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HP & ASUS Rollout Their ARM-Powered Laptops

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  • #61
    Originally posted by Hadrian View Post
    So I'm very interested in these new powerful and current-saving ARM machines mentioned in Michael's article. I would any day replace my bloated x86 desktop machine with an ARM powered Linux one.
    ARM isn't significantly more power efficient than x86... it's a myth. Once you add in the platform power usage x86 usually wins for efficiency for performance workloads, by a large margin. The ARM processors that are capable of nearly meeting the single-core performance of modern Intel Core processors (IPC * gHz) don't draw less power for the same performance across a broad cross-section of workloads. There are some applications where ARM can win, but x86 still wins the majority. But on the bright side, ARM is starting to approach being competitive, and that will force Intel to improve their efficiency further.

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    • #62
      Originally posted by torsionbar28 View Post
      You forgot the finest of them all, the DEC Alpha! Still have one in my basement, running Gentoo.
      I wasn't sure to include it since it's kind of a RISC. But yeah, they were AWESOME. In 1996, You could have a 32-bit 200 Mhz Intel pentium pro, or a 64-bit 666 Mhz Alpha. Sure, clock speed isn't everything, but those were the days. I think it would be the dominating architecture today if it hadn't been for DEC. The architecture still lives on, actually. Look up the SW26010 260 core CPU. I'm not sure what it's used for, but rational solutions to elliptic curves sounds about right

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      • #63
        Originally posted by b8e5n View Post
        +1. This is better than a reinstall. cool

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        • #64
          These laptops are running with Microsoft's ARM version of Windows 10
          So I could bet there would be UEFI, secureboot and whatever else treachery usally associated with MS, Qualcomm and so on. Sorry, but Olimex is far more appealing offer. At least it is open hardware and does not attempts to pwn me all the time like this combo would.

          On side note I wonder what apps ppl would use on Windows for ARM. Wintel put a great deal of efforts to persuade devs there could be just x86 and win32. It has worked, so hard many Windows programs aren't completely ported even to x86-64. I could imagine ARM version would enjoy real lack of programs and apps. Hey, sounds like WinRT 2.0!

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          • #65
            Originally posted by linuxgeex View Post
            ARM isn't significantly more power efficient than x86... it's a myth.
            Somehow all x86 tablets I've seen had really sucking standby/operation time compared to ARM devices and were really bound to charger, hardly being a MOBILE device. So I wouldn't take it as granted. My impression is that x86 is large, complicated and really suxx when it comes to power management. No matter what Intel did, their x86 ICs failed on low-power markets. Oh, they've also gave up on their SBCs because only craziest of fools would deal with x86 in small embedded designs.

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            • #66
              I see that other makes are jumping on the WinArm bandwagon:
              https://liliputing.com/2017/12/reports-samsung-and-xiaomi-to-launch-windows-10-on-snapdragon-devices.html
              "Samsung and Xiaomi are both said to be working on Windows devices that use Qualcomm’s flagship processor."

              perhaps Xiaomi will be more open to running linux on their device, with any luck they will be lazy about locking down their boot loaders ;-)

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              • #67
                Originally posted by SystemCrasher View Post
                Somehow all x86 tablets I've seen had really sucking standby/operation time compared to ARM devices and were really bound to charger, hardly being a MOBILE device. So I wouldn't take it as granted. My impression is that x86 is large, complicated and really suxx when it comes to power management. No matter what Intel did, their x86 ICs failed on low-power markets. Oh, they've also gave up on their SBCs because only craziest of fools would deal with x86 in small embedded designs.
                Oh, well yes if you're talking about Coretex-M0 or other MCU-class processors. But this thread is about higher-performance, and my reply was directly to someone suggesting that ARM could do significantly higher performance per watt than Intel in a workstation product. Your Coretex-M0 would end up grossly inefficient in that case because the compute capability compared to the platform power usage would be abysmal... but you're right that for something like IOT or a Nook, ARM is a winner.

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                • #68
                  Originally posted by linuxgeex View Post
                  Oh, well yes if you're talking about Coretex-M0 or other MCU-class processors. But this thread is about higher-performance, and my reply was directly to someone suggesting that ARM could do significantly higher performance per watt than Intel in a workstation product.
                  Nope. I referred to Cortex-A series, which are more or less meant for "computer-like" devices and could implement PC-like things, be it USB or PCI-E, etc. Tablets, smart phones, embedded computers, low-power laptops, etc are using Cortex A as main CPUs. Some 64-bit things like A5x and somesuch appear to be "good enough" even for general purpose computers.

                  Your Coretex-M0 would end up grossly inefficient in that case because the compute capability compared to the platform power usage would be abysmal... but you're right that for something like IOT or a Nook, ARM is a winner.
                  Nobody uses cortex M0 as main CPU in e.g. tablets. There're fairly decent cortex A things, some could easily score like 4-8 64-bit cores at 2+ GHz or so. Being quite a powerhouse, capable of being more or less generic computer, as long as software part permits. This said, ARM cores are much smaller and aren't as grossly overengineered like Intel, allowing smaller system size, easier implementation and low power consumption. Whatever, Intel thrown great efforts trying to tame x86 power consumption in mobile devices, but it never performed reasonably. If we take certain battery wattage, ARM devices last considerably longer. I've seen some x86 tablets, Android and Windows ones. Their battery lifetime was really bad compared to ARM tablets. To get reasonable lifetime, x86 devices need really HUGE battery. So x86 power efficiency tells for itself.

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                  • #69
                    Originally posted by SystemCrasher View Post
                    Nope. I referred to Cortex-A series, which are more or less meant for "computer-like" devices and could implement PC-like things, be it USB or PCI-E, etc. Tablets, smart phones, embedded computers, low-power laptops, etc are using Cortex A as main CPUs. Some 64-bit things like A5x and somesuch appear to be "good enough" even for general purpose computers.

                    Nobody uses cortex M0 as main CPU in e.g. tablets. There're fairly decent cortex A things, some could easily score like 4-8 64-bit cores at 2+ GHz or so. Being quite a powerhouse, capable of being more or less generic computer, as long as software part permits. This said, ARM cores are much smaller and aren't as grossly overengineered like Intel, allowing smaller system size, easier implementation and low power consumption. Whatever, Intel thrown great efforts trying to tame x86 power consumption in mobile devices, but it never performed reasonably. If we take certain battery wattage, ARM devices last considerably longer. I've seen some x86 tablets, Android and Windows ones. Their battery lifetime was really bad compared to ARM tablets. To get reasonable lifetime, x86 devices need really HUGE battery. So x86 power efficiency tells for itself.
                    I think you're stuck in pre-haswell days. For high performance the only ARM vendor that comes close to the efficiency of Intel is Apple, and they aren't selling their cores for 3rd party products, so it's hard to count them. Again, we aren't talking about embedded here. We're talking about high performance, ie >5 DMIPS/Mhz, and >3ghz. ARM's total platform performance per watt in that arena is worse than Intel's, because Intel has been optimising toward that market for decades, and ARM has only been meaningfully working toward that goal for 3-4 years.

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                    • #70
                      Yesterday I was able to play around with the NovaGo at some shop. A reboot did not show any kind of entry for uefi; but the manual from ASUS states that it is possible to change uefi settings from Windows settings and to boot from usb devices. I.e., with the proper image it should be possible to boot Linux. Secure boot remains to be an open question though.

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