Snapdragon X Elite: The End for Intel & AMD?

[Norphy]

Yes, but there’s a fairly major difference there.

 

Macs have the full weight of Apple behind them and for the foreseeable future they’re going to have Apple designed ARM CPUs. All of the MDM tools that manage them plug into Apple APIs, which haven’t changed between CPU architectures.

 

Chromebooks aren’t changing their management tools, and the method of managing them doesn’t differ between CPU architectures.

 

Linux is open source, as are most of the endpoint management tools you use for Linux. Recompiling software between Intel and Arm is relatively trivial compared to with Windows

 

Whereas Windows ARM devices… well their history isn’t good, let’s put it that way. Windows RT devices could only be managed with Intune, and couldn’t run anything not from the Store. AFAIK, you couldn’t manage Windows 10 Arm devices with SCCM, and it wasn’t until recently that they could run x64 code. But because the performance of existing Windows Arm devices sucked, no one bought them and they didn’t care about managing them anyway. Now the situation is (allegedly) a bit different. Support from MS is a bit more mainstream, there’s a Rosetta-like translation layer which allows you to run x64 code and is performant. Manufacturers are actually making them this time around and corporations are going to want to buy and manage them. Can they use their existing tools, are they going to be forced into using Intune or will MS do an Apple and introduce an API to manage them?

[dmj]

I don't think management will be the biggest barrier.

One of the best thinks about windows (and also it's Achilles heel) is that management is simple through registry keys and file management and open api's.

There are already alternatives to Microsoft supported management tools that work well for managing windows,mac,linux. Given there's a compatibility layer I can't see there would be an issue running these on arm windows.

If your tooling isn't working then change the tooling rather than have it dictate what software you can run.

 

I think the biggest barrier to windows arm is windows itself; the insane amount of telemetry and bloatware which make it perform poorer in everyday tasks in terms of resource usage.

[XiJ]

I don't think management will be the biggest barrier.

One of the best thinks about windows (and also it's Achilles heel) is that management is simple through registry keys and file management and open api's.

There are already alternatives to Microsoft supported management tools that work well for managing windows,mac,linux. Given there's a compatibility layer I can't see there would be an issue running these on arm windows.

If your tooling isn't working then change the tooling rather than have it dictate what software you can run.

 

I think the biggest barrier to windows arm is windows itself; the insane amount of telemetry and bloatware which make it perform poorer in everyday tasks in terms of resource usage.

 

Absolutely all of this. That and legacy apps that everybody wants. Win32 apps. Or older. Apple got everyone one board to migrate while having Rosetta for the hang ons. MS have made great strides but will need to nail this.

[localzuk]

Yeh I don't think these are designed for gaming at all.

Yeah, that's not really where I'm going with it. The thought process I'm following is that Microsoft seem to be intent on moving down the ARM route. If they have success at this stage, and push more of it, this will diminish Intel/AMD use, which will potentially shrink the market and therefore increase costs for the hobbyist market. The market for discreet GPUs is mostly aimed at design and AI, and the AI stuff is now shifting away from those GPUs to dedicated chips like the NPU, so we'll see fewer GPUs being made too.

 

It all depends where MS is going to go with this. Are they going to do an Apple and kill off X86/AMD64 support entirely? Or are they going to go for the, much more expensive to support, hybrid approach of supporting both architectures?

[supportman]

Yeah, that's not really where I'm going with it. The thought process I'm following is that Microsoft seem to be intent on moving down the ARM route. If they have success at this stage, and push more of it, this will diminish Intel/AMD use, which will potentially shrink the market and therefore increase costs for the hobbyist market. The market for discreet GPUs is mostly aimed at design and AI, and the AI stuff is now shifting away from those GPUs to dedicated chips like the NPU, so we'll see fewer GPUs being made too.

 

It all depends where MS is going to go with this. Are they going to do an Apple and kill off X86/AMD64 support entirely? Or are they going to go for the, much more expensive to support, hybrid approach of supporting both architectures?

 

I think it will provide great competition for Intel.

 

But arm in my opinion suits mobile devices rather than desktops really.

 

Will be interesting to see how it goes. The fight is on

[dmj]

But arm in my opinion suits mobile devices rather than desktops really.

 

I don't think there will be much distinction in the future.

Google are already experimenting with running chromeos ontop of android so you can just plug your phone into your monitor/keyboard, and I can see us being able to plug them into bare-bones laptops soon.

(It's why I believe the Govt is very short sighted banning phones in schools when it is the obvious route to driving tech, they should be providing ways to make it work, but that's another debate.)

 

Also the server market is rapidly growing with ARM, and 99% of linux stuff works fine (which is the vast majority of servers).

[localzuk]

But arm in my opinion suits mobile devices rather than desktops really.

I'm not so sure. Apple has gone all in on desktop Arm, I suspect Microsoft will as well.

[RobFuller]

I’ve been using a Microsoft Surface X with an SQ2 ARM CPU for many years. It’s certainly ready for prime time in mainstream PC use cases and performance from ARM native apps has improved and improved. Happily running legacy apps within issue. Edited May 24, 2024 by RobFuller

[flyinghaggis]

I guess the ARM chip is particularly well suited to mobile use given the battery life, low power usage, performance and the compact form factor of the SOC design.

 

However, I could see it potentially ushering in a new era of USFF mini PC's! The Qualcomm devkit looks pretty cool actually and has decent specs (Snapdragon X Elite, 32Gb RAM, 512Gb SSD, Wifi 7 / etc)

 

https://www.qualcomm.com/news/releases/2024/05/qualcomm-accelerates-development-for-copilot--pcs-with-snapdrago

 

It's a little bit expensive at the moment but I can imagine in a year or two we'll see similar spec USFF and laptops available for sub £500 at which point it could make a lot of sense if the compatibility works as advertised.

Edited May 24, 2024 by flyinghaggis

[supportman]

I guess the ARM chip is particularly well suited to mobile use given the battery life, low power usage, performance and the compact form factor of the SOC design.

 

However, I could see it potentially ushering in a new era of USFF mini PC's! The Qualcomm devkit looks pretty cool actually and has decent specs (Snapdragon X Elite, 32Gb RAM, 512Gb SSD, Wifi 7 / etc)

 

https://www.qualcomm.com/news/releases/2024/05/qualcomm-accelerates-development-for-copilot--pcs-with-snapdrago

 

It's a little bit expensive at the moment but I can imagine in a year or two we'll see similar spec USFF and laptops available for sub £500 at which point it could make a lot of sense if the compatibility works as advertised.

 

Looks like a very powerful little machine in a nice form factor.

 

Very much like the Apple Mac mini I guess.