[SA] Apple to move to ARM

[Lanek]

It depends what I'd be doing with the box with that CPU in it. A core 2 with 4gb of memory has been enough for a while now. I can't tell the difference between my laptop with those specs and my quad/hex desktops backed with 8/12gb memory most of the time. For things like office, the internet, streaming video, email, there is no difference at all. Now if I fire up solid works, or a serious game, yeah, it's night and day. But for most people they aren't going to do that.

If apple can get an arm chip that works just fine for standard desktop apps, shoe horn some iOS functionality into it, add touch screen functionality to the OS, have a great form factor, and get amazing battery life I think they'd have a winner.

A lot of people are guilty of looking at portable improvements as "moar powah" but I'm not sold that's what most people want. Look at how well the ipad is doing and how ultra portables are the segment everybody wants.

Im right with the fact most user will not see the difference in a laptop ( i say laptop, so internet browsing etc ), with a dual core 2 duo inside or a quadcore I7, it's not as Facebook will be displayed faster ....

But what is exactly the computing power of an ARM A9 dual core right now compared to actual dualcore ? 25% ? 35% ?

It will be like Apple ( it can be anyone, as Dell or HP etc ) who will use CPU with a computing power equal of what we had in the 2000 ? i don´t think.

[Manicdan]

Im right with the fact most user will not see the difference in a laptop ( i say laptop, so internet browsing etc ), with a dual core 2 duo inside or a quadcore I7, it's not as Facebook will be displayed faster ....

But what is exactly the computing power of an ARM A9 dual core right now compared to actual dualcore ? 25% ? 35% ?

It will be like Apple ( it can be anyone, as Dell or HP etc ) who will use CPU with a computing power equal of what we had in the 2000 ? i don´t think.

this is true

i did notice that for my home PC, when i forced it to use the x4 multiplier, it took noticeably longer for bootup (ssd might be cpu limited then). but overall it felt normal, because most things i do outside of gaming runs it at idle speed. even watching high quality youtube (lol at that oxymoron), the cpu is idling around 5%, and the gpu is even idling, because of the hardware features that are optimized for it take over.

honestly, a full working PC off ARM is probably not nearly as scary as people think. the next HTC Evo is coming out soon, supposedly with 2x 1200mhz, lets compare that to my old 90mhz intel desktop tower i have in the basement.

[Tenknics]

I am by no means saying its going to happen or that this rumor is true, but judging by the vast majority of your responses it seems like none of you read the actual article and instead are basing your replies solely off the articles title.

If you were to read the article you'd find out this isn't anything happening in the near future. He suggests at the soonest 2-3 years, 2013 at the soonest. You also forget that Apple bought PI semi last year and then started designing their own chips around ARM designs (A4 and A5 chips in the iphone and ipad are based on Cortex A9). By 2013, nvidia's projects denver will be out, arm's own multi-core solutions+gpu will be out (4-8 cores) and all of which will be fully 64-bit. Its not out of the question that Apple would like to start designing their own chips (A7/A8 maybe) for their laptops/iMacs. Apple is known for this kind of stuff.

Charlie raises a good point. Apple has split product lines before with Core 2 duo laptops and nehalem towers. What prevents them from doing this again with their own A# chips (arm) in laptops/tablets/phones for the general masses and keeping high end intel chips in their towers for the professional/power users?

Not an Apple fanboy, or saying this is true, but its still very possible given the facts..At least in my opinion.

[Russian]

I think Project Denver will make this possible, but it don't forsee it until 2013/2014... which gives Intel quite a bit of time.

[turbox997]

If anything Apple will probably start a new line of laptops/tablets that feature an ARM CPU.... sort of like what we are seeing with the Xoom and Transformer tablets that are "convertable" to laptops yet they have touch screens.

I could easily see a line of Macbook air's(or notebooks of that size, super thin and lightweight) exclusively using ARM CPU's. It's what I have been essentially waiting for with Android notebooks..something to compete with the Macbook Air but would be Android based(or anything using ARM and being thin and light while not costing so much due to the Apple mark up).