2024 might be the breakout year for efficient ARM chips in desktop and laptop PCs.

2024 might be the breakout year for efficient ARM chips in desktop and laptop PCs.

  • CaptObvious@literature.cafe
    3·
    11 months ago

    Hasn’t RISC been around since at least the 90s? How much more time do they really need if it’s ever going to be ready for desktops?

    • floofloof@lemmy.caEnglish
      19·
      11 months ago

      RISC-V dates from 2011. RISC processors have been around since the 1980s, and ARM processors (in all our mobile devices) are RISC processors. Apple Silicon (M1, M2, M3) is ARM-based so RISC is also in Macs, which proves it’s feasible in high-performing laptop and desktop computers. But the particular appeal of RISC-V is its open licensing.

      • CaptObvious@literature.cafe
        7·
        11 months ago

        Ah, thanks. Obviously I didn’t keep up with developments as well as I thought. I knew that Apple Silicon is Arm-based, but I didn’t realize that Arm is RISC.

        • floofloof@lemmy.caEnglish
          11·
          11 months ago

          Yeah, ARM originally stood for Advanced RISC Machines. And the company grew out of Acorn Computers, a British company that made some excellent, innovative computers in the 1980s and 90s, including the BBC Microcomputer (not RISC) and the original RISC machine, the Acorn Archimedes. (The BBC Micro was central to computer education in the UK and the Raspberry Pi is an attempt to get back to the spirit of that project. The Raspberry Pi also uses a RISC CPU.)