And there's more...

Cortex-A76-high-laptop-performance

This is Arm's highest end part yet. It'll live happily in a laptop, and I don't mean a low end one!

I was reading Samsung's latest custom Arm is quite potent, Microporcessor Report said it "nearly doubles performance using a massive microarchitecture that challenges Intel’s Skylake in complexity and throughput".

Then this appeared, it ain't no phone chip!
Heads up: Fujitsu tips its hand to reveal exascale Arm supercomputer processor – the A64FX

Well, my place in the que for purchasing a 64bit Pinebook has come up and they've sent me an invoice.

The $99 price serves as a great reminder of what value can be had with low end ARM systems.

The processor used in this system clocks at the same speed as Tabor, but it's A53 core is a full 64 bit design.
Equipped with 2GBs of ddr3, an LCD screen and a full sized keyboard, it's priced at a fraction of what a entry level PPC will go for.

> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_A11
> A11 is hexa-core (2 "big" cores, 4 "small" cores) at 2.39 GHz. The new "big" core
> is named Monsoon, while the new "small" core is named Mistral.

New:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_A12

A12 is hexa-core (2 "big" cores, 4 "small" cores) at 2.49 GHz. The new "big" core is named Vortex, while the new "small" core is named Tempest.

Update:

> X-Gene 3 renamed to eMAG.

X-Gene 3 released as the eMAG 8180:

https://amperecomputing.com/ampere-announces-availability-of-emag-for-hyperscale-cloud-computing-and-unveils-aggressive-multi-generation-roadmap/

Quote:


I just got one of the new iPhones, I don't buy phones very often so I treated myself
I looked up some benchmarks and it's as fast as my frikkin laptop! I'm using a 2 year old top end i7 MacBook Pro.

I knew they were getting close, but I had no idea they were that powerful.

Quote:

And like your mobile i7, not designed to keep up peak processing for long periods of time. Think of it mainly as a "boost" mode, like one of these flashlights that give you 2000 lumens of light... for around 2 minutes before thermal cutoff kicks in - and are otherwise just like ordinary flashlights in every other respect.

Quote:

Suremaybewhatever......

The things are mindboggling fast even if throttled down (got one myself).

It also suggest that either the A12 or the old i7 would make a fully capable desktop if mounted against a sufficient cooler.

Update:

> The PPC-based SoCs remain at Macom, apparently: [...]

They have since found their new home on the Macom website:

https://www.macom.com/products/network-connectivity-solutions/Embedded%20Processors
https://www.macom.com/files/live/sites/ma/files/contributed/support/Connectivity%20and%20Embedded%20EOL%20products3.pdf


Edit:
01/2019 notice on discontinuation of PPC405EX(r), PPC460EX(r) and PPC460GT

[ Edited by Andreas_Wolf 11.11.2019 - 10:16 ]

Elite Dangerous announcement this week that it can no longer support Macs (two years after announcing that updates would be badly delayed for it) is just one in a long list of recent examples where software developers who have grown impatient with MacOS and its apparently abandoned API infrastructure. Apparently its OpenGL is now too old. Apple have been planning the switch for a long time it seems, and no longer put much effort into x64 MacOS.

The future of MacOS itself may be at stake - there's all sorts of rumours flying around that the overheads of porting MacOS to ARM are not realistic and that Apple want to fold everything into iOS and make their iPads and laptops the same thing.

That would be where people find out the hard way that, contrary to Apple advertising, a tablet is a smoke-and-mirrors imitation of a real computer. I'm glad I don't own any shares in Apple...

Raspberry Pi 4 is released:

- A 1.5GHz quad-core 64-bit ARM Cortex-A72 CPU (~3× performance)
- 1GB, 2GB, or 4GB of LPDDR4 SDRAM
- Full-throughput Gigabit Ethernet
- Dual-band 802.11ac wireless networking
- Bluetooth 5.0
- Two USB 3.0 and two USB 2.0 ports
- Dual monitor support, at resolutions up to 4K
- VideoCore VI graphics, supporting OpenGL ES 3.x
- 4Kp60 hardware decode of HEVC video
- Complete compatibility with earlier Raspberry Pi products

1GB RAM = $35 retail price
2GB RAM = $45 retail price
4GB RAM = $55 retail price

Prices excluding taxes.9

https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/raspberry-pi-4-on-sale-now-from-35/

No M.2 slot = useless imho.

Quote:

I think "useless" may be a bit strong here. Sure, in a desktop context it would surely have been preferable, as well as a PCI-e slot or two. But with desktop-alike performance (kind of), USB3, Gigabit Ethernet, Dual-band 802.11ac wireless, 4k, etc, I think $35-$55 makes it *very* useful for quite a lot of people!

[ Edited by takemehomegrandma 25.06.2019 - 00:43 ]

Quote:

Do they need foundaries? IBM sold theirs. As did AMD.
Chip design and production are not intimately linked.
Many companies do not produce their own chips.
Oddly enough, NXP still retains Motorola's foundaries.
Using TSMC (or even Samsung) makes more sense than using AMD offshoot Global Foundries.
Its allowed AMD to produce products at a finer pitch than its competitor Intel (which is still relying on it's own foundaries).

So again, does this matter?


[ Edited by Jim 26.06.2019 - 15:39 ]

> NXP still retains Motorola's foundaries. Using TSMC (or even Samsung)
> makes more sense than using AMD offshoot Global Foundries.

With their step from 45 nm to 28 nm, Freescale outsourced manufacturing to TSMC.
NXP have their 90 nm and 45 nm parts (including those taken over from Freescale) manufactured by GlobalFoundries.

I haven't seen this mentioned, but I haven't read all 39 pages of this thread!

balenaFin

It has an mPCIe slot, and I'm sure a compute Pi 4 will be along soon (I hope).

Just got a Pi 4, does feel quicker than a Pi 3...

OK guys, launch is happening. Just how powerful do you think the the new A13 chip will be?

Quote:

Very.



At sucking your wallet dry (*doh*)


Otherwise, usual yearly upgrade in performance, with 0 impact on anything that doesn't run iOS (or a variant of it).

>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_A12
>> A12 is hexa-core (2 "big" cores, 4 "small" cores) at 2.49 GHz. The new "big" core
>> is named Vortex, while the new "small" core is named Tempest.

> Just how powerful do you think the the new A13 chip will be?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_A13

A13 is hexa-core (2 "big" cores, 4 "small" cores) at 2.65 GHz. The new "big" core is named Lightning, while the new "small" core is named Thunder.

Slight aside, modern computing needs are not necessarily about the processor...

I've just edited a video that took 110 GB of data, near gave my laptop a hernia processing it.
The video was 4K but the output was only 1080p. I had to keep deleting stuff it took up so much room!

..and that was just for a YouTube video of me walking up a hill!

At that sort of resolution, it's all going to come down to disc speed, not CPU speed. I wouldn't like to think what it'd be like editing 4K or -shudder- 8K!

@minator

Things are about to take a major leap on that front soon AFAICT, much is happening on chip based storage now (like Optane but others as well) and with the related transfer buses as well; seems Intel is locking on to PCI Express v5.0 for 2021 (with a brief use of PCI-E v4 more as a stop-gap solution) and USB4/Thunderbolt4 is about to be rolled out. A major leap on all fronts soon, at least from Intel.

Apple confirmed their switch of their computers to the ARM ISA now.
Interesting.

https://www.osnews.com/story/131941/apple-transitions-the-mac-to-its-own-arm-processors/

Quote:

Indeed very interesting!

But this is probably one of the most obvious developments in a long time, eveything has been pointing in this direction for years (as this thread has shown as well)!

And I think it makes a lot of sense.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/jun/22/apple-ditches-intel-for-arm-processors-in-big-sur-computers

https://www.apple.com/macos/big-sur-preview/



[ Edited by takemehomegrandma 23.06.2020 - 17:59 ]

Surprised this didn't get more comment here. Huge move by Apple but not at all surprising.
I'm surprised they took so long, their processors surpassed Intel clock-for-clock some years ago.


In other news, the worlds top supercomputer is also now Arm based:

https://www.techspot.com/news/85733-japan-takes-top-spot-supercomputer-list-arm-powered.html

I knew they were doing an Arm based machine years ago, but I had no idea it was going to be No.1.
I don't work for Arm any more, so I don't find out stuff like this nowadays