With Apple Silicon and Qualcomm pushing ARM-based chips, some say x86 is on its way out. But is ARM actually the future of desktop and laptop computing, or is x86 still king?
As someone who’s been in hardware development for 15+ years, I think we’re at a genuine inflection point. Apple’s transition to their own silicon has been nothing short of revolutionary - the performance-per-watt is incredible. But Intel and AMD aren’t standing still either. The real question isn’t whether ARM is “better” than x86, but whether the software ecosystem can fully transition. Most enterprise applications are deeply entrenched in x86, and recompiling/optimizing everything will take years, if not decades. I see a hybrid future for at least the next 10 years.
ARM for mobile/lightweight, x86 for heavy workloads. Simple as that.
I’ve been testing both extensively and honestly, the picture is more nuanced than most realize. ARM excels in specific workloads - particularly those that can leverage its parallelism and energy efficiency. The M3 Max in my MacBook Pro absolutely crushes video rendering while barely spinning up the fans.
BUT - and this is crucial - x86 still dominates in many specialized computing tasks, especially where legacy software compatibility matters. Try running certain CAD programs, scientific computing packages, or older enterprise software on ARM… you’ll quickly hit limitations.
The transition isn’t binary - it’s about the right tool for the right job. For consumers who mostly use browsers, office apps, and media consumption? ARM is probably the future. For specialized workstations and servers? x86 will remain relevant much longer than people think.
Lol watching the Intel fanboys try to justify their outdated architecture. ARM is destroying x86 in every benchmark that matters. The future is clearly ARM, just accept it.
The database systems I work with simply don’t run well on ARM yet. Maybe in 5 years, but not today. Our production environments will be x86 for the foreseeable future.
Both architectures will coexist, but ARM is gaining ground fast in the cloud. AWS Graviton instances are offering better price-performance ratios for many workloads. We’ve migrated about 40% of our services to ARM-based instances and seen 15-20% cost reduction with comparable or better performance. That said, some of our most computationally intensive services still run better on x86. The transition is happening gradually but meaningfully.