So right now we are see'ing some real innovation on the ARM platform, and many OS' are adding ARM support, but we are still see'ing AMD & Intel move slowly in the x86 world with no real significant changes in their HW just incremental changes... So do you think that we could expect a standardised socket type (like Intel has 1155 etc...) which may be usable with multiple manufacturer chips (ie: Qualcomm, Samsung, Nvidia, etc...), I could really see the Desktop PC becoming exciting again if we saw more competition in the CPU & GPU world. Its not like we haven't got the OS' out there to support us who want to build machines with the ARM architecture. So anyway, back to the question... Do you think we can expect to see ARM Motherboards with standardised sockets allowing upgradable CPU's anytime soon... Or will that be limited to devices based on this Motorola technology 'Project Ara'/Phone Blocks?....
It would be interesting to see how a ARM chip could handle every day task's. I would also like to see some ARM Mobo's and CPU's being sold for people to have a play with.
Yeah, I'm sure some may say that we already have boards like the 'Raspberry Pi' But I think it would be great to use a PCI-E 3.0 GPU with Qualcomms upcoming 64-bit Snapdragon CPU and 8GB of Ram or more and it would be nice to dual boot between Android & Ubuntu for ARM or one of the many other ARM based OS' All whilst using the same input methods that I use on my current Desktop with the same Monitor & Speakers etc.
I suspect we won't see any kind of socketable ARM stuff. It's much more preferable to manufacturer to use soldered on component and I imagine they will want to keep that model in place. They surely prefer to buy whole new SBC motherboard every year or few than simple cheap upgrades. There are some nicer SBC stuff that's more intended for use in industrial area that have lots of PC standard features like msata and mini pci-e already. What I am waiting for is some nice ARM based server type motherboards that have say 6 to 8 or so sata 3GBPS at minimum and decent gigE nics. I would like to use something like that for ultra low power storage server.
I kind of think its a shame to have to go this way really... I'd like choice... yeah in many cases integrated SOC's would be very useful, but for us enthusiasts that like to build something that perfectly suits our needs it would be great to have the option with ARM hardware too ie: a low power storage server or a gaming PC which works with modern OS' with applications better optimised for ARM, like many Android games... If we just have to hope that there will be a SOC that can offer the performance that we want/need that might be a pain... because one SOC may have better RAM, but the other may have a better CPU and I'm sure that there will be many SOC's out there (each manufacturer having a Flagship, Mid-Range & Budget solution) it would be a nightmare to find the best option... If you only needed to upgrade your CPU for perfect performance at least with a switchable CPU you could easily upgrade your CPU knowing that you won't need to research every other component first...
ARMs performance is a million miles away from the latest gen x86 processors. As a cheap box you have the rasp PI that will do for ARM stuff. Andriod / IOS games on a full desktop monitor Id rather not in truth, Angry birds is great on a bus but Id not want to play a full screen version of it. Dout this will ever happen, Like user upgradable phones this is a dream that will never be saw. Costs alone would scare away most companies. Not many ARM chip designers have the capacity for anything large scale. Or the resources to go large scale. Apple would never ever sell there designs either, Niether would Samsung. Which leaves you with tesla and qualcomms own chips, Nvidia does not have the capacity to go large scale and relys on others to manufacture for it. Qualcomm could in theory do it but when your making alot of cash off Samsung and others why would you. If the Smartphone and Tablet sector dies sometime in the future then you never know but by that time something else would of come out that will do the same job faster and more effiecient than the last piece of tech. Look at AMDs cpu struggles in the last few years, There in business because there GPUs make them cash. Rasp PI chip is none user replaceable people have tried. Also dont think google would launch andriod to the public for you to use, They have not launched it for the Rasp PI that was lauched, They have also not given Access to Amazon in its full entity.
if ARM performance is so far away from X86 - then why are the likes of APple , Facebook and Google moving over to ARM for data centres? that's right - POWER. they are cheaper to run than Intel blades.
May I say, I had a Galaxy S4 (i9500 version) coupled with the media dock (which included HDMI out & three USB inputs) and when I connected all of my PC accessories (Monitor, KB & Mouse & Speakers) some of the apps looked great (GTA3 was better on Android than Windows in some aspects). And with the device having a resolution of 1080p it was perfect for my monitor!. The only down side was that the home screen on the device and some app UI's we're designed to look good on small screens (<5 inch) with their big buttons, but most games we're great and some app's on my Android device are better than any Windows alternative and with the bigger display are perfect.
Cheaper to run is relivent to the home desktop market how harle? You gonna run crysis 3 on your latest ARM processor are you GL with that. From a power users point of view or even a gamers point of view, ARM is not currently viable to replace your AMD or Intel cpus. Wether or not 1 day it will be in every server is not really relivent. Home users have niether the space nor cooling requirements to cool such beasts. Some nice classic games have been launched on andriod and Ipad with the orginal final fantasy series 1-5 now out and gta 3 and san andres but all these games are at least a decade old now. 5 years time we might see the orginal crysis lauched. If in 10 years time ARM has took over the world of computing you can say I told you so and link us back to 2013 but as it stands I dont personally see it. As a dedicated game machine Arm is alot less capable than a Intel or AMD chip. Id like one to mess around with but thats about it. Its why I brought a Rasp PI in the first place to mess around with but it bearly runs xbmc let alone something more hard going.
I think that if you would like to leave your computer running for Remote Desktop usage it would be useful to have a low power machine for that especially if you need to access some of your home software and files ie: Office like applications (Quick Office or other alternatives) and media streaming to your HDTV would be more efficient if it was being processed on an ARM machine instead of an x86 equivalent and now ARM based solutions are capable of displaying 4K content that may be very useful going forward. Now that we are see'ing 64-bit ARM chips become available I would not be surprised if the chip designers/manufacturers could pull some real high performance out of those chips when connected to a power socket instead of a battery, and don't forget that there has been tests done before which prove that when an x86 chip is using the same amount of power(via a battery) as its ARM equivalent the ARM chip actually performs better.
since games are moving to focussing on GPU a lot more - then yes I can see maybe crisis 5 being run on AMD ARM for desktop. which makes X86 irrelevant then
Intel is not going BGA only. Perhaps they will with laptops/umd since how many people really upgrade CPU on those anyway... but not for desktop (Atom doesn't count!). Desktop will stay LGA for the foreseeable future surely. I agree ARM is highly unlikely to replace x86-64 on gaming PC or serious/high end workstations any time soon. But for office machines (not much is needed to RDP connect to VDI sessions which I see many going that way in enterprise), casual use, htpc, many server applications I can see it making big inroads in the next couple years. As sad as I am to say it, for many people simply being able to dock their tablet/smartphone to a bigger display and a keyboard for doing 'real work' is actually good enough already. In many cases I see people that have better performance in their smartphone that the PC at home which is some crusty old P4 or something sad.
This. All laptops are going BGA to make them thinner. You can shave off half a centimeter, which is a lot when you're looking at 2DP level granularity of savings to make stuff thinner/lighter. Windows would need to release a fully loaded ARM-sku (i.e. not RT) for anyone to bother making motherboards for PCs: and they would never be socketed now, it would all be for pre-builds/industrial/office/fancy AIOs. The ecosytem isn't there.
I think that the ecosystem could be there but it would require some big investment to get it moving from companies that may want it to be there ie: NVidia(I suspect as that industry is where a lot of their money comes from now with their GPU's - and they don't appear to be doing as well in the mobile device space recently... although bringing kepler to mobile could certainly change that).
No one would bother with socketed. It would need considerable B2C sales channel support, where there is currently none, and goes against the SOC makers control of the entire platform. Ultimately no matter what hardware makers want: it would need Windows support on PC. Or, perhaps Linux support for a Steambox could provide some interest, but then all the games would need to be recoded.. again. That ain't happening when there's Android out there.
I guess I will have to hope that Motorola will do well with this 'Project Ara' phone blocks tech to allow me to put together a device with a CPU, RAM & GPU of my choice... It would be nice if when I'm out and about I can switch the device off, remove the efficient HW, and put in a gaming CPU & GPU, and when I'm done put the efficient HW back...
Needs the backing of every major mobo company and nvidia and every other Arm chip manufacture. It also needs the demand to be there when it currently is not in the home market.
