What will signal that level of competence?

ARM chips have already overtaken the Duron/Centrino/Atom class of chips, the new A6x from Apple are knocking around about the Athelon levels now as far as what they can do and how fast they can do it.

Remember these are 32 bit chipsets because their operating world is RISC (reduced instruction set computing) and that stuff runs very quickly & efficiently executing fast simple 32 bit instructions.

Increasing the chip I/O to 64 bit isn't going to do anything immediately for Android or Linux related software as most of that is 32 bit structure right now and that isn't going to change unless there is some advantage to changing it.   The first 64 bit ARM chips are LIKELY to be not much faster than the last generation of 32 bit ARM chips, simply because the code they execute isn't going to be much of anything different.

Unless you cheat a bit and multi-thread two simultaneous 32 bit instructions on your 64 bit ARM chip, effectively doubling your core count and execution speed per core.    Your double core effectively becomes quadcore and your quad core effectively becomes octicore.

Linux took like 3-5 years to get a mass of 64 bit software written, and it is still commented that the old 32 bit software will still run on an old 32 bit machine just about as fast as the new 64 bit version runs on a new machine.

Case in point -- I have an old XP machine that will execute Office 97 software (this was the last 32 bit operating system and last 32 bit Office, BTW) just as fast as a 10 year younger dual core 64 bit Win7 machine will execute Office 2007.   Faster, actually if you compare Explorer 7 on the old machine to Explorer 9 on the new one .....  (yeah, Microsoft and Intel examples of software bloat, I know)

Software bloat in 64 bit land is real and it does eat up all that extra faster memory and processor cycles.    And the work doesn't get done all that much faster accordingly.


========


Hey, how ARE you going to judge when the ARM stuff is "good enough"?

When Apple and Android can do stuff on ARM that Microsoft can't even when run on the latest greatest Intel processor with a just released this week operating system?



(watch out, that question is loaded .......)

I love that answer !!!   It was an ANSWER !!!!


Yup, and CAD guys will probably look to find their favorite flavor of CAD to be able to run on the year 2015 Whatzit at least half again faster than their old stuff.

I'm easy, Athelon 64 at 1.2 gigahertz (clocked down by HP to 1.0 gigahertz output for cooling and reliability reasons).

I can go double the speed of what I got fairly easily fairly soon for about $100 invested, so I am "roll, roll, roll in ze hay" with Terri Garr for all my future computing needs ....  run it on a small phone charger or off a powered USB hub for a power supply.

Oldfeller--FSO wrote on 10/24/12 at 23:37:33:


That is something I definitely didn't want to hear right now.  I despise Intel as their pricing structure is way to high for what you get.  With what I do my AMD counterparts consistently out perform the I7 chips by a good margin.  I'm not much of a gamer which is where the I7 chips really shine over the AMD's in performance compared to the AMD FX line.  If I could afford it I would have already gotten a quad socket G34 board loaded with the AMD 16 core chips for my development and trans-coding machine but alas I'm not made of money nor do I have one of those money trees growing in my yard  :'(

Google rolls out the good stuff ..... dual core A-15 with Mali 604 graphics.

This is 43 nanometer lithograph stuff at 1.7 gigahertz -- it will get better in the spring with 28 nanometer lithography and 2 gigahertz processor speeds and then by next Christmas season the barn door will be open to BIG-little and the quad core stuff.  

Google NOW will get more advanced and  the 6 inch phone/tablet will become more compelling as a "carry with you" personal assistant.

 
They recently upgraded the Raspberry Pi by doubling the systems memory to 512 and overclocking the processor to 1 gigahertz and coming out with drivers to allow using the GPU as a processing resource with full floating point "hard float".

Net result is it doesn't molasses on you so much any more.  It is still SLOW when compared to modern phones and tablets as it is ARMv7 instead of ARMv8 (which is the oldest arm that say Ubuntu supports).  

Buy a Pi and Raspian is all you will ever get for a Linux (Debian with Raspberry Pi customizations).

However the huge fan base and many customizations make the device a good trick for a media center.   The processor is the exact same processor used in the Roku lite box, so it can get the job done, but not killing fast.

Raspian Linux is pretty much cooked now and it will get ongoing support and customization.

The folks at RasberryPi will not talk about future models  (tends to kill off the current model if you do that) but there are a world of dual core $4-$7 processors out there that make the $3 processor they are using now look like a stone slug.

They are also NOT INTERESTED in latest/greatest at all, but want a stable system to allow schools to buy into it for a period of some years at a very low purchase price.  They would add a feature or drop the price rather than modernize the base chipset.

Here is a better unit at the same price, with somewhat similar Linux support.  (don't forget you have to buy a base OS SD card and a power supply and the cables with the Raspberry Pi and all that stuff comes with this bad boy)

http://www.ebay.com/itm/MK802-Android-4-0-TV-BOX-Allwinner-1-5GHZ-A10-1GB-DDR...

Just be aware that these sticks tend to change and modernize as soon as a Chinese chip maker puts out a better chip and also be aware that not all Chinese chips have any sort of Linux support from their vendors.  The MK 802 does have a lot of support though as they all use Allwinner's A10 chipset and Miniand forums hold all the needed Linux support for that chipset you can get.

https://www.miniand.com/         gotta like that hackberry board for all the extras like wifi and cat5 and such

Raspberry Pi has more support right now and better software and more programming stuff for it though by a factor of 10.  

This will change soon when Linux kernel 3.77 comes out, then Linaro will have built-in support for all the new ARM chipsets and their Mali graphics systems baked right into the Linux kernel.   Supported from the get go, native.

The Pi won't have this as it falls well before the v8 cut off as a "modern system".   Next year the Pi falls back into Linux obscurity so to speak.

The new ARM stuff will have a world of OS systems available to it, including that semi-aborted Windows 8 RT garbage.

And remember, all the neat new Nexus products from Google have the new A-15 super chip in them and the new Mali 604 graphics, and you can put Ubuntu and Chrome OS on them as we speak.

Notice also that the new Android is pretty neat and is shaping up as a real keeper as a consumption tool.   Dual booting your tablet with a full Linux OS is here now too, so you can have the best of both worlds if you want it.

Figures,   I finally get the money into my account and they are out of stock on the Hackberry units  :'(

I never understood how Intel has survived as long as it has with their over pricing but going so far to now not support anything but MicroSuck, they might as well close up shop.