Arm versus x86: Who is best suited for cloud and mobile devices?

Arm and http://www.aliyun.com/zixun/aggregation/6043.html "> Intel processor architecture is on the rise. Intel x86 today's position is indeed hard to shake, but arm has a significant power advantage and is more attractive in the future. So what kind of CPU can best meet the needs of the future?

In 2011, ARM launched the CORTEX-A15 processor, which uses a multi-core, unordered superscalar design with a frequency of up to 2.5 GHz. CORTEX-A15 is important because it runs counter to the arm design of the previous generation, and the previous ARM processor achieves the lowest energy consumption at the expense of performance. Instead, CORTEX-A15 to achieve strong performance metrics as a clear goal, while low energy consumption in the secondary position. ARM Holdings is essentially an intellectual property company that issues its own design licenses to other manufacturers, making chips from manufacturers and then applying them to other manufacturers ' system products. At the end of 2012, products with CORTEX-A15 design began to appear in the market, and more such products are expected to appear in 2013.

But the processor company that wants to win future competition is not only arm. A few weeks ago, Intel released a new Low-power CPU for the data center based on its own bullying architecture. The S1200 series is designed to provide instruction set compatibility for x86 on Low-power chip systems. The S1200 series is mainly for micro-server and other performance-oriented, low power consumption applications.

Intel Ling S1200 Micro Server processor

The following is a brief comparison of the Samsung Exynos 5250 (authorized for the recently launched CORTEX-A15) and the Intel Ling S1260 (the high-end products of the S1200 series). The Exynos 5 Series is applied to the latest Samsung Google Chromebook and Nexus 10 Tablet PCs. Specifically, Samsung EXYNOS5250 and Intel Ling S1260 Two processors are only a large processor family, so the best optimization for one market is not entirely suitable for another market. The most typical example is the Exynos 4 GB memory limit, which is normal for mobile applications, but is clearly not suitable for cloud computing. However, the CORTEX-A15 architecture incorporates a 40-bit paging memory algorithm ("Large Physical Address Extension") to support up to 1 TB of memory.

* Note: The power consumption of Exynos 5250 is currently unknown and difficult to obtain. I searched all the Samsung documents and couldn't find them. My only gain was in the Stream Computing

The question now is which CPU is better for arm and Intel x86? However, this raises another question: where is better? The two main markets for Leverhawk are mobile computing and cloud computing, so the subsequent analysis will focus more on both.

The main factors that will be compared include:

Power

Performance

Apply compatibility

Data center Features

In the Mobile world, if all other conditions are the same, then power consumption is an important determinant of success. Although the number of transistors, memory size and disk capacity are increasing, but the battery performance is not increased. The ARM architecture is highly energy efficient, so it is now widely used in a variety of mobile devices, including smartphones and tablets. But in addition to smartphones and Tablet PCs, the mobile market also includes laptops and netbooks.

Lenovo K900 with Intel dual-core Clover Trail Processor

(Responsible editor: The good of the Legacy)