Maynard Handley (name99.delete@this.name99.org) on June 22, 2020 11:44 am wrote:
> Maynard Handley (name99.delete@this.name99.org) on June 22, 2020 11:26 am wrote:
> > It's real!!!!
>
> Well we saw something of how x86 apps will work.
> Any comments from the various people making strong claims regarding this?
> Of particular interest was (img)

We haven't seen much in terms of CPU performance. Several comments:

• Showing off Word/Excel/Powerpoint is strange. Those apps run fine on an underclocked Atom


• DNG files in Lightroom - weird they didn't show exporting/raw conversion. Getting low res previews of effects was very fast on 2013-era mobile Haswell. Maybe they didn't show export because FPU performance is one of Intel's strengths (2x256-bit AVX execution units), and processing high res images really takes advantage of that.


• Maya - I don't have Maya, but Blender's workspace view is a very light GPU load. I suspect it's the same for Maya. If they were confident in CPU performance, they'd show a CPU render. They did not.


• Playback of multiple 4K streams - just means their GPU has a modern video engine. Intel's iGPUs could do this years ago


• Tomb Raider - they ran through a small, isolated area without any enemies/allies present. I expect the weakest CPUs to have no trouble with that.

I think they're trying to show graphics acceleration works properly on the A12Z and Rosetta 2 is functional. There was no attempt to show A12Z being competitive with desktop Intel/AMD chips - even ones from a few years ago.

IMO we have to wait a couple years for Apple to release a desktop ARM chip before drawing conclusions (or at least for the A12Z dev kit to get out into the wild). They said the transition would last that long. And I hope they do well, because that'll light a fire under Intel and AMD. The next few years should be very interesting for CPU microarchitecture.