| slfnflctd wrote:
| When I think about how long chips like the 6502 have still been
| in active use (almost 50 years now), it is hard to conceive of a
| world where there isn't a significant presence of x86 activity
| for the rest of my life.
|
| The majority of 'the market' may go elsewhere, but for a
| gazillion reasons, x86 will not be disappearing for quite a
| while. At this point it would honestly surprise me if we didn't
| at least have high quality emulation available until the end of
| the human race as we know it.
|
| Sure, we've probably lost most of the software ever written on
| it, but a whole lot of interesting artifacts from a key
| transition point for our species still remain locked up in this
| architecture.
| riffic wrote:
| A thing's future longevity can sometimes be predicted by how
| long it's already been around.
| briandw wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindy_effect
| _a_a_a_ wrote:
| But not humans, regrettably.
| wongarsu wrote:
| It used to somewhat work for humans, until about the
| mid-19th century (in Europe, other places vary). A newborn
| was unlikely to reach an age of 5, a 5 year old had better
| chances but might still die from illness in childhood, but
| someone who reached an age of 20 could be expected to reach
| an age of 40, and if you reached 40 you might well make it
| to 80.
| User23 wrote:
| 99 year old humans are considerably more likely to live to
| be 100 than 50 year old humans.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| "future longevity" in this case means how many years are
| left, not how many years total.
| thefurdrake wrote:
| x86 is now permanently a part of humanity. 1000 years from now,
| when we've transcended our physical bodies and exist only as
| streams of sentient data and energy traveling between the
| stars, I 100% guarantee x86 will be detectable somewhere.
| tracker1 wrote:
| Given the new 128-core AMD server parts are on-par with ARM in
| terms of power efficiency and capable of more raw compute, it
| may even grow a bit.
|
| I think there's lots of room for ARM, Risc-V and x86_64 in the
| future. There's reasons to support any of them over the others.
| And given how well developer tool are getting support across
| them all, it may actually grow a lot. I think the down side is
| a lot of the secondary compute accelerators, such as what intel
| is pushing and what the various ARM and Risc-V implementations
| include in practice.
|
| The further from a common core you get, the more complex
| porting or cross platform tooling gets. Even if for big gains
| in some parts. For example, working on personal/hobby projects
| in ARM boards that aren't RPi is sometimes an exercise in
| frustration, with no mainline support at all.
| mlindner wrote:
| > I think the down side is a lot of the secondary compute
| accelerators, such as what intel is pushing and what the
| various ARM and Risc-V implementations include in practice.
|
| I'm curious why this is a downside. The current trends in
| computing is that we're long past the point of single
| threaded compute. The first step of that was multi processor
| and multi core and that'll continue with more and more
| dedicated and specialized computing sub-processors. Energy
| prices are more and more becoming a major determining factor
| as is the area needed for cooling. By having more separated
| subprocessors you get both efficiency and easier ability to
| cool the parts.
| Gordonjcp wrote:
| Stuff like 6502s and Z80s are a bit like little single-cylinder
| engines - the world will move onto all sorts of interesting new
| places, but something somewhere will always be powered by a wee
| Briggs & Stratton that starts first pull of the string, and
| we'll be glad of it.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| We'll always need tiny cores, but it's worth noting that
| RISC-V can squeeze down to pretty small sizes and is so much
| nicer to use. Notably you can go smaller than a 68k or 8086.
| hedgehog wrote:
| I suspect 32-bit RISC-V cores will become the minimum unit
| of processor for new designs. Not a meaningful cost
| increase over say a 6502 (or ARM) to build, but the
| convenience of having mainstream compiler support and that
| kind of thing does make a difference in the cost of
| building a product.
| mjevans wrote:
| Less transistors does mean less power too. I could see
| applications where that matters.
| babypuncher wrote:
| As we learned from Terminator 2, the machines that eventually
| rise up to eradicate humanity will still be running some kind
| of 6502 derivative.
| sneed_chucker wrote:
| Are 6502 chips still used? What's the application?
| _whiteCaps_ wrote:
| I don't know anything about physical 6502's but they've been
| embedded in FPGAs where you need a small MCU in a larger
| design. Same with Intel 8051's.
| krylon wrote:
| Tamagochis are running on 6502 compatible chips. Which makes
| me think it is used in other toys, too.
| tabtab wrote:
| What are the top embedded usage chips and what is their
| typical niche?
| krylon wrote:
| I wouldn't know. I just watched a talk a couple of years
| back about reverse engineering tamagochis, and they
| turned out to run on some 6502 compatible chip made by a
| company that - IIRC - sells to toy makers mostly.
| babypuncher wrote:
| Skynet is due to start producing their T-800 line of
| Terminators in 2026, which will use a 6502-derived CPU.
| trashtester wrote:
| .... until the end of the human race as we know it.
|
| I think this is the critical part. If humanity (as we know it)
| only lasts 10 more years, then sure x86 will still be around
| somewhere.
|
| If we last a million years, it will probably be gone long
| before that. Even in a thousand years it's probably gone a long
| time ago.
| postmodest wrote:
| I'm reminded of the Vernor Vinge novel where a character
| hacking some fleet's automation hundreds of thousands of
| years in the future casually mentions that the tech stack is
| so old that the system time stamp is still the Unix Epoch
|
| "And via a million million circuitous threads of inheritance,
| many of the oldest programs still ran in the bowels of the
| Qeng Ho system. Take the Traders' method of timekeeping. The
| frame corrections were incredibly complex--and down at the
| very bottom of it was a little program that ran a counter.
| Second by second, the Qeng Ho counted from the instant that a
| human had first set foot on Old Earth's moon. But if you
| looked at it still more closely...the starting instant was
| actually about fifteen million seconds later, the 0-second of
| one of Humankind's first computer operating systems."
| skywal_l wrote:
| Part of the "Fire Upon the Deep" series of novels (that
| particular reference is from the "A Deepness in the Sky").
| tetha wrote:
| I mean a thousand years are very hard to imagine, and how
| many changes there are.
|
| But the cynical operator in my head could just laugh. We as a
| tech community are still running MS-DOS productively. Just
| wait, someone will run the door controls of our first space
| ships on some x86 chip. Or some similar system you just need,
| but that never gets time to be updated properly. Just wait,
| the new cruise liner spaceship of the milky way republic is
| going to run some x86 emulator for their window control.
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| _> chips like the 6502 have still been in active use (almost 50
| years now)_
|
| Also 8051 cores can still be found in modern products
| pclmulqdq wrote:
| 8051s are just now getting phased out as control cores of IP
| blocks, which is pretty wild.
|
| The 32-bit ARM and RISC-V cores are small enough and easier
| to program.
| Symmetry wrote:
| Plausibly we're headed for a world where feature size decreases
| stall out but manufacturing improvements continue to lower the
| price of transistors over time. In a world like that throwing
| in a few x86 cores even if the dominant ISA shifts might be
| worth it from a backwards compatibility standpoint even if
| other ISA become dominant.
|
| There's lots of complications to address there (strict x86
| memory ordering versus loose ARM ordering, for instance) but I
| expect they're solvable.
| tracker1 wrote:
| IIRC, AMD's model for chiplets could already combine x86 and
| ARM as an example, not sure if any such beasts are in
| existence, but should be possible.
| Symmetry wrote:
| Yeah, I'm actually thinking something like a socket
| integrator buying an 8 core chiplet from AMD or Intel to
| connect via CXL or whatever to the ARM/RISC-V/GPU/Tensor
| cores in the other chiplets from different manufacturers.
| mobilio wrote:
| I've recently switch from VPS with Intel to physical server with
| latest AMD Zen4.
|
| Single thread performance blow my mind with scores like 4000.
|
| Without change a single line of code = performance was 10x than
| before.
| jsheard wrote:
| 4000 in what benchmark? I don't doubt that bare-metal Zen4 is
| fast but that number doesn't mean anything by itself.
| aidenn0 wrote:
| Yeah, I read that and just saw Vegeta saying "it's over 8000"
| jeffmcjunkin wrote:
| Ahem, that's _9000_.
| aidenn0 wrote:
| That's a mistranslation:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/It%27s_Over_9000!
| kingrazor wrote:
| 9000 in the first few English dubs. 8000 in the manga and
| DBZ Kai.
| mobilio wrote:
| I'm checking PassMark:
|
| https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=AMD+Ryzen+5+7600&id.
| ..
| papichulo2023 wrote:
| Arent VPS cpus usually clocked pretty low? Also if you are
| sharing the cpu with another intensive service, the cache will
| miss a lot.
| bombcar wrote:
| It's really important to benchmark this stuff, because
| depending on the workload, a cheap VPS is the way to go (you're
| almost always idle, say) or getting some of the latest and
| greatest hardware under your desk can quickly pay for itself.
| distcs wrote:
| > Single thread performance blow my mind with scores like 4000.
|
| What exactly is this number 4000? What does it mean? Where can
| I read more about this scoring system?
| mobilio wrote:
| I'm checking PassMark:
|
| https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=AMD+Ryzen+5+7600&id.
| ..
| c-hendricks wrote:
| Assuming they mean Geekbench.
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