its not just about the nanometers, its the whole design,
ARM always is optimized for mobile usage, coming from the mobile parts.

Intel just tries to go from desktop/laptop chips to mobile, so the other way around.

And they are far of yet in the lower power area. Besides that the current atoms (that where released in Jan 2010) are still on 45nm! not 32...

So that far ahead isn't intel for there atom parts.

The only thing is that the current cpu in the N900 is made in 65... (34xx) so yes thats why i hope that the next NXXX will be a 36xx because that one is in 45nm (and a bit higher clocked by default)

But still get a current Atom and run it on 900mhz then get the CPU of the N900 and run that one on 900mhz. Then compare the power consumption i think it is still way way apart, completely different league. And i do believe that the atom is even faster..

and for some info about the A9:

http://www.arm.com/products/processo...ab=Performance

so a dual core at 2GHZ the total power is 1.9W

Perhaps not the atom. I remember reading about a new CPU type specially designed for handsets but I have no idea where.

Anyway the atom is not doing that bad either: http://www.notebookcheck.net/Mobile-...=0&wprime_32=0

The Z550 @ 2GHZ 45nm and 2W but again... single core.

In what concerns resourcefulness I trust intel.
On the other hand I have never considered an ARM as a CPU - more like a chip if you ask me.
I remember there was a time when I had some black intel chip that used to be cooled by two mini fans placed sideways (pentium1 perhaps?) put that was a long time ago.

Now I'm rather used with tiny shiny silicon capsules that have "diffused in france" written on them.
Hence diffusing (some complicate process involving a silicon dye and a nuclear reactor) and other complicated processes I read about make me believe that X86 must be something far more advanced than ARM.

I'm willing to bet on intel since they've always had the monetary resources to come up with the best CPU there was - as far as power management goes, we can just wait and see.

It is only natural that in some point, mobile phones CPUs will be based on x86/x64 architecture - in fact, I think the only thing that separates us from having a Core i3 or i5 cell-phone is probably batteries...
As soon as there will be a breakthrough with mobile power sources (which - as far as I know - is a field which progresses VERY slow), I'm more than certain that we'll see a major switch from ARM to x86 based CPUs.

By what criteria are you ranking procssors?

I'm taking your "Intel CPU" to equal "x86", as that's the common usage, but ARM processors outnumber x86 processors in terms of units shipped and units in active use. Furthermore, as architecture goes, there have been a number of competitors to x86 that have been hailed as more modern, more advanced, faster, etc. In fact, it seems most competing CPU architectures are considered "better" than x86...in everything but running legacy x86 code. And even there, it was AMD who developed x86-64, not Intel.

True, and it was AMD that broke the 1GHZ barrier while intel tagged along - but even if later they always managed so far to come up with the superior technology (however power was not as constraining as it is now).

I can't really say If 1ghz ARM = 1ghz X86 since we have no objective testing methods.

But what I'm sure of is that ARM will never best the "i" series and if they'll ever do, there's already gonna be i2.

Regarding power management, I think it's CPUs that should adapt and not energy sources. You always have to think extreme and extreme means doing a lot with little power.

That number is for the cpu only and doesn't include the gpu, memory controller, and so forth. The whole beagleboard consumes about the same as that atom cpu alone. If the 28nm SOI deal between ARM Holdings and Global Foundries happens, then Atom will lose its's fabrication process advantage and possibly it's performance lead as well. It's hard to envision Atom catching up to ARM in efficiency, but ARM is closing the gap in software performance; and when you acount for the hardware DSP's, one can argue that the arch is already there.

Guys. There is much more to embedded devices than just lowering CPU wattage, slapping it in a Phone and boot. Take for example system-on-chip designs. What made ARM ubiquitous in the embedded arena exactly is that it was so modular - every manufacturer rolled their own combo of CPU/GPU/DRAM/Flash/whatever which allowed for a very cost efficient solution for the particular task. Intel doesn't do that yet, they are currently only in the phase of pushing the GPU in, but a modern ARM chip is really a SYSTEM on a chip, so when you compare wattage and cost with an OMAP3 it is a total of north+southbridge+DRAM+FLASH+video stuff+etc.

Second, Intel needs to address idle consumption. Again, this is something historical, the original PC design (as that's actually what people actually mean with X86) was never meant to really be idle, and the hacks/tricks to save energy are just that - hacks and tricks as they had to preserve a good deal of backward compatibility. This is also the (hardware part of) the reason why a N810 can spend more time idling AWAKE than most notebooks in stand-by mode. X86 *can* be made more efficient, but at the cost of losing compatibility. But if you lose that, what is the point of X86 in the first place ?

Third, the ARM core is, even after decades of improvement, pretty small and this reflects well on die sizes. Due to historical baggage, this cannot be said about the X86, it's huge compared to an ARM chip (plus, the reliance on bigger L1/2 caches and long(er) pipes does not help). So while the benchmarks look good for Atoms, ARM based solutions are still pretty much ahead when it comes to performance/watt (or even performance/cost). You're basically sticking a revamped truck engine in a sportscar and hoping the brute HP will pull you through. This sounds pretty much like a Dodge Viper, cool in demos, but keep near gas stations and a healthy reserve on your credit card

@sjgadsby

Are you judging this from an objective view point or rather by the fact that microsoft is X86 based and further development of ARM technology would give Linux a fair chance regarding OS share in a world dominated by microsoft?

Also the question to answer is in fact RISC(ARM) vs. CISC(x86) if I'm right?

By my readings so far it is obvious CISC got a great head start because of the early adoption of X86 and cheaper manufacturing and especially cheaper manufacturing line upgrades.

Regarding performance it's really hard to draw the line, this is a little something I found: http://www.pocketables.net/2008/10/mid-battle-aigo.html

ive heard from a couple of different people that there is breakthrough coming in the battery division has anyone here heard similar things or have any info on this, this would seem to be the holy grail for mobile devices

Suddenly this doesn't sound that good anymore...

Sure, then it will be Intel, ATI-AMD, Nvidia, Nokia and Microsoft which is enough to dominate the market.

But if I'm to look at the cash X86 swallowed vs ARM I believe Atoms performance should not be as questionable as it is right now.

I wonder if RISC (ARM), was developed on so hard as Amd and Intel developed X86, could compete in the high end high performance segment (PCs, servers)