Apple M1 not only ends Intel’s PC business, but also may lead to the collapse of X86

Industry insiders pointed out that Apple replaced Intel’s processor with M1 series, not only because of its sufficient performance, but also because of its low power consumption, which can effectively save power and help design a more sophisticated Mac. Boming Technology believes that M1’s excellent energy efficiency performance will not only end Intel’s PC business, but also lead to the collapse of the entire X86.
Apple M1 not only ends Intel’s PC business, but also may lead to the collapse of X86
1、 Apple M1 breaks the performance shackles of ARM
Apple’s M1 Ultra has surpassed Intel’s 12-generation i9 processor in terms of performance. Although Geekbench believes that it has surpassed the latter, other performance test software data show that Intel’s i9 is better, but this is amazing enough. Compared with it, it has broken the performance shackles of ARM architecture.
The advantage of M1 Ultra is that its energy efficiency is amazing. When the performance is close to i9, the power consumption is much lower. The design power consumption of M1 Ultra is only 60W, while the power consumption of Intel’s 12th generation i9 reaches 125W. In the case of high load, the power consumption gap between the two will be even greater. What’s more, M1 Ultra has not only CPU but also GPU with excellent performance. This comparison shows that the CPU energy efficiency of M1 Ultra is much higher and more terrible.
The emergence of M1 Ultra represents that ARM architecture can not only replace Intel’s PC processor, but also point out the direction for ARM camp. ARM architecture can completely develop powerful server chips and still have the advantage of low power consumption, which may destroy Intel and AMD’s X86 PC processor and server business.
2、 Intel’s server chip advantages
Consumers are mainly exposed to Intel’s PC processors. In fact, the more important business for Intel is the server business. The server business provides most of Intel’s profits, and under the increasingly fierce competition between AMD and it, the importance of the server business is more prominent. Intel still holds more than 90% of the market share in the server chip market. If AMD’s server chips are added, the X86 architecture accounts for nearly 99% of the market share in the server chip market.
The price of X86 server chip is too expensive. In the past ten years, due to the fierce competition in the PC processor market, Intel has had to continue to reduce the price of PC processor, while in the server chip market, it has continued to increase the price. Because there is no competition, this has led to server suppliers and Internet enterprises with data centers and other complaints. However, due to the ecological advantages of X86 server chip and the lack of challengers, They still have to endure Intel’s hegemony.
In the past, several server chip companies have challenged Intel in the ARM camp. Unfortunately, most of them have become martyrs. Qualcomm also launched server chips but gave up in only one year. Now only Huawei is still sticking to it. Huawei has also successfully promoted ARM server chips in the domestic market, but its market share is quite limited.
Apple M1 not only ends Intel’s PC business, but also may lead to the collapse of X86
ARM architecture is difficult to break the monopoly of X86 server chips. On the one hand, it is an ecological problem. On the other hand, the performance of ARM server chips in the past is too weak. Now, the emergence of Apple M1 Ultra proves that ARM architecture can actually develop chips with enough performance comparable to X86, but still has enough low power consumption, which will encourage more chip enterprises to develop ARM architecture server chips.
3、 ARM architecture is expected to end Intel’s server chip business
For data centers, energy consumption has become a huge cost. According to an analysis published in 2017, China’s data centers account for 60% – 70% of the total cost of data center operation and maintenance, while the electricity used by air conditioners accounts for 40% of the total cost. The electricity used by data centers is only about 30% for calculation, and the rest of them emit heat, and a huge amount of energy has to be used to assist heat dissipation, This shows how amazing the energy wasted by the X86 server chip is.
The energy consumption of data centers is still rising, because the existing data is in the blowout stage, and the demand for data centers is soaring. The energy consumption caused by X86 server chips not only makes it difficult for enterprises to bear the huge burden of energy costs, but also causes huge carbon emissions. In order to reduce the energy consumption of data centers, various Internet enterprises have come up with a lot of tricks, such as Microsoft setting data centers on the seabed, Facebook has set up a data center in cold Sweden, which shows how hard they have made to cool the data center.
Today, the power consumption of the M1 ultra developed by Apple is only half of that of i9, and that of the server chips of Intel and AMD is one-third of that of i9, but the performance has been quite close, which provides new choices for these data center customers. ARM architecture server chips not only significantly reduce power consumption, but also greatly reduce heat generation, which will help significantly reduce the cost of air conditioning. It is expected that the energy consumption cost will be reduced by more than half while providing sufficient performance, This is enough to attract these data centers to accelerate the adoption of ARM architecture server chips.
In this way, ARM architecture will not only replace X86 in the PC processor market, but also destroy X86 in the server chip market. This terrible prospect should not be what Intel hopes to see. No wonder Intel has become interested in RISC-V since last year. Perhaps it has seen the future of X86 being completely replaced?