Technology

Nobody tell Intel about Apple Silicon! Or that Apple's sales are increasing while they rest of the industry is in a slump.

Of course intel would be the last company to admit x86 is dying. It just doesn't make sense to keep doubling down on it anymore, Apple has proven ARM is more power efficient and in many cases more powerful than x86. I wanted to buy a new laptop this year but it makes no sense to do so considering Windows ARM machines are right around the corner and will triple battery life and increase performance.

Even AMD showed just how power hungry and thermal inefficient intel generally is

As Arm develops more every year, laptop OEMs will eventually switch just because of the insane power and thermal benefit.

I hope RISC-V gets its chance to shine too

Let’s file this in the cabinet of company quotes that come back to haunt them

Intel is finally innovating because of increased pressure. Don't let the Pat Gelsinger's calm tone fool you, he knows exactly what the competition is bringing. Apple has proven what Linux users have known for a few years, the CPU architecture is not as directly tied to the software as it once was. It doesn't matter if it's x86, ARM, or RISC-V. As long as we have native builds (or a powerful compatibility layer) it's going to be business as usual.

Underestimating the competition is often a path to failure

Intel is doing all the things dying companies do.

I hope I’m wrong about this, but I don’t think I am.

Will Intel exist in 2026? NVIDIA and AMD are making ARM chips for 2025, China is investing heavily in RISC-V, and AMD already released a CPU that rivals Apple's M2 which is x86. Who knows how things will turn out once they release an ARM chip.

Things are shaping up to become an NVIDIA vs AMD arms race with some Chinese company becoming a dark horse and announcing a RISC-V chip in 2-3 years.

There was a company that announced a major technological advancement in chip fabrication in the US, but I can't remember who or what it was. My maggot brain thinks something with light-based chips or something? I dunno... that might also be something to look out for

Edit: it was intel: Intel Demos 8-Core, 528-Thread PIUMA Chip with 1 TB/s Silicon Photonics

Posturing. It's already obvious that Arm is kicking ass. It may not take over, but it's more than made a dent.

A brief history lesson relating to Intel and ARM.... Intel made ARM processors. They were not great. Of course, this was many many years ago, but even compared to others of the same from the same generation and year range, they were kind of poo.

The product was Intel Xscale. Manufactured starting in 2002, and only lasted about 3-4 years before being dropped. Right before there was a big smartphone boom. The processors found their way into the smartphone predecessor, the PDA. Notably, I purchased one device with this type of processor right before the whole thing collapsed.... A Dell Axiom x51v. It ran Windows Mobile, which later turned into Microsoft's attempt to compete with the likes of Google and Apple in the smartphone space, and it's obvious how that worked out for them.

Intel is saying this because they have to believe it's true. They've abandoned all ARM development and seem to have no intention of picking it up again. They failed in the ARM space, creating fairly poor versions of the chips that they did produce, and they seem to have no intention of repeating that failure.

Mark my words, Intel will likely go all in on RISC-V if anything. They'll continue to build x86, they have way too much invested in that space and it's one of few that they've actually had significant success in, but when it comes to mobile/RISC, ARM isn't something that they will be picking up again.

So bluntly, this is true... For Intel. They must believe it because they have given themselves no alternative.

As a owner of an ARM laptop: wtf are they smoking?

ARM just makes sense for portable devices for obvious reasons, x86 isn't dying though. For the average person who needs a laptop to do some professional-managerial work ARM is perfect.

They already have with Apple M1 Macs

whatever the new architecture ends up being, at some point we will see x86 relegated to a daughter board in the machine while we transition, or x86 will live in a datacenter and you'll buy time on a "cloud pc" like what microsoft will already sell you in azure

Ah yes, the “the weather is clear now” argument for not putting up an umbrella because you fear you’re going to get wet if you’re wrong is peak copium.

See how well that worked for Sears, Blockbuster, Dial-Up providers, TV… etc.

This is the best summary I could come up with:

But Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger doesn't seem worried about it yet, as he said on the company's most recent earnings call (via Seeking Alpha).

"Arm and Windows client alternatives, generally, they've been relegated to pretty insignificant roles in the PC business," said Gelsinger.

Ideally, Arm-based PCs promise performance on par with x86 chips from Intel and AMD, but with dramatically better power efficiency that allows for long-lasting battery life and fanless PC designs.

Qualcomm's latest Snapdragon chip for PCs, the 8cx Gen 3 (also called the Microsoft SQ3), appears in two consumer Windows devices.

Even if Gelsinger is wrong, he's trying to spin the rise of Arm PCs as a potentially positive thing, saying that Intel would be happy to manufacture these chips for its competitors.

Right now, TSMC has an effective monopoly on cutting-edge chip manufacturing, making high-end silicon for Qualcomm, Nvidia, AMD, Apple, and (tellingly) Intel itself.

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