[unfocussed_mike]

There was a small measure of satire/hyperbole in what I said. But you have separated that one sentence from the second sentence that provided context, so I don't think I particularly need to defend it on its own.

Perhaps I should have used a semicolon to defend against you.

The point was that in ten years time, I think people will look back and say: 2022 is the year x86 really ended as a forward-looking architecture. Ergo: dead, they just don't know it yet.

But to expand: one of the things that is very striking about tech stuff is how quickly the energy in any one system can deflate.

Looking at the Apple competition, do you think buyers will think:

1) Intel simply need to make x86 a bit better to compete, or

2) It is about time we started looking at architectures that can scale up to compete with Apple Silicon on all levels (absolute CPU power, power consumption, mobile to server)

Architecturally, x86 is in serious trouble and this isn't just something I -- a random non-chip-designer -- think. It's what Intel think, or their entire recent push would not be to become a fabricator for other chip designs, built on an unhealthy amount of anti-asian supply chain FUD.

[ohgodplsno]

Once again, no. For the price of a Mac Pro, you get x86 hardware that performs simply better. Despite HN having a hardon for "b-b-but it's only 85W", it doesn't matter to a very large portion of users. I don't give a single crap if my workstation uses up 600W to run a 5900X and an RTX3070 (or, well, if I could find one, but shhh). I merely care about raw power. My electricity bill is a non-factor. And that's just with something of "equivalent power" (not even taking into account the fact that people don't give a shit about OSX if it doesn't run their software/games/etc). I can get some x86 hardware that runs an M1 into the ground easily, and given that all the current gen is on old processes, upcoming x86 hardware will, once again, be more than just competitive, but better. Then Apple will come out with the M2, reap all the benefits that come out of being a non-upgradable SoC with soldered RAM and soldered CPU, maybe be on top of very select benchmarks for a while, etc. As with every time that Apple came out with "revolutionary new hardware", what it mostly meant is "we slapped TSMC with a load of cash and got their latest and greatest process".

So, to respond, buyers will:

1/ Not give a crap about whether it's x86 or Apple Flavored ARM (read: an ARM with undocumented extensions that is pretty much CISC), but merely look at price, in which case Apple buyers are an extreme minority. A $500 laptop with a mobile Ryzen is more than enough for the average user, and mostly, most people cannot afford a $1200+ macbook air.

2/ Not care about power consumption because it does not matter to a boatload of people. Get out of your bubble, noone outside of software developer nerds care if they have to plug in their laptop once every four hours. Most people have lunch breaks. Is it a great thing to have in a laptop ? Absolutely, and Apple has done great in that regard. Does it matter anywhere else ? Absolutely not. Once again, it's HN jerking itself off about pErFoRmaNcE pEr WaTt when Apple put out a CPU that can't even draw the 105W it's rated for, and has no proof that it can improve in single threaded performance with more power. But sure, toss out more cores, it's what x86 has been doing for years, but when Apple comes out with the M1 Ultra it's a stroke of genius to slap two of these bad boys together.

3/ People actually upgrade their hardware and don't rebuy a macbook pro every two years like half of this forum does.

ARM is not a forward looking architecture, and neither is x86. They both are architectures, with their advantages and flaws (and the Apple flaws are fucking massive, unupgradable-except-if-you-buy-next-year's-version is the very definition of non-forward thinking, especially for end users).

[unfocussed_mike]

Not going to respond to the unnecessarily rude tone here generally, except to say that any argument you want to have taken seriously is better not couched in terms of "hardons" and "jerking itself off". If you are a teenager, consider trying not to sound like one. If you're not a teenager, consider trying not to sound like one. Either way, this kind of communication is why you're likely still not taken as seriously as you could be.

Also you're taking it all off on an angry tangent about the HN audience when I am talking about buyers (I meant including institutional buyers, not end users, and I didn't clarify that enough but I would have thought the focus on architecture would have made it clearer) but:

> I don't give a single crap if my workstation uses up 600W to run a 5900X and an RTX3070 (or, well, if I could find one, but shhh).

I would. Between this April and next April my energy bill will double, and it is unlikely to ever fall back to where it is now. Power consumption matters A LOT in Europe right now. Corporate buyers will have to care about that, for the long term.

> 3/ People actually upgrade their hardware and don't rebuy a macbook pro every two years like half of this forum does.

No, they really don't upgrade their hardware, in fact. Almost no computer buyer upgrades through anything other than replacement.

But I'm using a seven year old, secondhand MacBook Pro, so I'm not the target of your comment.

[Applejinx]

For what it's worth, I recently went and traded in a pile of old Macs because I was travelling with a newer Macbook Pro (16" with M1 Pro) and needed to be able to effectively replace not only my first early M1 laptop, but also the iMac Pro I'd got as a flagship machine before the M1s came out.

Between those and an intel Mac Mini and an older iMac, I got over $3000 in trade-in value. Made me feel quite foolish for not having tried that before. The oldest iMac still got me a couple hundred bucks, as would your seven year old MacBook Pro most likely. A two year old high-specced computer?

I get that the list price for any of these is still way higher than putting together a PC from parts… but again, I belatedly traded a bunch of stuff in, and got more than $3000 in gift card value from Apple doing it. That makes 'rebuying a macbook pro every two years' a whole other state of affairs. I'm kicking myself for not having tried that earlier: I'm sure I left over $1000 on the table simply by letting recent computers sit around unused rather than immediately trading them in for Apple credit.

[ohgodplsno]

> Power consumption matters A LOT in Europe right now.

Should have gone with nuclear years ago, our prices are stable.

[SxC97]

Well, I was going to spend this money on upgrading my laptop, but I guess I'll just invest in a nuclear power plant instead... /s

[lowbloodsugar]

At the cheap end, it's ARM too. Chromebooks if you need a keyboard, tablets if not. It's only enterprise corporate office drones that are tied to windows. I've got a gaming rig too, but we are also a minority. Most people don't need a $1200 Macbook air, but also most people don't need a $800 RTX3070. PC Gamers are already a niche. Mobile gaming is where the money is, then console, then PC games, and mobile is 10x the both of them.

So to the point at discussion: Apple uses their common tech across their entire Market. The M1 chips are the result of making the fastest mobile phones. The M1 is going into tablets. They are just printing money and pumping that money into chip design. If your DIY PC Building is what is going to keep Intel/x86 alive, then I agree with GP: Intel is the walking dead. And it really is just us gamers.

Who needs raw CPU/GPU at their desk? I had one of the first nehalems under my desk (NDA and everything). Then I heard about AWS and started running my shit on that. Back then, that was intel. Now it's Graviton ARM: more processing per $.