AMD pushes back on Arm hype, says x86 processors deliver on battery life and performance

[Skye Jacobs]

The big picture: At this year's IFA technology showcase in Berlin, AMD seized the opportunity to address an issue that has repeatedly surfaced in the chip industry: the debate over the efficiency and longevity of x86 processors versus Arm-based designs. During a media roundtable, AMD executives stated that the conventional wisdom that x86 processors fall short in power efficiency is outdated, pointing instead to recent advancements in notebook platforms powered by both AMD and Intel.

AMD's argument centered on the overall system experience rather than the processor's instruction set. The company emphasized that factors such as processor design, GPU integration, and memory architecture act together to determine power efficiency and battery life in modern devices. AMD pointed to recent x86-powered laptops running on its own Ryzen line, as well as Intel's forthcoming Lunar Lake chips, arguing that these platforms not only hold their own in terms of competitive battery life but also maintain widespread compatibility with the complete x86 software ecosystem that has been developed over decades.

The company also discussed its own internal research, revealing that it had explored moving to the Arm instruction set several years ago with the discontinued K12 project. However, AMD ultimately chose to stick with x86, citing the clear advantages of software compatibility and the continuing strength of the x86 market.

Executives at the session noted that while Arm-based PCs – now coming from Qualcomm's Snapdragon X line and the soon-to-launch offerings from Nvidia – are gaining a foothold, these chipsets are dwarfed in volume and market presence by traditional x86 designs. According to AMD, most notebooks and handheld gaming systems continue to ship with x86 processors, contradicting claims that Arm designs are the only path to efficiency.

The remarks came in response to continued coverage and industry speculation about how Arm-based CPUs, known for their role in smartphones and tablets, might upend the established dominance of x86 hardware in PCs and laptops. However, the company's position was clear at the Berlin event: battery life and efficiency in modern notebooks result from the sum of component design choices, not from the instruction set running under the hood. The company expects competition between x86 and Arm to continue, but is confident in the legacy and capabilities of its own architecture as well as those of its longtime rival Intel.

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AMD pushes back on Arm hype, says x86 processors deliver on battery life and performance

 

[Squid Surprise]

Translation: Arm might be better, but there are more x86 things so we win for compatibility.

Lets hope that doesn’t bite them in the @ss in the years to come.

 

[Theinsanegamer]

ARM processors are efficient because they are designed to do so. Those same processors simply can’t match the performance of desktop hardware. Once you design new cores to do so, then those gains disappear. ISA doesn’t make you efficient, core design does.

 

[GeoffreyA]

In essence, it comes down to ARM's instructions being fixed length, meaning that their boundaries are easy to calculate, and x86's being variable length, meaning that their lengths have to be first worked out. Historically, that was a bottleneck in x86 processors. However, according to Jim Keller, they mitigated it little by little, and most execution time is spent elsewhere. Some CPUs, such as the Athlon, even marked instruction boundaries in the cache, weakening the problem in theory. Couple this to the fact that ARM CPUs are using a micro-op cache today, to lessen decoding burden, and it suggests that there isn't a massive discrepancy in decoding cost between the two ISAs.

Another complaint is the x86 legacy "bloat." Yet since the P6 and at least K5, x86 CPUs have used a RISC-like backend, weakening that argument.

Then, Apple Silicon's considerably-wide front end suggested that x86 couldn't scale like ARM. But recent architectures, notably Lion Cove, have shown that x86 can pump up the decoders too.

 

[MTD2019]

Those who doubt ARM should spend a weekend on Apple Island.
I vastly prefer Windows GUI to macOS, its not even close, not an Apple fanboy. The Apple GUI has long seemed to me an ancient and inefficient kludge no matter how much lipstick they put on the same pig.
I admit I find computer games boring, repetitive and reeking of adolescence.
I'm typing this on a base 16gb RAM M4 macBook Air that I haven't recharged after several days of use a couple of hours a day and still has more than 50% charge.
A few X86 Windows laptops can sort of match that,
This macBook Air generated a higher Puget Sound Photoshop score than a desktop 14th gen i7 with an nVidia GPU.
No x86 laptop can even run modern image processing software without a discrete GPU and penalty in weight, heat and power eating.
X86 needs big changes or it needs to go.
If Microsoft had seeded developers to port everything to WIndows ARM then X86 would already be in the rear view mirror.

 

[Dreadcthulhu]

Those who doubt ARM should spend a weekend on Apple Island.
I vastly prefer Windows GUI to macOS, its not even close, not an Apple fanboy. The Apple GUI has long seemed to me an ancient and inefficient kludge no matter how much lipstick they put on the same pig.
I admit I find computer games boring, repetitive and reeking of adolescence.
I'm typing this on a base 16gb RAM M4 macBook Air that I haven't recharged after several days of use a couple of hours a day and still has more than 50% charge.
A few X86 Windows laptops can sort of match that,
This macBook Air generated a higher Puget Sound Photoshop score than a desktop 14th gen i7 with an nVidia GPU.
No x86 laptop can even run modern image processing software without a discrete GPU and penalty in weight, heat and power eating.
X86 needs big changes or it needs to go.
If Microsoft had seeded developers to port everything to WIndows ARM then X86 would already be in the rear view mirror.

Apple's devices getting good performance and battery life is not really due to the ARM ISA itself vs x86, but other factors. For one, their particular implementation of the ISA is just really well designed, and that M4 is chip is on a TSMC 3n process vs the TSMC 4n AMD's consumer chips are on. Two, Apple is using on-package memory, which really helps with power savings; look at the Lunar Lake laptops to see that it also really helps with battery life in the x86 world. And three, Apple controls all the hardware and operating system software going into their machines, and has done a ton of work for careful power saving optimizations. Windows is honestly just not very good at power management. You can look at some of the Legion Go benchmarks and find that SteamOS is providing much better battery life on the same hardware as the Windows version, for example.

 

[SRB]

Those who doubt ARM should spend a weekend on Apple Island.
I vastly prefer Windows GUI to macOS, its not even close, not an Apple fanboy. The Apple GUI has long seemed to me an ancient and inefficient kludge no matter how much lipstick they put on the same pig.
I admit I find computer games boring, repetitive and reeking of adolescence.
I'm typing this on a base 16gb RAM M4 macBook Air that I haven't recharged after several days of use a couple of hours a day and still has more than 50% charge.
A few X86 Windows laptops can sort of match that,
This macBook Air generated a higher Puget Sound Photoshop score than a desktop 14th gen i7 with an nVidia GPU.
No x86 laptop can even run modern image processing software without a discrete GPU and penalty in weight, heat and power eating.
X86 needs big changes or it needs to go.
If Microsoft had seeded developers to port everything to WIndows ARM then X86 would already be in the rear view mirror.

If ARM were the reason Apple was successful, then others would have had equal success with it. The biggest thing that everyone seems to either excuse or ignore is that Apple is the ONLY company since the early days (AMIGA, ATARI, etc.) that has not just a cpu, but a ton of custom support chips and 100% control of hardware and software. By using custom support chip and in house GPU, Apple can take advantage of programming functions to use specific hardware to achieve speed and efficiencies that just can't be had with the Microsoft kludge of being everything to everyone. That's also why Apple could move from 68k to PowerPC to x86 to ARM without skipping a beat. They own the whole ecosystem in a way that Microsoft and Linux just can't match without shooting itself in the foot.

That's also why ARM is having such a tough time in the PC market. Every time they turn around they run into something else that doesn't seem to work right, and they've been at it for years.

 

[Mr Majestyk]

AMD must be worried. First they double down on AI nonsense as though they can stop a bubble and now they must realise their laptop chips just aren't that efficient. The Apple M chips run rings around x86 for efficiency, in many cases it's a factor of 2 or so. At this point I'd believe Intel has a better chance of matching ARM than AMD. Panther Lake will be offer same or better power usage as Lunar Lake but with much higher performance and would put up a good fight against M4 chips. Still Apple will have M5 early next year while AMD won't have Zen 6 for at least another 12 months in mobile. Qualcomm will have next gen SoC ready soon, Nvidia will have SoC early next year too. x86 is facing stiffer competition on the mobile front.

 

[Theinsanegamer]

AMD must be worried. First they double down on AI nonsense as though they can stop a bubble and now they must realise their laptop chips just aren't that efficient. The Apple M chips run rings around x86 for efficiency, in many cases it's a factor of 2 or so. At this point I'd believe Intel has a better chance of matching ARM than AMD. Panther Lake will be offer same or better power usage as Lunar Lake but with much higher performance and would put up a good fight against M4 chips. Still Apple will have M5 early next year while AMD won't have Zen 6 for at least another 12 months in mobile. Qualcomm will have next gen SoC ready soon, Nvidia will have SoC early next year too. x86 is facing stiffer competition on the mobile front.

That efficiency only works if you remain entirely within the ecosystem, using their code, their compilers, and their special accelerators. Step outside that realm, even a tad, and watch that efficiency disappear.

Thats not efficiency, that is optimization. You could do that for any model of CPU. Dreadcthulhu and SRB already wrote up great explanations.

On PC, ARM has continued to run into the same issues: when everything is not optimized, ARM's performance and efficiency tank. AMD isnt worried, they sell every chip they can make, they are limited by TSMC. Panther lake wont do what you think it does, Lunar lake used on package memory ala M series, and intel has already confirmed that was a one off and panther lake will not continue this design.

 

[AlphaLyrae]

Those who doubt ARM should spend a weekend on Apple Island.
I vastly prefer Windows GUI to macOS, its not even close, not an Apple fanboy. The Apple GUI has long seemed to me an ancient and inefficient kludge no matter how much lipstick they put on the same pig.
I admit I find computer games boring, repetitive and reeking of adolescence.
I'm typing this on a base 16gb RAM M4 macBook Air that I haven't recharged after several days of use a couple of hours a day and still has more than 50% charge.
A few X86 Windows laptops can sort of match that,
This macBook Air generated a higher Puget Sound Photoshop score than a desktop 14th gen i7 with an nVidia GPU.
No x86 laptop can even run modern image processing software without a discrete GPU and penalty in weight, heat and power eating.
X86 needs big changes or it needs to go.
If Microsoft had seeded developers to port everything to WIndows ARM then X86 would already be in the rear view mirror.

What you're seeing is Apple's efforts in vertical integration and the amount of specially designed accelerators in hardware that Apple can leverage through their software ecosystem (including OS).

AMD, Intel, and Microsoft can get together and do something similar, but this still requires a degree of hardware abstraction through SDKs like DirectX and Vulkan, which inevitably has overhead because there will be differing hardware configurations and featuresets. Unless, of course, there's a specialized Windows for AMD hardware or Intel hardware with the majority of other hardware support pulped to slim down the OS.

Apple, with macOS, can make any specialized hardware (powerful media engines, special GPU execution fast paths and instructions, etc) immediately available to developers that can use it, like Photoshop, Lightroom, DaVinci, Blender, and any number of Apple's 1st-party apps as well. And they can do this with very little overhead because no other hardware needs to be supported other than Apple Silicon. So, imagine the power savings you can achieve when you've designed the hardware and built the software specifically for that hardware.