Nvidia begins developing Arm-based PC chips in challenge to Intel

And Nvidia is even using a standard connector for their existing ARM SoC modules.

With full pinouts and such available under their developer program for custom hardware integration.
 
This is interesting solely for the fact that Nvidia has the resources to actually make a splash if they fully commit.

But after seeing one ARM-ambition after another fizzle out, I'm not actually expecting much meaningful result here either.
 
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I'll believe it when I see it. Otherwise, I suspect this will likely just result in seeing more arm Windows Tablets/Laptops that we have already seen an uptick in.

*late edit*
Which btw, I'm totally for. Bring on more Windows on ARM
 
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The original article:
https://www.reuters.com/technology/...c-chips-major-new-challenge-intel-2023-10-23/
Nvidia has quietly begun designing central processing units (CPUs) that would run Microsoft’s (MSFT.O) Windows operating system and use technology from Arm Holdings(O9Ty.F), , two people familiar with the matter told Reuters.... Microsoft's plans take aim at Apple, which has nearly doubled its market share in the three years since releasing its own Arm-based chips in-house for its Mac computers, according to preliminary third-quarter data from research firm IDC.
....
Nvidia and AMD could sell PC chips as soon as 2025, one of the people familiar with the matter said.

Seem to be about Microsoft exclusive deal to use only Qualcomm for their ARM Chips that end next year that create talks, I imagine the surface tablet-laptop, voltera and other already on arm product would be what would be in the air for 2024 and possibly the next Xbox, I imagine you want to know a year or 2 before launch.
 
TrunksZero said:
I'll believe it when I see it. Otherwise, I suspect this will likely just result in seeing more arm Windows Tablets/Laptops that we have already seen an uptick in.
Click to expand...
At least Nvidia already has a widely adopted ARM architecture, with good OS support from Linux and ChromeOS too, Windows ARM is also coming along very nicely. And last I checked Microsoft ARM64ec support was coming but no ETA for the Jetson platform.
 
LukeTbk said:
The original article:
https://www.reuters.com/technology/...c-chips-major-new-challenge-intel-2023-10-23/
Nvidia has quietly begun designing central processing units (CPUs) that would run Microsoft’s (MSFT.O) Windows operating system and use technology from Arm Holdings(O9Ty.F), , two people familiar with the matter told Reuters.... Microsoft's plans take aim at Apple, which has nearly doubled its market share in the three years since releasing its own Arm-based chips in-house for its Mac computers, according to preliminary third-quarter data from research firm IDC.
....
Nvidia and AMD could sell PC chips as soon as 2025, one of the people familiar with the matter said.

Seem to be about Microsoft exclusive deal to use only Qualcomm for their ARM Chips that end next year that create talks, I imagine the surface tablet-laptop, voltera and other already on arm product would be what would be in the air for 2024 and possibly the next Xbox, I imagine you want to know a year or 2 before launch.
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Yes Nvidia has been working with MediaTek for “high end” ARM SoC’s.
https://www.hwcooling.net/en/geforce-in-arm-processors-mediatek-socs-will-use-nvidia-gpus/?amp=1
 
I have no idea if I'll like it (what will be the selling points and caveats specific to Nvidia's platform) or if it will work out or not for them in the end, but it will be neat to see them try and see what comes of it 👍
 
staknhalo said:
what will be the selling points and caveats specific to Nvidia's platform
Click to expand...
Have no idea, the article talk about the focus on inference AI solution on the next generation of Laptops that microsoft seem to have a lot of interest in, but not that obvious how much the Nvidia-AMD ARM chips would be different than others.

Could be in a gpu-cpu SOC a la Apple type of approach where the gap AMD-Nvidia will have with the Qualcomm type of competition could be an interesting one.
 
Keljian said:
I mean.. they have been talking about doing this for nearly 10 years, and there is the jetson and the grace.

They also mention AMD is looking at ARM - and yeah they have also been looking at ARM for a long time, ryzen was supposed to have an ARM version too
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K12 was supposed to be ARM, right? Then it was unceremoniously canceled.

I think the biggest problem with x86 is not a technical one. Intel has proven they can make low power x86 chips. heck I had a smartphone with an Intel x86 chip in it (Asus Zenfone), and it did not really suffer battery or performance-wise compared to other smartphones of the era.

The biggest problem holding x86 back is the proprietary nature of its design, preventing free competition in the PC market.

ARM might be a step forward in this regard. At least anyone can license it from ARM Holdings (unless things change there, which they almost did with the attempted Nvidia takeover)

Instead of ARM, I wish the industry would move to a royalty free instruction set with no IP claims by any entity, allowing anyone who wants to enter the playing field with their own architecture sharing the compatible open instruction set.

Knowing Nvidia they are just looking for a way to proprietarize things to create lock-ins, lock-outs and otherwise sabotage the industry for their own gain. That's all that steaming pile of shit of a company ever seems to do.
 
Centauri said:
This is interesting solely for the fact that Nvidia has the resources to actually make a splash if they fully commit.

But after seeing one ARM-ambition after another fizzle out, I'm not actually expecting much meaningful result here either.
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And Intel will never have a fab that's smaller/better than 10nm...
 
giphy (2).gif
 
I'm interested to see how this goes. NV has a long history of making ARM CPUs for Tegra with adapted off-the-shelf ARM IP but to compete with high-performance desktop CPUs they'll need more than some A78 cores slapped together.
AMD only ever released low-end ARM server parts based on A53, but the canceled K12 project sounded interesting- IIRC it was to be a custom ARM core sharing architectural elements (and even a socket) with the Zen architecture. If AMD has continued to develop ARM behind the scenes I could see them really coming out swinging here.

Or maybe NV and AMD will just release some mediocre mobile ARM chips and nothing will change. We'll see!
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
K12 was supposed to be ARM, right? Then it was unceremoniously canceled.

The biggest problem holding x86 back is the proprietary nature of its design, preventing free competition in the PC market.

ARM might be a step forward in this regard. At least anyone can license it from ARM Holdings (unless things change there, which they almost did with the attempted Nvidia takeover)

Instead of ARM, I wish the industry would move to a royalty free instruction set with no IP claims by any entity, allowing anyone who wants to enter the playing field with their own architecture sharing the compatible open instruction set.
Click to expand...

RISC-V offers that promise - however it's open source nature is a problem for proprietary IP. You can't just (easily) take something "royalty free" and turn it into a commercial product, and no capitalist company (ie. a for profit company, and some NFP) is going to just go royalty free - it's commercially unviable.

Take X (free solution) and you can't let company Z create something with it without making a profit from it. In an "ideal world" Nvidia's architecture, etc would be open for anyone to improve on, it's not. Same goes for x86/64 (intel/AMD)

It's not that it's impossible, it's just a path of more resistance (see CentOS for example), and takes longer to profit from, so is less likely to get investment.
 
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This gets a solid meh out of me. Honestly Windows ARM isn't what most people want to be working on, and if Linux would get its act together, this would be the time to actually take market-share.

I guess the only one that could make it happen is Valve.
 
NattyKathy said:
I'm interested to see how this goes. NV has a long history of making ARM CPUs for Tegra with adapted off-the-shelf ARM IP but to compete with high-performance desktop CPUs they'll need more than some A78 cores slapped together.
AMD only ever released low-end ARM server parts based on A53, but the canceled K12 project sounded interesting- IIRC it was to be a custom ARM core sharing architectural elements (and even a socket) with the Zen architecture. If AMD has continued to develop ARM behind the scenes I could see them really coming out swinging here.

Or maybe NV and AMD will just release some mediocre mobile ARM chips and nothing will change. We'll see!
Click to expand...
I think that’s why Nvidia has partnered with MediaTek, MediaTek handles the ARM, Nvidia the GPU and AI together they make something awesome. Like what Samsung and AMD were trying to do but hopefully better
 
If Microsoft gets cozy with Nvidia on PC I wonder if XBOX is then on the table - XBOX Arm chip plans already one of a few possible pipelines there right?

thanos-avengers-infinity-war.gif
 
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staknhalo said:
If Microsoft gets cozy with Nvidia on PC I wonder if XBOX is then on the table - XBOX Arm chip plans already one of a few possible pipelines there right?
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I really doubt it, considering the history Microsoft has had with Nvidia in the past with the original Xbox. The other problem is that AMD's x86 is not bad in terms of performance and power consumption. Plus, AMD's x86 will likely continue to retain backwards compatibility with previous console games. If Microsoft went ARM with the next Xbox, it probably wouldn't be with Nvidia either. Microsoft was planning to make their own ARM based chips anyway.
 
DukenukemX said:
I really doubt it, considering the history Microsoft has had with Nvidia in the past with the original Xbox. The other problem is that AMD's x86 is not bad in terms of performance and power consumption. Plus, AMD's x86 will likely continue to retain backwards compatibility with previous console games. If Microsoft went ARM with the next Xbox, it probably wouldn't be with Nvidia either. Microsoft was planning to make their own ARM based chips anyway.
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We’ll see

Think realistically - was/is AMD gonna be the last console chip provider for both console companies and for all remaining consoles for all time?

Microsoft might be working with Nvidia to customize and tailor their design more for Xbox, the same way they did with AMD and AMD chips in Xbox

There’s certainly a window opening for it
 
staknhalo said:
was/is AMD gonna be the last console chip provider for both console companies and for all remaining consoles for all time?
Click to expand...
There is at least 3 console companies and no AMD will not be the last console chip provider for all of them for all time.

staknhalo said:
Microsoft might be working with Nvidia to customize and tailor their design more for Xbox
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If they go ARM could still be AMD, a classic X86soc could be hard to beat the retro compatibility being something people expect now (depending how good emulator and how much powerful chip are obviously but we can doubt that it would be feasible, lot of game would maybe just make a new build but there would be lost).

You probably want to look around and talk to help negotiate price.

DukenukemX said:
Microsoft was planning to make their own ARM based chips anyway.
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Not going AMD-Nvidia for the GPU section of it would be quite something.
 
LukeTbk said:
If they go ARM could still be AMD, a classic X86soc could be hard to beat the retro compatibility being something people expect now (depending how good emulator and how much powerful chip are obviously but we can doubt that it would be feasible, lot of game would maybe just make a new build but there would be lost).
Click to expand...

If Microsoft got a Xbox 360 entirely running in SW emulation on Jaguar x86 cores I wouldn’t think it impossible for Microsoft to at least get Xbox One X Jaguar cores running in HW assisted emulation on a powerful enough Arm chip - SW in/from the right hands is pretty amazing - no matter who the ARM chip is from
 
Xbox one was about 4 time the power of an x360 according to google, if there is a similar jump from the XboxX than yes, we can imagine enough room for it to work even with 50%-66% translation lost, but hardware does not necessarily always get faster as much, this gen cpu are quite good.
 
staknhalo said:
Microsoft might be working with Nvidia to customize and tailor their design more for Xbox, the same way they did with AMD and AMD chips in Xbox
Click to expand...
The leaked 2022 plans had MS going either all AMD or custom ARM with radeon licensing.
At that time MS wouldn't have known about zen 4c/5c/6c?. So I guess x86 (AMD) are safe for atleast 1 more gen of xbox
 
Marees said:
The leaked 2022 plans had MS going either all AMD or custom ARM with radeon licensing.
At that time MS wouldn't have known about zen 4c/5c/6c?. So I guess x86 (AMD) are safe for atleast 1 more gen of xbox
Click to expand...
Microsoft has also been putting a fair amount of resources into their ARM to x86 translation layer
 
Marees said:
The leaked 2022 plans had MS going either all AMD or custom ARM with radeon licensing.
At that time MS wouldn't have known about zen 4c/5c/6c?. So I guess x86 (AMD) are safe for atleast 1 more gen of xbox
Click to expand...

In 50/50 on them being safe the next console gen myself

Gaming has changed so much with ray tracing and upscale and AI of late, and Microsoft wants to get back on top in consoles and not come in 2nd place to Sony yet again, it wouldn’t be unimaginable for them to make a last minute/desperate/radical/substantial change they feel might get them on top next gen

But things might also be too set in stone at this point

We just gotta wait and see 👍
 
Centauri said:
This is interesting solely for the fact that Nvidia has the resources to actually make a splash if they fully commit.

But after seeing one ARM-ambition after another fizzle out, I'm not actually expecting much meaningful result here either.
Click to expand...
If Apple can do it, why can't Nvidia, AMD and Intel do it? They'll just 'copy each other' and implement their 'own version' eventually? Aren't ARM processors/tech easier and less costly to manufacture (too)?
If there is any progress in all this, is it a good or bad thing?
 
pavel said:
If Apple can do it, why can't Nvidia, AMD and Intel do it? They'll just 'copy each other' and implement their 'own version' eventually? Aren't ARM processors/tech easier and less costly to manufacture (too)?
If there is any progress in all this, is it a good or bad thing?
Click to expand...
Easier to a degree because of how small they are and how few legacy instruction sets they need to include, build an ARM CPU the size of most x86 ones, and the difficulty increases accordingly.
 
pavel said:
If Apple can do it, why can't Nvidia, AMD and Intel do it? They'll just 'copy each other' and implement their 'own version' eventually? Aren't ARM processors/tech easier and less costly to manufacture (too)?
If there is any progress in all this, is it a good or bad thing?
Click to expand...
Easier said than done. Apple is still at least 2 gens ahead of anyone else when it comes to ARM development for mobile or desktop use. Qualcomm has more or less had to accept the black-eye of being up to 70% slower than Apple ARM at any given time. Qualcomm's ARM chips for Windows 10/11 PC's were/are also laughably bad in comparison. Apple is creating machines that at least rival Intel/AMD in perf per watt (not yet in absolute performance, but they lead somewhere is the point). You actively have to want to use Windows + ARM and choose to have a worse experience that doesn't support any Windows legacy stuff (as in, the entire compendium of x86 code) to for some reason buy those machines.

It would take a massive investment in processor engineering to even start to catch up. AND a lot of integration between hardware and software. Those two areas Apple excels in and coincidentally Microsoft has done very poorly in. nVidia generally does well with hardware/software integrations, so they have a shot here, provided they have engineers that can do processor design and not just GPU design.
 
UnknownSouljer said:
Easier said than done. Apple is still at least 2 gens ahead of anyone else when it comes to ARM development for mobile or desktop use. Qualcomm has more or less had to accept the black-eye of being up to 70% slower than Apple ARM at any given time. Qualcomm's ARM chips for Windows 10/11 PC's were/are also laughably bad in comparison. Apple is creating machines that at least rival Intel/AMD in perf per watt (not yet in absolute performance, but they lead somewhere is the point). You actively have to want to use Windows + ARM and choose to have a worse experience that doesn't support any Windows legacy stuff (as in, the entire compendium of x86 code) to for some reason buy those machines.

It would take a massive investment in processor engineering to even start to catch up. AND a lot of integration between hardware and software. Those two areas Apple excels in and coincidentally Microsoft has done very poorly in. nVidia generally does well with hardware/software integrations, so they have a shot here, provided they have engineers that can do processor design and not just GPU design.
Click to expand...

Plus Apple Microsoft and now Nvidia all have enough money to fight each other like King Kong vs Godzilla vs MechaGodzilla
 
pavel said:
If Apple can do it, why can't Nvidia, AMD and Intel do it?
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You assuming that it hasn't been done. AMD's new Ryzen chips have already matched Apple in power efficiency and performance, while Intel is still working on Meteor Lake. At this point, I don't have much faith in Meteor Lake since Intel delayed it.
UnknownSouljer said:
Easier said than done. Apple is still at least 2 gens ahead of anyone else when it comes to ARM development for mobile or desktop use. Qualcomm has more or less had to accept the black-eye of being up to 70% slower than Apple ARM at any given time. Qualcomm's ARM chips for Windows 10/11 PC's were/are also laughably bad in comparison.
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Until now. Qualcomm just released their Snapdragon Elite X.
https://www.windowscentral.com/hard...pdragon-x-elite-arms-race-for-windows-laptops
 
uOpt said:
Not in idle power.
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That is probably due to AMD's use of chiplet design. Even Intel uses less idle power than AMD. As the article states, Zen4 Phoenix is ideally as efficient as Apple. According to Level1techs, AMD may have already solved the power consumption caused by their chiplet design, so their future chips will probably be better at this. Also, Intel ain't that bad right now, when it comes to power efficiency.
https://www.notebookcheck.net/AMD-R...s-ideally-as-efficient-as-Apple.713395.0.html
csm_idle_7940hs_7735hs_13700h_ec3da7c02d.jpg
 
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