[loeg]

> First, Qualcomm’s System on a Chip (Soc) designs have improved so dramatically in the past four years that their performance rivals that of mainstream Intel Core chipsets for PCs.

Hah!

> And even better, Microsoft has developed an emulation technology that allows Win32 applications to launch and run unmodified on ARM-based PCs. And to do so with what I am assured is excellent performance.

I don't believe it.

[taspeotis]

> I don't believe it.

My understanding is Microsoft actually has some pretty cool and fast tech for this already: the Xbox 360 emulation on Xbox One.

[loeg]

No matter how good it gets, binary recompilation will always be slower than native code. And when the host CPU is already a very slow model like Qualcomm ARM, those effects stack.

[pritambaral]

That was PPC-on-amd64 emulation. I don't know much about hardware-assisted virtualization, but I guess that was easier than x86-on-ARM64?

[mtgx]

Why are you laughing? Last's year's Apple chip was as powerful as the chip in the Macbook Air:

https://www.extremetech.com/mobile/221881-apples-a9x-goes-he...

This year's chip is even more powerful:

http://www.theverge.com/2016/9/16/12939310/iphone-7-a10-fusi...

I'm also a bit skeptical about the emulation part, but if it's less than 10% overhead out of the gate, it should be okay, and I assume Microsoft could continue to optimize it over the years.

[asendra]

Apple's chip. Not Qualcomm's. That's what he/she is laughing about.

[cm2187]

Not many CPU bound apps running on an ordinary laptop.