For as long as I can remember, Microsoft and Intel have been inseparable partners. Intel made the x86 chips that formed the heart of a PC motherboard, and Microsoft made the Windows operating system that ran on those PCs. The two brands were so well matched that industry analysts merged them into one word: Wintel.
Over the past three decades, many competitors have briefly challenged Intel for the position of the processor market leader, and most of them have a market share that is almost too small to measure. Can you name a PC built with a Via processor? The most successful challenger, AMD, has managed to achieve a market share of about 20% by attracting gamers and other performance-oriented buyers.
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But Qualcomm’s introduction of the Snapdragon X series has the potential to completely turn the tables.
In my review of the cheapest Surface Pro 11 configuration, I summed up my experience in four words: “This machine is absolutely brilliant.” I’m writing this review on the same Surface Pro 11 that I described in that article, and I have no plans to go back to my old Intel-based machine.
And lest you think I’m some kind of exception, let me highlight some of the reviews my colleagues have posted about the new generation of Snapdragon X PCs.
Zac Bowden, who reviews the Surface Laptop 7 on Windows Central, calls it “the best clamshell laptop on the market,” adding that the battery life of the top-of-the-line 15-inch model he tested was “simply phenomenal.”
At PC World, Chris Hoffman called the Lenovo Yoga Slim 7X “a showcase for Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Elite hardware.” He also highlighted the “incredible battery life” made possible by the Arm architecture.
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And on Engadget, Devindra Hardawar displayed visible relief in his review of the Surface Pro 11. Microsoft’s latest model is “the best Surface tablet ever,” he wrote, adding, “Microsoft has finally made an Arm-powered Surface tablet that I don’t want to throw out the window.”
They are all experienced, somewhat jaded critics who are not afraid to tell Microsoft when they make mistakes. And they say no such thing.
In fact, the only negative review I could find of these next-gen Windows PCs came from Wired, where Christopher Null called the Surface Pro 11 “terribly expensive” while praising the device’s “incredible battery life.”
Early benchmarks also provide strong support for Qualcomm’s hardware. Tom’s Guide published a detailed review and concluded that “the Snapdragon X Elite laptops deliver excellent performance and (potentially) solid battery life. … It’s safe to say that Qualcomm has put Apple and Intel on notice.” The only weak spot, they noted, was in the gaming department.
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If I were an Intel executive, I’d be sweating profusely. Arm-based designs are clearly superior in desktops right now, and they’re also becoming commonplace in data centers, with serious power advantages that are compelling in the age of AI. Intel can probably survive the inertia for a while, but the Snapdragon X processors are really going to expose their weaknesses in a way that hasn’t been seen on the PC side before.
If you’re thinking, “Wait a minute, I’ve seen that movie,” you’re right.
It’s the same bad breakup that happened to Intel four years ago, when Apple launched its new MacBook lines powered by M1 processors. There too, the new generation of Apple-branded Arm-based laptops won plenty of praise for battery life and performance, but some critics remained skeptical, like the folks at Macworld, who epically hesitated with their question “Should I buy an M1 Mac?”
On its website, Apple goes to great lengths to disparage the performance of these Intel-based machines. You may still be able to find an Intel-based Mac on Apple.com, but I had no luck searching.
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Apple of course had a big advantage when it decided to file for divorce from Intel. It is the only hardware vendor that runs MacOS. The PC market is much more diverse. If you tried to describe the current relationship with Wintel in social media terms, you would simply say, “It’s complicated.”
And that’s what will ultimately be Intel’s lifeline on the Windows side. Qualcomm will take a huge chunk of the market from Intel, but notoriously conservative business buyers will likely shun Qualcomm’s untested and uncertainly compatible platform. All those legacy applications designed to run on Intel hardware will be a powerful motivator for business buyers. Gamers, too, will likely stick with the old platform and its guaranteed high frame rates.
But the pressure is on Intel, that’s for sure. They haven’t had any serious competition in decades. And we haven’t even talked about what will happen when Nvidia decides to add SoCs to its GPU hegemony.
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In a Slack discussion last month, my colleague Jason Perlow predicted that x86 would never go away, but there’s no doubt that the architecture has reached the end of its productive lifespan. The question now is whether Intel has the technical chops to start innovating in Arm. Because if it can’t come up with a “Qualcomm killer” soon, then it’s over.
Ask anyone using a modern MacBook.
News Source : www.zdnet.com
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