Almost two full years ago, we made a video discussing how Intel lost the CPU race,
as well as how they’ll eventually lose Apple’s business when Apple transitions to ARM,
which would then be followed by other companies switching to ARM as well.
And since then, Apple has already transitioned to Apple Silicon
with their M1 chip, and Intel has already begun to lose Apple’s business, so a few months ago,
we made an updated video discussing how Apple’s M1 Macs put the last nail in Intel’s coffin.
And then two months ago, we made another video discussing how Intel is already beginning
to lose the business of other companies like Nvidia and AMD who are switching to ARM chips.
And today, this video will prove that x86 is dying sooner than you think,
and you won’t believe who’s holding the weapon this time.
To begin this story, we’ve gotta go way back to an old Ars Technica article
from way back in 2011 discussing the fate of x86.
According to Jon Stokes, it wouldn’t take much for ARM to take out x86.
He claims that “If it turns out that the ARM ecosystem can get within a factor of two
of x86 in terms of performance and performance per watt,
and if that ecosystem can keep the cost of ARM chips lower than that of x86, then ARM would
essentially do to x86 what x86 did to all of the long-forgotten architectures from back in the day.
Apparently, Intel’s x86 was able to take over
by making products that were dramatically cheaper and almost as good, and that
was enough to make x86 the most popular architecture for many years, until today.
As you all know, Apple’s new M1 chip, which is the very first Apple Silicon mac chip,
is beating every other Intel x86 chip in terms of single-core performance.
And not only that, but the M1’s performance per watt is absolutely mind-blowing
when you compare it to what Intel has to offer in both the consumer and workstation markets.
Now going back to the article, he said that it’s possible that competition in the ARM ecosystem
could get performance up to Intel’s territory, without ever beating it,
while being much cheaper due to massively higher product volumes.
Well guess what, the M1 chip in Apple’s low-end MacBooks is already outperforming
the x86 Intel chips from even the highest-end notebooks like the 16” MacBook Pro!
And on top of that, it’s also much cheaper for Apple to manufacture as well,
since they’re pushing mass production of their M1 chip to the max,
with the same exact chip going into 5 of their products, and according to analysts,
this switch alone will save Apple around 40-60% on CPU component costs, which is absolutely insane.
But the mind-blowing thing is that the M1 chip is also offering much better battery life,
like in one of our comparisons where our 16” MacBook Pro was just about
dead while the M1 was still at around 67% battery life after a 3.5 hour performance testing session!
And on top of that, we’ve recently been seeing many consumers including Windows PC
fans migrating over to the Mac just because of how good the new M1 MacBook Air and other M1 Macs are.
And the crazy thing is that Apple is just getting started,
because their M1X MacBook Pros are gonna be launching within the next couple of months,
and I personally believe that those MacBooks revolutionize the entire industry!
So in reality, that scenario for the death of x86 from that article has already been reached today,
and according to Ars Technica, the x86 PC will become a boutique,
high-performance, niche machine.. And that basically means
it’s curtains closed for Intel.. Unless of course, they jump back on the ARM bandwagon.
And at that point, if ARM vendors catch up, which Apple obviously has,
Intel would be left with two options.
One option would be to make its own mobiles, desktops,
TVs and other devices, which they obviously haven’t started doing.
So that leaves them with the second option, go back into the ARM business,
potentially even opening up their chip fabrications to produce ARM-based SOCs
from other companies, and based on what’s been happening over the past couple of months,
that’s obviously where Intel is headed, so let me explain!
A couple of months back, Intel starting an obviously desperate ad-campaign
going against Apple and their new M1 Macs, and shortly after that,
Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger revealed plans for their new Intel Foundry Services business,
where they would manufacture Apple’s and other companies’ ARM-based chips for
them, which is exactly what Ars Technica predicted way back in 2011!
This action by Intel speaks louder than words because if their x86 chips were the future,
they would’ve made plans to use those two brand new foundries to build their own x86 chips and
make more profit, but no, they’re gonna build the very ARM-based chips that led to their demise.
Now if you want more evidence of Intel eventually ditching x86, here you go!
Earlier this month, it was rumored that Intel made a $2.1 billion offer to buy out SiFive,
and if you don’t know who or what that is, you’re about to have your mind blown!
SiFive is a company established by researchers who invented the RISC-V instruction set architecture,
and they are the world’s first developer of commercial RISC-V chips.
RISC-V is basically the open-source version of ARM, so companies can make RISC-V chip designs
without having to pay a licensing fee, like Apple for example, who bought a generic ARM license
many years ago in order to make their own Apple Silicon chip designs.
And going back to SiFive, around 6 years ago, they unveiled their new business model,
which is to basically design RISC-V based chips for other companies like Intel.
So you might be asking, why would Intel try to spend
so much cash to buy this company if they can just design their own RISC-V chips?
Well, it turns out that SiFive has already been making their own high-performance chip designs
for years, like the u8-series chip, to sell to other companies who want to use it.
So if Intel buys out SiFive, they’ll basically be able to take whatever SiFive has made,
and rebrand it as a brand new Intel RISC-V based chip
to compete against Apple’s M1 and future Apple Silicon Mac chips.
And guess what just happened less than two weeks ago, SiFive
had a massive press release where they revealed Intel’s TRUE plans!
Apparently, Intels’ new Foundry Services business,
including Intels’ two brand new foundries in Arizona, will be used to manufacture SiFives’ IP.
On top of that, Intel is creating their own RISC-V development platform
using its 7nm process technology, called Horse Creek, which will combine several
of SiFive’s brand new Performance P550 cores and Intel’s own DDR and PCIe IP technology.
So yeh.. Intel literally just entered the chat to battle Apple’s M1 chip,
and to be honest, this is the best move they could’ve made.
But check out this next part because it’s by far the most telling detail.
Back in March, Intel announced their next-generation
7nm chiplets for their Meteor Lake chips,
which are gonna be their very first 7nm x86-based chips that will reach volume production in 2023.
However, Intel actually lied because their true plans were revealed in the SiFive press release.
Apparently, the brand new Horse Creek RiSC-V based silicon will be ready in 2022,
which actually makes Horse Creek Intel’s first 7nm product, and it’s not gonna be x86-based.
This basically shows that Intel is doing everything they possibly can to rush out a RISC-V
based chip as fast as possible, even putting it ahead of their own x86 chip designs, and if you’re
wondering why, you probably haven’t seen our reviews of the M1 MacBook Air, or perhaps Dave2D’s
review where he basically recommended the M1 Air over any other Windows laptop in it’s price range.
So yeh.. Intel absolutely needs to act fast and get a competing chip onto the market ASAP
or else they’re gonna lose too much market share to Apple’s M1 and M1X Macs.
But wait, it’s not just Apple,
because Nvidia’s already announced that they’re working with MediaTek
to produce an ARM-based gaming laptop with RTX graphics to compete with Intel-based laptops.
Not only that, but Microsoft has already announced that they’re designing their own ARM-based chips
for servers and Surface PCs, including laptops, to compete with Intel and Apple.
And going even further, Samsung has already announced their new ARM-based
Galaxy Book Go laptop for only $349, which uses Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 7c Gen 2 chip.
But wait.. It gets even worse for Intel, because Qualcomm just a couple of days ago
announced plans to compete with Intel and Apple Silicon chips
by creating a brand new chip that’s apparently supposed to be faster than Apple’s M1 chip.
And that’s all because earlier this year, they bought out Nuvia, which was founded by three
former Apple chip designers to basically create custom CPU core designs like Apple is currently
doing, and the reason Qualcomm bought them out was to reduce their reliance on ARM,
which is being purchased by Nvidia.
And apparently, Qualcomm will already begin selling
custom silicon Nuvia-based laptop chips in 2022.
So what we’re seeing here from all of these massive companies is a very direct and obvious
reaction to Apple’s M1 Macs, with all of them desperately ditching x86 laptop chips
as fast as they possibly can in an effort to compete with Apple Silicon as soon as next year.
So based on all of that, it’s now completely obvious why Intel themselves
are ditching their very own x86 laptop chips
and replacing them with SiFive’s RISC-V based laptop chips that will be launching in 2022.
And now the only piece of the puzzle left unanswered is the fact that the ARM version
of Windows currently SUCKS, but guess what Microsoft just announced last week?
Windows 11 on ARM will now support ARM64EC,
which is basically a new ABI that runs with native speed and is interoperable.
And to put it more simply, they’re making it easier for developers to
port their apps over to Windows 11 on ARM without having to recompile the entire app,
so Microsoft is essentially creating a version of Apple’s Rosetta 2, but for Windows 11.
And on top of that, Microsoft has announced 64-bit versions of Office
for Windows 11 on ARM, including all of their popular apps like Word and Excel.
So if you thought that Windows 11 was disappointing, like how they kept the
same old and clunky codebase, that’s because most of Microsoft’s efforts were focused on
ARM, and seeing as Microsoft themselves are planning to make their own ARM-based chips,
it basically shows that they’re also planning to ditch x86 in the future.
So with all of that said, it’s pretty obvious that all of these companies
are racing to ditch x86 in order to compete with Apple’s M1 Macs,
and the final nail in the coffin is the fact that Intel, the creators of x86, are ditching their own
chips and using SiFive’s RISC-V based designs to complete with Apple and everyone else next year,
so yeh, like the title of this video says, x86 will die sooner than you think.
Now if you completely disagree with me, go ahead and leave your comments down below, but if you
enjoyed this video, Tap Like & Subscribe for more videos like this one! Definitely check out
those two videos right there, and we’ll see you in the next one!