Intel 'Petitioned Microsoft Heavily' Not To Choose ARM For Surface Go, Report Says (theverge.com) 81
Microsoft launched its new Surface Go device earlier this month with an Intel Pentium Gold processor inside. It's been one of the main focus points for discussions around performance and mobility for this 10-inch Surface, and lots of people have wondered why Microsoft didn't opt for Qualcomm's Snapdragon processors and Windows on ARM. The Verge: Paul Thurrott reports that Microsoft wanted to use an ARM processor for the Surface Go, but that Intel intervened. Intel reportedly "petitioned Microsoft heavily" to use its Pentium Gold processors instead of ARM ones. It's not clear why Microsoft didn't push ahead with its ARM plans for Surface Go, but in my own experience the latest Snapdragon chips simply don't have the performance and compatibility to match Intel on laptops just yet.
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What did they do, threaten to bork all future Windows releases? Surely Intel needs M$ more than M$ needs Intel?
Im sure a few vendors pushed (Score:1)
Im sure AMD was in the mix too, in the end Micorsoft picked what they felt is the best for a product that missed the boat.
Re: Im sure a few vendors pushed (Score:2)
4415Y is not an off the shelf chip.
That kaby lake pentium gold is a garbage chip that is outperformed by atom bases pentium silver.
The story behind its creation is Intel purpose manufacturing it for Microsoft for almost free to prevent them switching to ARM
Appearances matter more to them than facts. (Score:5, Interesting)
They don't care whether the ARM chips would have been better or not. Letting Microsoft choose ARM chips would be an admission of defeat. It's more important to Intel that Microsoft keep up appearances by choosing an Intel-designed chip than it is for the chip to actually be a good choice.
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they would not have been better and it does matter. ARM is low performance chip in the here and now
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Throw enough cores and enough high-performance storage in there and enough RAM to avoid task swapping and it doesn't matter for most tasks. Unfortunately everyone seems to skimp on the storage device, and almost everyone skimps on the RAM.
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Throw enough clock speed and cores at it, and even Windows seems not so slow.
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I had one of the older low cost surfaces when ATOM was still supported. My coworker laughed and made fun of me. However, his screen was so dark you couldn't read it on his to conserve power and by 3pm his battery was dead. Mine stayed up and still had 50% life at 5pm.
ARM has similiar power advantages if all you do is type things in Office, browse the web, and watch Netflix. I miss ATOM as I am sure this Pentium gold sucks and uses more power.
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My use case was to check email, browse the web, and do wireshark port scans with a USB ethernet dongle and putting them in excel to export.
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Wireshark is abnormal. Most users do not need to run that and need Office to do stuff in which the Android and IOS versions suck and are more just readers with a few basic functions.
If it is down to 6w which is close to the Atom then I am relieved as it fits my use case perfectly. I have my own i7 4770K OCed to 4.4 ghz to run Visual Studio and Virtual Machines at home :-).
But most things like Workday, ADP, SAP, Concur, and other corporate apps that relied on shitty ancient Java and IE are going wayside for
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*hat tip*
Ain't seen you around here in a while. Almost got worried
What matters to users is software freedom. (Score:1)
Better for whom? Better for what? "Better" is vague and needs explication to understand whose perspective is being used for comparison. This story only comes up because Microsoft Windows is proprietary (nonfree, user-subjugating) software; only Microsoft can legally inspect, modify, and share that OS so only Microsoft controls on which architectures it runs. That's not in t
There is still no proper Windows ARM Ecosystem (Score:5, Informative)
Currently there are several problems with Windows 10 for ARM:
a) ARM processors (Snapdragon 835) have the same performance as an Atom chip ( https://www.techspot.com/revie... [techspot.com] )
b) There are very few Windows 10 ARM apps
c) Windows 10 ARM does not run Windows 10 x86-64 applications
d) ARM processor does not run emulate Windows 10 x86-32 applications very quickly ( https://www.techspot.com/revie... [techspot.com] )
a) / b) / d) can be solved with future ARM processors, c) can be solved in future Windows 10 versions
But I think the main problem is the price: you can have a Windows 10 ARM tablet (HP Envy X2 - https://store.hp.com/us/en/pdp... [hp.com] )... for 900 USD. Sorry,but I think it needs to be half the price (at least!)
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) ARM processors (Snapdragon 835) have the same performance as an Atom chip
What're the minimum and average selling prices of iAtom-containing devices vs 'flagship Snapdragon' (835-containing) devices?
Just wondering.
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You mean my EPYC 64 core server doesn't make gmail load faster?
Re: There is still no proper Windows ARM Ecosystem (Score:1)
Apple can scuttle their binaey compatility yet again.
We'll see if they do. There are not workstation worthy ARM chips to compete with thr iSeries parts, but Apple has nearly abandoned that market segment. If they didn't need Xcode on the Mac as their iGadget development platform, they might let the thing wither away.
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If you need a freaking ecosystem then you are a corporate user. The more expensive traditional Surface Pros with their power hungry x86 would be more appropriately.
These Surface Go's are for those who just need office and use web apps. Like the ATOM before it they have superior power management within 12 hour ranges if MS were to pick them. For kids, students, and those who want to type things and watch movies in Netflix from the appstore they are a good compromise.
Also 2012 was 6 years ago when WindowsRT a
Doesn't matter to Microsoft (Score:2)
Now that they have a horse in both races, it doesn't matter to them who wins. If Intel wins, they just continue as they are. If ARM wins, they're ready to shift their entire software base over to ARM. Windows for ARM could never sells more than a handful of copies, an
Windows 8 RT redux (Score:2)
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that can do X86 emulation at a reasonable speed
Like Transmeta?
there is no need for such a CPU
It won't be an issue as there never is such a CPU.
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In the end, the code of Windows 10--being highly x86-centric--would work better with the Pentium Go CPU, since it would need minimal code changes to run Windows 10 on the Pentium Go CPU.
What's the future? (Score:5, Insightful)
RISC-V/GNU-Linux
RISC-V/*BSD
Re: What's the future? (Score:1)
So you're saying 2018 (2019??) will be the year of the Linux-RISC-V desktop?
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Holy Crap! (Score:2)
Of course, as TFA notes squarely: "...in my own experience the latest Snapdragon chips simply don’t have the performance and compatibility to match Intel on laptops just yet. " And they still picked Intel - what a world.
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Apple's cortex is about as fast an an i5. They are catching up and SnapDragon is not the only ARM design out there.
I used to think WindowsRT was a joke a few years ago but I have been witnessing a change in corporate IT after the last recession finally unfroze IT just 2 to 3 years ago. That is much corporate shitware requiring legacy stuff is being updated to be cloud and web based. Those that are not are being hosted in Citrix sessions.
If Office, Netflix, Hulu, MS teams and the silly opensource version of
In other words... (Score:2)
Intel successfully pitched their processor against an under-powered and unsuitable alternative? That's amazing! Perhaps Microsoft deigned interest in an WEB-based design to Win a better deal from Intel?
This entire article boils down to this: Microsoft chose an Intel processor for their product over an ARM-based alternative - discuss.
It kinda makes sense (Score:2)
(Note: I have a few INTC stock, so I might be biased).
Intel is generally terrible at scaling down. I had an ASUS tablet with an Atom processor, and it was not up par with ARM competitors. ARM can just sip tiny bits of power can go for all day, while Atom was not as efficient. (That is why they exited the mobile market, and currently only have Atom chips for server platforms).
That being said, if your goal is running x86 applications it is still better to go with the native processor. Until Windows can have r
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It's too small to fig guts into.
I liked the Surface RT, I loved my Surface Pro 3... but the Surface Go is just too small for my adult hands, granted it does offer some usefulness to kids where the parents don't want to buy iPads.
What's the point of Windows on ARM anyway? (Score:2)
Big deal (Score:2)
The only ARM-class CPU that might actually outperform a halfway decent Intel CPU is Apple A11 - and they ain't licensing (well, or nobody has offered enough money).
So, it's not a completely dumb move IMO.