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
Final Words
Whereas I didn't really have anything new to conclude in the original article (Atom Z2760 is faster and more power efficient than Tegra 3), there's a lot to talk about here. We already know that Atom is faster than Krait, but from a power standpoint the two SoCs are extremely competitive. At the platform level Intel (at least in the Acer W510) generally leads in power efficiency. Note that this advantage could just as easily be due to display and other power advantages in the W510 itself and not necessarily indicative of an SoC advantage.
Looking at the CPU cores themselves, Qualcomm takes the lead. It's unclear how things would change if we could include L2 cache power consumption for Qualcomm as we do for Intel (see page 2 for an explanation). I suspect that Qualcomm does maintain the power advantage here though, even with the L2 cache included.
On the GPU side, Intel/Imagination win there although the roles reverse as Adreno 225 holds a performance advantage. For modern UI performance, the PowerVR SGX 545 is good enough but Adreno 225 is clearly the faster 3D GPU. Intel has underspecced its ultra mobile GPUs for a while, so a lot of the power advantage is due to the lower performing GPU. In 2D/modern UI tests however, the performance advantage isn't realized and thus the power advantage is still valid.
Qualcomm is able to generally push to lower idle power levels, indicating that even Intel's 32nm SoC process is getting a little long in the tooth. TSMC's 28nm LP and Samsung's 32nm LP processes both help silicon built in those fabs drive down to insanely low idle power levels. That being said, it is still surprising to me that a 5-year-old Atom architecture paired with a low power version of a 3-year-old process technology can be this competitive. In the next 9 - 12 months we'll finally get an updated, out-of-order Atom core built on a brand new 22nm low power/SoC process from Intel. This is one area where we should see real improvement. Intel's chances to do well in this space are good if it can manage to execute well and get its parts into designs people care about.
Device level power consumption, from our iPhone 5 review, look familiar?
If the previous article was about busting the x86 power myth, one key takeaway here is that Intel's low power SoC designs are headed in the right direction. Atom's power curve looks a lot like Qualcomm's, and I suspect a lot like Apple's. There are performance/power tradeoffs that all three make, but they're all being designed the way they should.
The Cortex A15 data is honestly the most intriguing. I'm not sure how the first A15 based smartphone SoCs will compare to Exynos 5 Dual in terms of power consumption, but at least based on the data here it looks like Cortex A15 is really in a league of its own when it comes to power consumption. Depending on the task that may not be an issue, but you still need a chassis that's capable of dissipating 1 - 4x the power of a present day smartphone SoC made by Qualcomm or Intel. Obviously for tablets the Cortex A15 can work just fine, but I am curious to see what will happen in a smartphone form factor. With lower voltage/clocks and a well architected turbo mode it may be possible to deliver reasonable battery life, but simply tossing the Exynos 5 Dual from the Nexus 10 into a smartphone isn't going to work well. It's very obvious to me why ARM proposed big.LITTLE with Cortex A15 and why Apple designed Swift.
I'd always heard about Haswell as the solution to the ARM problem, particularly in reference to the Cortex A15. The data here, particularly on the previous page, helped me understand exactly what that meant. Under a CPU or GPU heavy workload, the Exynos 5 Dual will draw around 4W. Peak TDP however is closer to 8W. If you remember back to IDF, Intel specifically called out 8W as a potential design target for Haswell. In reality, I expect that we'll see Haswell parts even lower power than that. While it may still be a stretch to bring Haswell down to 4W, it's very clear to me that Intel sees this as a possiblity in the near term. Perhaps not at 22nm, but definitely at 14nm. We already know Core can hit below 8W at 22nm, if it can get down to around 4W then that opens up a whole new class of form factors to a traditionally high-end architecture.
Ultimately I feel like that's how all of this is going to play out. Intel's Core architectures will likely service the 4W and above space, while Atom will take care of everything else below it. The really crazy part is that it's not too absurd to think about being able to get a Core based SoC into a large smartphone as early as 14nm, and definitely by 10nm (~2017) should the need arise. We've often talked about smartphones being used as mainstream computing devices in the future, but this is how we're going to get there. By the time Intel moves to 10nm ultramobile SoCs, you'll be able to get somewhere around Sandy/Ivy Bridge class performance in a phone.
At the end of the day, I'd say that Intel's chances for long term success in the tablet space are pretty good - at least architecturally. Intel still needs a Nexus, iPad or other similarly important design win, but it should have the right technology to get there by 2014. It's up to Paul or his replacement to ensure that everything works on the business side.
As far as smartphones go, the problem is a lot more complicated. Intel needs a good high-end baseband strategy which, as of late, the Infineon acquisition hasn't been able to produce. I've heard promising things in this regard but the baseband side of Intel remains embarassingly quiet. This is an area where Qualcomm is really the undisputed leader, Intel has a lot of work ahead of it here. As for the rest of the smartphone SoC, Intel is on the right track. Its existing architecture remains performance and power competitive with the best Qualcomm has to offer today. Both Intel and Qualcomm have architecture updates planned in the not too distant future (with Qualcomm out of the gate first), so this will be one interesting battle to watch. If ARM is the new AMD, then Krait is the new Athlon 64. The difference is, this time, Intel isn't shipping a Pentium 4.
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some_guy - Saturday, January 5, 2013 - link
I was reading comments about how Intel can't compete on price because it will cannibalize profits from higher margin chips.My sense is that Intel will aggressively attempt to squash ARM just like cored AMD. I think they are aware of the imminent threat.
Cannibalizing their own profits from higher margin chips is inevitable and may be a better choice than being eaten alive by ARM.
(BTW I didn't read all 11 pages of comments, so sorry if this was already stated.)
nofumble62 - Saturday, January 5, 2013 - link
Intel current margin is >60% but its stock price didn't rise an inch.The concern is about architecture and future.
As long as they can get into mobile and get market share back, their stock price will spike.
So YES, they can and will drop the price to compete. Their cheap smartphones are already in store in India, China, and Europe.
Don't forget that there are plenty of companies doing well with much smaller margin.
mugiebahar - Saturday, January 5, 2013 - link
While theory will agree, it's not so easy. Simple illustration (only in smart phone tablets)Company 1 (ARM) - employes 1 person and works from home.
Company 2 (Intel) - employes 100 people and rents a warehouse.
Cost to run business 1 - ?
Cost to run business 2 - ???
ARM owns the market now (just for now is all I'm saying) - revenue per expenses = great
Intel is negligible - revenue to expenses = disaster (not that won't change, but the
money spent already over the years)
Company 1 has loyalty and legacy in this market.
Company 2 is HOPING it has loyalty and the it legacy support will matter in this market!
The article makes it seem that it's a one deal Intel will be in the marke and we just have to wait. But that's wrong. Right now we are having phone that can do everything we need at the moment. Yes it will get better but we don't need the leaps n bounds anymore @ a cost we really don't need to spend.
Also if Intel sells a core CPU SoC and it goes for 20-30 like ARM SoC. uneducated people will look at it as an insult that the desk top costs so much. And while its completely different levels of power average joe won't know, and humans are the worst critics correct? I stated before its not about intel not being able to make a chip. It's their company s structured so wrong for this market. You have to be small and agie. AMD would have a better shot at it, if they had the smarts.
some_guy - Sunday, January 6, 2013 - link
It could get ugly.Intel will not give up the high end ARM market without a fight because next stop is desktop market. And Intel may not succeed.
Apple is already majorly moving away from Intel which gives the lots of leverage.
This may be Intel's long twilight, and AMD's shorter twilight.
CuriousSoul - Saturday, January 5, 2013 - link
Without knowing the Frames Per Second, Games settings for 3D Game 1 how is is possible to compare all of the graphs in any sense other than maximum mW ?It's like saying a VW Golf is more frugal around a race track than a Ferrari !
One resistor could draw 1mW and another 1000mW but which is better at the actual 3D Game 1? (in this case they offer an identical experience).
Cold Fussion - Saturday, January 5, 2013 - link
Yea this was mentioned multiple times before, It doesn't do very much to alleviate the claims of Anand's Intel bias does it?jameskatt - Sunday, January 6, 2013 - link
The first problem for Intel is that every major ARM chip company develops their own ARM chips. Apple does it. Samsung does it, etc. This means that these companies will NOT buy third party CPU/GPUs for their ARM devices. By developing their own ARM chips, they cut out Intel as the middle man and Intel's profits. For low priced devices, it is crucial to do this since margins can be very low or in Apple's case, the need to make profit is very high. These companies will not be Intel customers for chips. Intel is locked out. This is why Texas Instruments got out of the ARM business.The second problem for Intel is that the ARM-chips have a huge ecosystem supporting it. Apple has their iOS software kingdom with over a million apps. Android has it hundreds of thousands of apps. These ecosystems have a heavy momentum of their own. Their number dwarfs the number of apps available to the Intel platform. Thus Intel has a difficult job convincing anyone to incorporate its CPUs in to devices which will automatically be incompatible for the existing ecosystems.
What Intel can do is to simply keep aggressively developing its own chips so that they can compete strongly with the ARM chips so that Intel can keep the ecosystem it currently has - laptops, desktops, mainframe and supercomputers.
Intel won't be able to compete on price. it has to make its own profits. It won't be able to compete at the bottom of the device market. But it certainly can keep and expand its own arena. Microsoft surface tablets are an example of an attempt to keep its own ecosystem.
omind - Monday, January 7, 2013 - link
James,Intel is not trying to sell IP to existing ARM chip companies (Samsung, Nvidia etc) but instead are creating complete SOCs, including GPU, Video en- and decoders and so on. They are positioning themselves as competitiors to SOC manufacturers not as suppliers.
Secondly, the Atoms already in the market (Medfield) can leverage the Android app ecosystem. This is accomplished by a version of Android's Dalvik adapted to the x86 ISA. I personally own a Medfield-powered Motorola Razr-i and I can say that every single app I downloaded from Google's play store does run without any problem whatsoever on it. Contrary to the popular belief, there is no ecosystem problem for the end user.
Best regards
mrdude - Wednesday, January 9, 2013 - link
I think his point is that today the big device makers are also have their own SoCs, thus locking Intel out from the beginning. The push towards vertical integration threatens Intel drastically. And unlike a Qualcomm, Intel currently has very little to offer that stands out from the rest of the competition in the tablet and smartphone space (I say tablet because the sales of x86 tablets has been really poor. Consumers don't value x86 compatibility on their tablet)Intel just can't compete on price. I know this gets brought up endlessly but it's something that's absolutely true. Intel operates on sky high margins and that's something that's impossible to do if you're only making SoCs for tablets and smartphones. If the high end is cannibalized at an accelerating rate going forward (and the figures I've read point to this) then Intel is going to be in big big trouble. There's just no way the company can maintain its sky high margins and even keep its own fabs (and R&D) by selling ~$20 SoCs. It's just not gonna' happen. Either Intel provides something that only they can offer and that's wanted by every device maker and consumer and warrants a higher price tag or they begin their slow march downhill.
wsw1982 - Friday, January 11, 2013 - link
Intel sell much more processors today than they were in 2010/2009, if they can maintain their own fabs then, I don't see the reason why they cannot now. The $20-$30 SOC is new market for Intel, not a replacement (at least in near feature). The additional market should be welcomed, right? It reminded me that back to 2008 when Intel first introduced the ATOM, a lot of genius started to cry that Intel opened the netbook market and sale chip at $30 and it would cannibalize the notebook market and hurt Intel's profit. But the years after are one of intel's fast growing age.As for the price? Why cannot Intel compete? doesn't it have enough revenue (PC&Server revenue is much more than 2010 and 2009) to even up the R&D? does it need to pay a bloody foundry fee to TSMC (who alone enjoy 40% margin)? does it have to pay a license fee to ARM? Doesn't it already spend a forturn on PR? Doesn't it already have the manufacture volume ? (50% in idle, anyway will be wasted, why don't produce something at least earn some money)
And I think Intel is never as competitive as now. It gaining it position in server market for the last few year, it's pc business has never such high market share, it's mobile chip start to crush ARM in any respect.
http://www.phonearena.com/news/Intel-Atom-powered-...
check this out, the smart phone lenovo K900 score more than 25000 in Antutu on a 1080P display, which not only crush snapdragon pro (4 krait) in Optimus G but also the newly release Samsung Exynos 5440 (2 A15) in Nexus 10