Intel have surpassed ARM for mobile SOC
#1
A review of Iphone 5s an arm based SOC @ 64bit architecure.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/7335/the-i...s-review/5

Basically blows everything else including the new snapdragon 800 proccessor. But look @ Intels Bay Trail Atom Z3740. It comes first on every benchmark. and still theirs room for improvement by moving to 64bit. Has Intel actually caught up with ARM and even surpassed it. Yes I understand Intel is a high profit margin company and although its faster your most likely paying atleast twice the cost. But cost will reduce over time as Intel get more partners to mass produce these SOC's into future smartphones. I would give ARM about 3 years before Intel start a full thermal nuclear war
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#2
Weird.

All the reactions I've seen to that review have come to a very different conclusion to you - namely that Apple has pushed the ARM architecture to the point where it has finally caught up Intel. The point being I think that Bay Trail is a tablet SoC, not a phone SoC, so has a more generous power envelope.
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#3
To say ARM is caught up with Intel - well how can you say that when Intel have just joined the race? You raise a good point about Bay Trail using more power. But its pretty impressive the acceleration of Intel's inroads to match ARM's low power usage. And achieving that low power usage will come really soon. They have shown that they can compete now. Since Intel have their own Fabs. They have an advantage over ARM.

My point was that Intel are at the heels of ARM in terms of mobile SOC's. Which was non existent a year ago. Bay Trail is their first good shot at mobile SOC. Also because its x86 architecure, it will always be attractive to consumers. I will give Intel a year before they get better power/watt usage SOC compared to ARM. ARMS days are numbered.
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#4
Except for the little thing no-one in the semi-conductor industry wants to go back to the days when Intel ruled the roost with an iron handed fist. Hence the lack of any major design wins for Intel products.

With Arm you can buy off the shelf or roll your own SoC you cannot do that with Intel and you had to sell your soul just to get an x86 license.

No-one in iOS or Android land cares about Intel's performance, Arm is good enough and for the big players being able to build their own chip like Apples A7 or Samsungs efforts plays into their marketing strategy.

The only platform that cares about x86 performance is Windows and Win is struggling to gain market share in this area. To says Arm's days are numbered is a gross exaggeration.
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#5
Very good points Starstream.I guess the balls going to be in Intel's court, once they surpass ARM (if they do) if they are going to change the pricing structure. They have recently just made their First Open-Source $199 Development board

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/Minnowb...23743.html

So changes will come on how Intel do buisness. They bloody have to, With Lenovo the world’s largest PC vendor making more money from smartphones and tablets than PCs! the divide will just get bigger in the future. The future is mobile. Intel will definitely do what it takes to compete and bribe anyone to get their way.

http://www.androidauthority.com/lenovo-pc-plus-256186/
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#6
(2013-09-22, 10:19)MediaPi Wrote: To say ARM is caught up with Intel - well how can you say that when Intel have just joined the race?

I think the point being made was broader than just mobile SoCs. The A7 core is seriously impressive, clock-for-clock it's faster than some of AMDs last-generation cores. What it shows is that maybe there's a chance that ARM chips could go toe-to-toe with x86 in other markets, eg. servers, and not just micro-servers where they're being proposed currently. I think that's why people were getting excited.

Quote:You raise a good point about Bay Trail using more power. But its pretty impressive the acceleration of Intel's inroads to match ARM's low power usage. And achieving that low power usage will come really soon. They have shown that they can compete now. Since Intel have their own Fabs. They have an advantage over ARM.

I'm not knocking Intel at all, their recent low-power stuff has also been very impressive.

Quote:My point was that Intel are at the heels of ARM in terms of mobile SOC's. Which was non existent a year ago. Bay Trail is their first good shot at mobile SOC. Also because its x86 architecure, it will always be attractive to consumers. I will give Intel a year before they get better power/watt usage SOC compared to ARM. ARMS days are numbered.

I'm not convinced about that. Firstly A7 shows one of ARMs strengths - A7 is an Apple core based on the ARM architecture, it's not just some pre-baked ARM core. ARM offers hardware designers the scope to tailor the core to their own requirements - Intel won't offer this, not widely at least. Apple want to control the entire stack from hardware to software, and not having control of the core doesn't fit with this.

(2013-09-22, 12:11)MediaPi Wrote: Very good points Starstream.I guess the balls going to be in Intel's court, once they surpass ARM (if they do) if they are going to change the pricing structure. They have recently just made their First Open-Source $199 Development board

That's not really as open as they like to make out.

Quote:So changes will come on how Intel do buisness. They bloody have to, With Lenovo the world’s largest PC vendor making more money from smartphones and tablets than PCs! the divide will just get bigger in the future. The future is mobile. Intel will definitely do what it takes to compete and bribe anyone to get their way.

I don't know how Intel will fare in a low-margin business like SoCs. They are used to high-margin products. It will take a real shift in their corporate philosophy to make big in-roads into SoCs I think. I don't believe that they can bully their way into the mobile market - they are up against some very large corporations who have other options which are just as good (or good enough, as Starstream pointed out).
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#7
arm stille dominates mobile. Period.

Bay trail is just a first entrance into (Windows) high-end tablets. Intels Broadwell and Skylaky will bring them into phones also.

But they still have to change their business model to compete ARM on prices.

Welcome to the era of good enough computing..
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#8
wake me when I can actually buy something with this inside...
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#9
It's all about the processor power to battery usage ratio. Speed almost means nothing.
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#10
(2013-09-23, 01:36)Ned Scott Wrote: It's all about the processor power to battery usage ratio. Speed almost means nothing.

This indeed can be true for mobile. For HTPC usage, processing power to dollar ratio is more important as long as there is enough cpu/gpu power and the power draw doesn't exceed 35w.
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#11
good info
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