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Intel may be planning to sue Microsoft for its plans to include x86 emulation in Windows 10 for ARM machines:
In celebrating the x86 architecture's 39th birthday yesterday—the 8086 processor first came to market on June 8, 1978—Intel took the rather uncelebratory step of threatening any company working on x86 emulator technology.
[...] The post doesn't name any names, but it's not too hard to figure out who it's likely to be aimed at: Microsoft, perhaps with a hint of Qualcomm. Later in the year, companies including Asus, HP, and Lenovo will be releasing Windows laptops using Qualcomm's Snapdragon 835 processor. This is not the first time that Windows has been released on ARM processors—Microsoft's first attempt to bring Windows to ARM was the ill-fated Windows 8-era Windows RT in 2012—but this time around there's a key difference. Windows RT systems could not run any x86 applications. Windows 10 for ARM machines, however, will include a software-based x86 emulator that will provide compatibility with most or all 32-bit x86 applications.
This compatibility makes these ARM-based machines a threat to Intel in a way that Windows RT never was; if WinARM can run Wintel software but still offer lower prices, better battery life, lower weight, or similar, Intel's dominance of the laptop space is no longer assured. The implication of Intel's post is that the chip giant isn't just going to be relying on technology to secure its position in this space, but the legal system, too.
(Score: 1) by oakgrove on Sunday June 11 2017, @05:53AM
None of these run win32 applications nor do they bear the user expectation burden of being performant while running said applications so they aren't really comparable. The closest thing to what this is was Windows RT which was a dismal failure so if that's what you're going with then.. maybe rethink something.
Most Windows laptops run Core processors so that's the right processor to compare to. Besides, the most common complaint of Atom powered stuff is "it's slow" which supports my point. I chose the m3 because it's the lowest of the low end. I'm actually giving SD 835 a sporting chance in that regard. If I was being completely neutral, I'd compare it to a typical i3 or i5-7200U which would completely slaughter it.
I'm not arguing they won't be cheap. I'm arguing they will be too slow to meet consumer expectation at basically any realistic price. Just like the cheap Android tablets that while cheap, have the highest return rates because they're just too slow.
But that's wrong though. I have plenty of evidence. The internet is full of benchmarks of the 835 and the m3 running general purpose workloads which almost always show the 835 to be about half as fast. The term you're looking for is "proof" and, yes, we won't know for absolute sure until these laptops come out but that's where critical thinking comes into play. If every benchmark shows the 835 to be half as fast as an m3 and the laptops in this case are not just running ARM compiled Windows but actually doing dynamic translation of x86 programs on top in the process, what is the likelihood that the end result is going to be anything but at best the equivalent of the m3 running at half speed. If full Windows laptops with a processor that slow were viable beyond the tepid sales of Atom powered models, we'd know it by now. To put an even finer point on it, I have a Lenovo T420s with the Sandybridge i5-2520m which also benchmarks twice as fast as the SD835. That is a 6 year old laptop with a low to midrange processor. Now imagine everything processor bound on it taking twice as long. That doesn't even get into things like comparative memory I/O etc.
To reiterate the crux of my argument, I believe that SD835 powered laptops will be too slow to meet consumer expectations of a full Windows laptop experience. Benchmarks back that up by showing the chip to be half as fast as the current low-end (Core m3) with acceptable performance. And anything lower than this "low-end" like Atom powered stuff just doesn't sell very well for that exact reason, i.e., it's slow. I also argue that price floor is not as important as people believe based on how cheap current laptops can be and there being a minimum of acceptability of performance at any price, that last part being the fundamental issue. I also argue that battery life and weight is an overblown concern as we have laptops now that weigh less than two pounds and will go all day. It can be argued that, yes, there are Core powered laptops that are fast, have long battery life, and are thin and light but you aren't going to get all that for cheap. True but that isn't an argument in favor of the SD835 stuff since, again, there is a floor of acceptable performance which I assert this will not reach. That's my position but ultimately we'll all see. Just remember that I told you so.