The ARM vs x86 Wars Have Begun: In-Depth Power Analysis of Atom, Krait & Cortex A15
by Anand Lal Shimpi on January 4, 2013 7:32 AM EST- Posted in
- Tablets
- Intel
- Samsung
- Arm
- Cortex A15
- Smartphones
- Mobile
- SoCs
Cortex A15: SunSpider 0.9.1
SunSpider performance in Chrome on the Nexus 10 isn't all that great to begin with, so the Exynos 5250 curve is longer than the competition. I wouldn't pay too much attention to overall performanceas that's more of a Chrome optimization issue, but we begin to shine some light on Cortex A15's power consumption:
Although these line graphs are neat to look at, it's tough to quantify exactly what's going on here. Following every graph from here on forward I'll present a bar chart that integrates over the benchmark time period (excluding idle) and presents total energy used during the task in Joules.
The data here reflects what you see in the chart above fairly well. Acer/Intel manage to get the edge over Dell/Qualcomm when it comes to total energy consumed during the test. The Nexus 10 doesn't do so well here but that's likely a software issue more than anything else.
CPU power is just insane. Peak power consumption is around 3W, compared to around 1W for the competition.
Looking at the CPU core itself, Qualcomm appears to have the advantage here but keep in mind that we aren't yet tracking L2 cache power on Krait (but we are on Atom). Regardless Atom and Krait are very close.
Even GPU power consumption is pretty high compared to everything else (minus Tegra 3).
SunSpider - Max, Avg, Min Power
For your reference, the remaining graphs present max, average and min power draw throughout the course of the benchmark (excluding beginning/end idle times).
Average Power Draw
Minimum Power Draw
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extide - Friday, January 4, 2013 - link
When will you post an article about Bay Trail / Valley View?? Usually you guys are pretty fast to post stuff about topics like this yet I have seen some info on other sites already...jpcy - Friday, January 4, 2013 - link
...which I bet CISC users thought had ended about 18 years ago...It's good to see a resurgence of this highly useful, extremely low-power and very hardy British CPU platform.
I remember back in the day when ARMs were used in the Acorn computers (possibly too long ago for most to remember, now - I still have an A7000 and a RISC PC with both a StrongARM and a DX2-66 lol) was at war with Intel's Pentium CPU range and AMD's K6's, boasting an almost 1:1 ration of MIPS:MHz - Horsepower for your money (something Intel and AMD were severely lacking in, if I remember correctly.)
And now, well, who'dve thought it... These ARM CPUs are now in nearly everything we use... Phones, smartphones, tablets, notebooks...
Suppose I was right in the argument with my mate in school afterall... RISC, superior technology (IMHO) may well take over, yet!
nofumble62 - Friday, January 4, 2013 - link
No performance advantage, no battery life advantage. Why anyone would bother with incompatible software?sseemaku - Friday, January 4, 2013 - link
Looks like people have changed religion from AMD to ARM. Thats what I see from some comments.mugiebahar - Saturday, January 5, 2013 - link
Yeah n no. They wanted a no paid opinions to screw with the outcome. But Intel hype won over real life .Intel better and will get better - yes
Any chance they will compete (performance and PRICE) and legacy. Support to phone apps - Never in the near future which is the only time for them.
tuxRoller - Saturday, January 5, 2013 - link
Also, any chance for an actual performance comparison between the platforms?Apple's performance and power use look awesome. Better than I had imagined.
I'd love to see how they compare on the same tests, however.
Kogies - Saturday, January 5, 2013 - link
It appears the war has begun, well two wars in fact. The one you have articulately described, and the oft ensuing war-of-words...Thanks Anand, I appreciate the analysis you have given. It is excellent to get to see the level of granularity you have been able to achieve with your balance of art and science, and knowing where to hook into! I am very interested to see how the L2 cache power draw effects the comparison, just a little jitter in my mind. If nothing else, it looks as if the delicate balance of process tech., and desired performance/power may have a greater bearing on this "war" than mere ISA.
With Krait 300, Haswell, and more A15's this is going to be a tremendous year. Keep up the good work.
Torrijos - Saturday, January 5, 2013 - link
Any chance we could see the same tests run on the latest Apple iPad?That way we could have a chance to see what Apple tried to improve compared to the A15 generation.
urielshun - Saturday, January 5, 2013 - link
The whole discussion about ARM and x86 is not important when you go for the ecomonics of each platform. ARM is dirty cheap and works well. It's 1/10th of the price of any current Atom with decent perfomace (talking about RK3066).Don't underestimate the Chinese they are having a field day with ARM's pricing model and and have shown amazing chips.
In 8 years from now all SoC's would have reached the usuable performace and the only thing that will matter will be power and cost of integration.
iwod - Saturday, January 5, 2013 - link
Where are you getting 1/10 of a price from? Unless they are produced on good old 40nm LP Node with Nothing else, or crap included, otherwise there just aren't any Chinese SoC selling for $4