ROUND 3

Mobile Performance

What’s good for x86’s goose is also good for ARM’s gander. By that we mean that very much the same attributes and qualities that give x86 CPUs the edge in terms of pure performance play to ARM’s strengths as a mobile processor.

Admittedly, x86 and ARM have converged quite dramatically. If you compare the likes of, say, Apple’s recent CPU cores (in iPads and iPhones) with those of Intel, they look remarkably similar from the proverbial 1,000 feet.

Thus, whether it’s x86 or ARM, you’ll see the boxes alongside out-of-order execution, 64-bit memory addressing, and even 6-wide instruction issuing checked for both architectures. What’s more, in the real world, if you compare, for instance, the first Apple iPad Pro, with its dual-core ARM processor, to a 12-inch super-thin MacBook, and its dual-core x86 chip, you’ll find they trade blows in basic performance metrics.

Remember, however, that this particular comparison is at the margins where x86 and ARM overlap—the most powerful ARM architecture versus the weakest full-power Intel Core chip. The more mobility you require, the more ARM’s fundamental simplicity gives a power efficiency advantage.

Winner: ARM, with efficient ease