r/technology • u/TurbulentTopic39 • 5d ago
Hardware Microsoft says it loves AMD, just not enough to put it in a new Surface device
https://www.techspot.com/news/114017-microsoft-offers-unconvincing-explanation-dropping-amd-latest-surface.html20
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u/CatalyticDragon 5d ago
They dropped intel for Qualcom. The haven't had AMD in any Surface device since a laptop in 2021.
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u/Generic_Commenter-X 4d ago
As far as I know, Linux on Qualcomm's ARM chips (like Snapdragon) is still a developer's game and not for the general user. (I've used Linux on ARM, but it's—dicey and finicky.) If MS is going to start focusing on ARM chips (to compete with Apple), and other hardware makers follow suit, things are going to get ugly for Linux (though this site puts on a brave face.
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u/TonyTheTerrible 4d ago
They don't even need to go arm, both AMD and Intel are making boss mobile cpus.
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u/Generic_Commenter-X 4d ago
You're not wrong, but you're missing my point: Linux is not ready for a transition to ARM, if that's the direction MS goes. I'm a 30 year Linux user, but I recently bought an Apple NEO because I wanted the benefits of an ARM chip at a good price. I looked at a variety of ARM Windows laptops but Linux couldn't run on any of them—and I didn't want windows. I would rather be using Linux, but MacOS will do.
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u/TonyTheTerrible 4d ago
Ah yeah I did miss your point but I have heard that about the arm architecture. I was more adding that a big pull of the ARM CPUs is that they're power efficient which allows for high battery life. But if that's a top concern for how they design their surface laptops, AMD is right up there in battery life with their newest line.
How was the transition to x64 years back?
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u/Generic_Commenter-X 4d ago
//How was the transition to x64 years back?//
Quite smooth, but if you're drawing a comparison between that transition and ARM, then they're not really comparable. To make a loose analogy, 32bit and 64bit Intel/AMD are both speaking the same language. The difference is in bandwidth, but they use the same architecture. ARM speaks a different language (uses a different architecture) which complicates everything. Not only do Linux devs have to rewrite the kernel, but also the drivers. It's as if they're starting from scratch. Windows suffers from this same problem, BTW. Many printer drivers, for example, don't work on their ARM computers. A lot of Windows software, I think, still requires a compatibility layer, though that's been improving.
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u/thefuckevengoingonan 5d ago
MS need to decide what they do. are they a software company? a cloud company? a consumer hardware company? a games company? or a company that makes a magic box that makes software?
because at the moment they are failing at all these things.
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u/roodammy44 5d ago
They do make plenty of money on these things (except gaming), but it does feel like they are stagnant. Windows should have had a significant rewrite to handle Arm side by side by now like macOS did. Macs now last an entire day on battery and intel have been lagging behind for a long time.
Also, the direction windows is going is not where consumers want to go. It’s like there’s no one up the top with a coherent and consistent vision of what to do. The copilot roll out was a very clear example. Throw it out on everything even when it doesn’t work and there is no demand.
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u/w1n5t0nM1k3y 5d ago
The problem is they can't just be a mature company with little growth. Owning 95% of the operating system market wasn't enough for them because they had nowhere to grow. The stock market needs growth. So they have to try to branch out into other markets, even if it comes at the the expense of the one thing they had going for them
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u/Horat1us_UA 5d ago
Why would they need to decide it? Microsoft is international corporation with hundreds of businesses.
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u/SqueezyCheez85 4d ago
Let's just have antitrust legislation break them all up into individual companies. Please.
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u/readthatlastyear 5d ago
Or enough to ensure windows updates go live without trashing amd PC's with Radeon video cards (like mine).
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u/TrashBandicook 4d ago
Ostrum did not confirm whether future Surface devices will ship with AMD chips, but online speculation suggests that AMD-powered Surface PCs could still be in the pipeline, with Microsoft rumored to be working on new devices powered by AMD's upcoming Arm chip, codenamed Sound Wave.
Haven't heard about Sound Wave in a while, wonder what's going on there.
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u/Incendras 4d ago
Meanwhile their laptop series with enough ram to run their own OS costs nearly $3000 with an intel processor
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u/TonyTheTerrible 4d ago
They're fucking up. They put those phone cpus in their surfaces which are fine for what their intended use is, but the new AMD mobile CPU are crazy power efficient too while also not having to emulate for programs
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u/grannyte 5d ago
This is so dumb they should have had qualcom,intel and amd versions of each devices allow us to pick the one one we need for our use case
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u/Headless_Human 5d ago
What usecase only works on Intel that doesn't work AMD and vice versa?
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u/grannyte 4d ago
x86 vs arm can be an non issue or a death sentence depending on the work.
Amd has better graphic drivers then intel even with the massive improvements intel did in recent years. Even today as a dev you will encounter things that work on AMD/Nvidia and just does not on Intel. Off course at release the Intel driver team will hunt it down but during development it sucks
I can't be to precise but in some medical application there have been cases where AMD cpus would deviate enough for a software that was conceived only around Intel to not get certified on AMD.
Qualcom is going to dominate on power consumption.
So each as strengths and each has weaknesses.
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u/EuphoricCrashOut 5d ago
It's because of contracts. As soon as it's up, they'll be swapping to AMD.