OFFICAL: Windows 7 will be on ARM

[dunn2953]

http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=20580

what do you guys make of this, the end of wintel?
will ARM make designs for higher powered machines?
will ARM incorperate SSE?

hello 2011 seems like you will be a good year.

[geo]

http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=20580

what do you guys make of this, the end of wintel?
will ARM make designs for higher powered machines?
will ARM incorperate SSE?

hello 2011 seems like you will be a good year.

may be when,
48 core arm desktops consuming 24 watts with each core clocking 4ghz . if MS gets.net right on armthen same code could run on either archs. add in gpu accelaration . youd have hpc workstation.

sse may not be reqd if gpu acts as an apu as well. not to mention sse is propietery tech


still lots of maybes and ifs for comfort. intel should swallow some pride and license arm imo

[Mad Pistol]

Intel's going to cling onto x86 for dear life. They're not going to let ARM take over the market that easily, and I highly doubt that they will license ARM for themselves to make new processors.

I will say this, though: I think Intel's days as the #1 CPU manufacturer are numbered.

[anubis]

(R)evolution?

[Holst]

Its not really windows7, its an ARM based OS with a windows 7 GUI
Interesting but as there will be no compatibility with x86 software I dont think that Intel need to be too worried at the moment.

I have always been a fan of ARM (I still own a Risc-PC) and ive always thought it was "better" than x86, but lack of software, compatibility and cost meant it could never compete.

[Mumak]

1. Intel was producing ARM CPUs in the past (StrongARM, PXA) but it sold the complete division to Marvell. They wanted to concentrate on x86 solely after the NetBurst debackle.
2. I'd rather blame MS for making such a heavy and resource consuming OS like Windows. There's no chance that a recompiled version of Win7 will run efficiently on ARM. On Windows CE I can build a complete image in the range of 10-30 MB which includes all necessary components ! The whole NT Kernel is too heavy and complicated to be run on ARM, CE is much lighter and offers much more customization.
3. The article says they put only Win7 GUI on top of the new OS.
4. .NET 1.0, 2.0 and 3.5 are already running on ARM

[Manicdan]

step 1, phones that have USB in that work with any mouse and keyboard
step 2, phones can output to monitors via HDMI or DP (they currently seem to only do video out, not games or the main UI or anything else)
step 3, ARM is now good enough for me to replace a computer with a phone and can challenge the x86 market

[nn_step]

1) wintel ended years ago
2) possibly but it isn't a wise plan
3) ARM will never include SSE
4) we must wait to see the results of this year.

[Mumak]

There's no reason why ARM should integrate any extension from x86 set. They can make what they want and there are already several extensions. When Intel was doing PXA they added WMMX (Wireless MMX) set.. what a nice marketing name

1) wintel ended years ago
2) possibly but it isn't a wise plan
3) ARM will never include SSE
4) we must wait to see the results of this year.

[Mumak]

And btw, Intel is the 1st one which departed from Wintel - with the lowest power architecture they have now - Moorestown, based on Lincroft. No PCI/ACPI/BIOS, a straight bootloader instead.
MS blaming Intel in this segment is just ridiculous. There will be even lower power architectures soon (Penwell core, etc). MS is the one which woke up too late and Mobile7 seems to be a fiasco.

[geo]

Its not really windows7, its an ARM based OS with a windows 7 GUI
Interesting but as there will be no compatibility with x86 software I dont think that Intel need to be too worried at the moment.

I have always been a fan of ARM (I still own a Risc-PC) and ive always thought it was "better" than x86, but lack of software, compatibility and cost meant it could never compete.

win7 + office =office pc add cloud desktops for intensive work sql server,bi and what not you wouldnt need as many x86 pcs.

[geo]

And btw, Intel is the 1st one which departed from Wintel - with the lowest power architecture they have now - Moorestown, based on Lincroft. No PCI/ACPI/BIOS, a straight bootloader instead.
MS blaming Intel in this segment is just ridiculous. There will be even lower power architectures soon (Penwell core, etc). MS is the one which woke up too late and Mobile7 seems to be a fiasco.

this. not to forget trash talking windows and being in bed with nokia on meego

[Warboy]

http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=20580

what do you guys make of this, the end of wintel?
will ARM make designs for higher powered machines?
will ARM incorperate SSE?

hello 2011 seems like you will be a good year.

That's not Windows 7, Thats Windows 8 Pre-Milestone 2 build 6.2.7867. It's only using the UI from Win7 for now.

[Dalten]

Microsoft going to ARM for lower power solutions is one thing, that makes sense because Intel's competition has been pretty bad in that space, at least so far, but just because a car has 48 engines in the form of horses doesn't mean they're more powerful than even a modern 4 cylinder engine.

Microsoft will get some form of windows to run on ARM. This will not however, in the next decade, be any kind of platform that we will actually want to game on if we can help it, or run power hungry apps. It will be interesting to watch but that's about it. Apple ditched PowerPC for a reason: Because Intel ran circles around IBM's manufacturing operations and ARM will be no exception. At the high end though, a different ISA will require so much money it isn't even funny. New video drivers (the only thing made easier is because of DirectX but it's still a new ISA), new audio drivers, network drivers, etc etc.

I think Microsoft is either making a huge mistake or they have very good information that Intel will not be able to compete with low power chips for a very long time. Probably the latter.

[zalbard]

That's not Windows 7, Thats Windows 8 Pre-Milestone 2 build 6.2.7867. It's only using the UI from Win7 for now.

And we have like 3 threads on the subject now...

[Mumak]

Yep, let's merge it to one. I suggest the topic:
"The world is changing. I feel it in the air and in the earth..."

And we have like 3 threads on the subject now...

[zalbard]

Yep, and I found a fitting image of an ARM based PC prototype:

[Mumak]

[Calmatory]

Microsoft going to ARM for lower power solutions is one thing, that makes sense because Intel's competition has been pretty bad in that space, at least so far, but just because a car has 48 engines in the form of horses doesn't mean they're more powerful than even a modern 4 cylinder engine.

Microsoft will get some form of windows to run on ARM. This will not however, in the next decade, be any kind of platform that we will actually want to game on if we can help it, or run power hungry apps. It will be interesting to watch but that's about it. Apple ditched PowerPC for a reason: Because Intel ran circles around IBM's manufacturing operations and ARM will be no exception. At the high end though, a different ISA will require so much money it isn't even funny. New video drivers (the only thing made easier is because of DirectX but it's still a new ISA), new audio drivers, network drivers, etc etc.

I think Microsoft is either making a huge mistake or they have very good information that Intel will not be able to compete with low power chips for a very long time. Probably the latter.

"Game on". Right. Get a laptop and see how x86-based implementations enjoy whoopping 7 hours of battery life.. ARM? +24 hours with ease. Yeah, even Intel can't compete with ARM. Just like Nvidia or AMD can't compete with PowerVR chips when it comes to low-power parts.

[RejZoR]

The thing is, Intel without x86 means the end of their monopoly. That's why they are sticking to it like crazy. ARM might be a good alternative but i wouldn't expect much. Except maybe installing Windows 7 ARM Edition on my phone

[geo]

CES: Intel exec: Microsoft's tablet OS too long in coming

LAS VEGAS--Intel has urged Microsoft to tailor Windows for smaller devices, to no avail, an executive from the chipmaker said at the Consumer Electronics Show.

Tom Kilroy is Intel's marketing chief.
(Credit: Intel)
"Hey, we tried to get [Microsoft] to do a tablet OS (operating system) for a long time. Us, and others like Dell," said Tom Kilroy, senior vice president and general manager of Intel's Sales and Marketing Group, speaking to CNET at an Intel function last night.
Microsoft said this week at CES that its next major release of Windows will run on power-efficient processors from ARM--an Intel rival. This "port" is expected to make Windows more suitable for tablets. It's not clear when this version of Windows will be released, however.
Though Windows 7 is being used on a number tablets already, that operating system's PC heritage makes it less than ideal, as many have attested to already.
Goldman Sachs released a research note last month critical of Microsoft's tablet strategy.
And this isn't the first time Intel has mentioned this issue, either. Intel executives have talked about this in past earnings conference calls, saying they have called on Microsoft to tweak Windows and make it more suitable for small devices like Netbooks--to no avail.
Kilroy said Intel is building Atom processors--known by the code names of Oak Trail and Moorestown--for the Android, Windows 7, and MeeGo operating systems. Oak Trail processors are more powerful--and include dual-core versions--while the single-core Moorestown chip is targeted at more power sensitive devices, he said.
He also cautioned against singling out Microsoft as the only major software company with tablet troubles. Google has had it own challenges in optimizing the Android operating system for tablets, Kilroy said. Only recently has Google begun talking about Honeycomb, the first Android OS optimized for tablets. That is due later this year.
Finally, Kilroy said Intel is rejiggering its corporate structure to devote more resources to tablets, citing as an example the newly formed Netbook and Tablet Group headed by Doug Davis.

http://ces.cnet.com/8301-32254_1-20027725-283.html

dude has a point

[mattkosem]

may be when,
48 core arm desktops consuming 24 watts with each core clocking 4ghz . if MS gets.net right on armthen same code could run on either archs. add in gpu accelaration . youd have hpc workstation.

sse may not be reqd if gpu acts as an apu as well. not to mention sse is propietery tech


still lots of maybes and ifs for comfort. intel should swallow some pride and license arm imo

What are you basing this conclusion on? It seems like ARM's performance isn't as bad as you assume it is. I don't have tons of faith in these sources, but apparently a Cortex A9 (not the cream of the crop ATM) is capable of 8000 Mips. The Atom N270 seems to deliver only 3300 Mips. These numbers are obviously from different sources and neither indicates what bench produced them, but Mips should be a fairly comparable number as long as one of them wasn't produced by some heavily optimized benchmark racing. Linpack numbers seem to be much lower on Arm as far as I can tell, but I've not seen any trustworthy sources discussing numbers on modern chips and have no idea what the state of optimization is on the arm platform.

The Arm chip cited above, if I recall correctly, also supports out of order execution. We won't see how things pan out until everything's together, but it may not be as bleak as you are indicating.

--Matt

[zalbard]

The thing is, Intel without x86 means the end of their monopoly. That's why they are sticking to it like crazy. ARM might be a good alternative but i wouldn't expect much. Except maybe installing Windows 7 ARM Edition on my phone

Intel is still huge, though. Even if x86 proves to be inferior in the long run, they can buy a license, and make a competitive product. Who knows what they're working on in their labs right now.

[RejZoR]

Makes me wonder if we'll ever see (or in a near future) out of order Atom CPU's...

[cobra_kai]

I can't imagine intel is going to lay down on this. True, they don't have a ton of experience in really low power stuff, but I am sure they are learning/looking to hire away from smaller companies. Plus they are always ahead in the fab business, which I would have to think is a huge advantage in low power applications.

That being said more competition is always a good thing, and I think ARM's position being fabless will definitely help them as they only have to compete on the design front, not the fab front as well. AMD learned that the hard way I think. Pretty interesting times ahead I think. ARM is trying to grow upwards and Intel is trying to grow downwards. . . should be fun to watch over the next decade!