Am 07.02.2014 um 16:30 schrieb Michael Mrozek:
Hi,
okay, I thought a lot about Intel again, and I still prefer ARM.
Here is my main reason:
In power consumption, the Intel might be similar to the ARM SoCs now.
However, not in optimization of software (mostly games).
x86 games typically come from a desktop computer - which never really had issues with CPU power. Game developers never cared much about optimization. They simply suggested to upgrade your PC - and as these were running off AC Power, that wasn't really a problem.
ARM had always been a lot slower than desktop PCs. But game developers often tried to get the same or similar games out of them (at least for Android games). In order to do that, they had to optimize a lot.
We've got so many ARM-optimized emulators. I'm sure our current PCSXReARMed with NEON needs less CPU power than the normal PCSX on x86.
So in the end, running PCSX on an x86 SoC would lower the battery life, simply by using more CPU than the ARM pendant.
Intel claims 95% of all Android stuff runs on their system as well - but that's either everything except games that use ARM compiled code (which would probably be interesting games) or they do some ARM emulation - but that would also need more CPU power once again.
It doesn't help if perf/Watt is the same if most games / emulators are coded so unoptimized that they need more performance and therefore more power.
I'm no developer, and not that much into the materia, but that's my personal experience.
What do you thiink about that?
Yes, that is an important argument.
And I am not really sure about the power hungryness of the Atom. This max 6A@1V means 6W for the core alone. We have to add non-core and display. Of course this translates to 2A power drain from the battery @3.7V.
We have to get that heat out of the device.
BR, Nikolaus