Low power or high performance? The Battle of the cloud between Intel and arm

Intel and ARM, one of the dominant PC domain chips, is the soul of the emerging http://www.aliyun.com/zixun/aggregation/10574.html "> Mobile." The two companies that did not intersect are now on the opposite side of the server world. ARM, a new star that doesn't seem to have a head-on confrontation with Intel, has the ability to challenge Intel in the server arena after it has courted AMD. So we saw at the end of 2012 and early 2013, the two sides in the server market, the frequent rivalry, you can sing my debut!

Arm and Intel, the two-processor market, the oligarchs have always been in the market to cover the other side, and there is no High-profile announcement to enter the other side of the market, in the market also generally adopt a relatively low-key strategy. This layer of paper is the original with Intel standing in the same group of ARM stabbed. Because in the X86 market has long been in the position of the thousand years, and with this year's PC market saturation, AMD urgent need to find new growth point to save the declining performance.

So, October 30, 2012, AMD in the original x86 processor, the company will also design a number of market-oriented 64-bit ARM architecture processor, the new product will first supply the cloud server and Data Center server market. Only one day, arm company in the global three jointly announced the introduction of the new ARMV8 architecture arm CORTEX-A50 Processor series products, and further expand arm in the field of High-performance and low-power leading position.

And the face of arm's constant provocation has AMD's counterstrike, Intel also sit still, on December 12, 2012, Intel launched the world's first 6 Watts Power server microprocessor for the low power domain. It is also the most positive response to arm in the field of micro-server.

The main intersection of the two areas is in the micro-server area, arm, now the nature of the server has changed, due to the advent of the cloud computing era, people will not blindly pursue the performance of the server, and began to seek a breakthrough method to improve the overall efficiency of the data center, and reduce total cost of ownership of product solutions. Low-power servers with low power consumption, high density and intensive computing requirements become an important subdivision area in server market.

Today, the cost of refrigeration and energy consumption in data centers has become a major expense, and IT companies are becoming more and more stressed, demanding lower-power, more efficient solutions to control costs in data centers, and increasing capacity requirements.

Intel and arm will battle in the cloud

For now, the ARM processor is one step ahead of the low power consumption, but the market still has no products or solutions in place, but instead Intel captures the opportunity to launch the 6-watt Atom server processor in the ground power market in unprecedented terms, and release time from the ARM server processor Intel has more than a year to perfect its products and programs in the market. This is what arm currently lacks.

The biggest advantage of the ARM processor is its low power consumption and reduced enterprise costs. ARM's chip area is smaller, can add more calculation capacity in the seat. and arm's low-power technology can even do without fans, so the cost of cooling is greatly reduced. And in the server field arm has been inexperienced, but fortunately, in pull down AMD this server market giants, AMD in the Server field experience will be of great help to arm, especially in the good relationship with the partners will help arm better enter the server market.

Intel processors have consistently emphasized high performance in the marketplace, and Intel has gradually changed its consistent strategy in the processor market in the face of cloud computing. The launch of Atom gives people a glimpse of Intel's focus on low-power areas. And over the years in the server market experience, as well as the waves after the sand of Intel will help it continue to gallop in the server market.

Today, ARM and AMD are on the same side, and Intel is still sticking to its X86 direction. AMD and ARM are adopting new technologies to reduce relative power consumption while ensuring good performance.

In the next few years, both Intel and Amd/arm will have their own strategic approach. Intel in the future world, the power consumption is still relatively high, but in the cloud operators have a wealth of experience and strong computing power. But in the Amd/arm world, although the overall computational ability is low, but in the power cost will greatly promote its application in the data center.

What will happen, we may not say, but in the next few years will determine the market position of the tripartite company, in the cloud, a storm is brewing.

(Responsible editor: The good of the Legacy)