So, uh...dat Medfield?

[Arachnotronic]

Okay, so I don't know if I'm hallucinating, but according to the Anandtech iPhone 5 review, Medfield is one BAMF of a chip.

What ever happened to that x86 power tax? Or how about how ARM is infinitely superior to Intel?

Right. A bunch of journalists spread that crap because they don't know what they're talking about.

Looking forward to the competition in the space.

 

[jpiniero]

How x86 is Medfield anyway? Weren't there rumors that Intel got the power draw down by removing/changing features thus breaking BC? Then again I haven't seen any mention by Intel that Clover Trail can only run Metro apps.

 

[IntelUser2000]

Medfield is full x86. Though, Windows 8 has good enough power management(provided the hardware supports it) to be used in a Tablet.

I think the biggest difference between Medfield and Clover Trail(the Windows supporting version of Medfield) is BIOS or its equivalent, drivers, and firmware. For example, the BIOS equivalent in Medfield is far simpler than one in regular Windows PCs so you can't install Windows there.

 

[Nemesis 1]

Right. A bunch of journalists spread that crap because they don't know what they're talking about.

Journalist, Had only reported the facts up to the time of medfield so give them a break . Its the fanbois of what ever team That have been talking from the wrong end of the digestive system. We have thousand of these statements here on this forum threw the years, Still today they spew garbage

 

[NTMBK]

Yeah, the Razr i seems to have done a nice job. That chip's scaled really well with clock speed, the 2GHz model is a real improvement on the original that was in the Xolophone.

 

[MisterMac]

It's ironic a year ago before medfield - people were like "ATOM CAN'T THREATEN ANYTHING IN THE MOBILE SEGMENT".

And here we are in the first iterations of a generation - and atleast CPU wise it's taking cake - albeit using more juice.


Like ive' said in other threads - i'm starting to wonder if Intel within the next few years will become too powerful for it's own good?

 

[Yuriman]

The part that really struck me in the iPhone5 review was learning that Swift's die is bigger than (or close to the size of) an Ivy Bridge i3.

 

[Skurge]

The part that really struck me in the iPhone5 review was learning that Swift's die is bigger than (or close to the size of) an Ivy Bridge i3.

22nm is amazing isn't it.

 

[Nemesis 1]

And here we are in the first iterations of a generation - and atleast CPU wise it's taking cake - albeit using more juice.

Well now that statement is a bit unfair , AS compared to what on power consumption. If I didn't no the results ,the way you have it written medfield doesn't do well in power usage . thats not the case at all . For intels first effort Its one of the top performing phones and this is intels base model as far as chips.

 

[Nemesis 1]

22nm is amazing isn't it.

Ya I can't wait for intel 22SoC phone chip it should set a new standard that will take the others a couple of years to overtake

 

[sm625]

medfield is still lacking gpu strength. If they simply quadrupled the gpu performance and let people install windows 8 on it, it would probably be a decent tablet chip.

 

[Nemesis 1]

You have seen the tablet chip, Link to benchmarks please. But yes on the razrI the gpu performance is low . Are we going to be gaming on our phones ? I know I don't have a phone yet , Wife has an apple but I waiting for the new king to rise , Than I will get rid of my line phone and take great pleasure in telling THAT company to stick their phone service up its arse.Didn't google recently buy Motarola?

 

[pelov]

I was really surprised looking at those figures in that iPhone 5 review. Frankly, that was what stood out the most to me: Intel finally managed to get x86 competitive in perf-per-watt at the ultramobile level, and that says a lot considering the extensive review of Apple's in-house ARM architecture in that review.

Contrary to belief, I'm glad Intel has managed to compete. All I want are lower prices and more innovation. Considering the lackluster several years we've had in the desktop/laptop space in x86, which showed only 2 interesting product lines -- Ultrabooks and netbooks -- only to have them both unimpress, I'm really glad Intel is actually taking mobile seriously. I'm looking forward to the A15 review and to see how it stacks up against potential dual core atom chips.

The biggest issue Intel have now is getting their products into attractive designs that consumers will want. Unlike the Ultrabook crap that they've been feeding us, maybe they can actually manage to compete on price and features.

 

[MisterMac]

GPU wise intel will solve it with their town tech eventually.

But doubt well see that til 22nm Atom SoC.
Even a 6 EU Haswell GPU - if possible should be quite "able" to take on tegra,adreno and imagination GPU's.

First "real" mobile offering - it still looks kinda impressive.

 

[hyrule4927]

Impressive. I'm hoping to see some US carriers with these phones soon, because I can't wait to get rid of my iPhone.

 

[386DX]

medfield is still lacking gpu strength. If they simply quadrupled the gpu performance and let people install windows 8 on it, it would probably be a decent tablet chip.

Clovertrail is the dual core version of Medfield designed for tablets and does run the x86 version of Windows 8. The GPU performance should also be about 2.5x better then medfields (not quite quadrupled) since it uses the PowerVR 545 instead of the 540 and it's clocked higher.

Intel has done a really good job with its first product to compete against ARM. A lot of people was writing Intel off but even with an old 32nm process they are quite competitive with the 28nm ARM chips in both performance and power consumption with there first attempt. The real problem with Intel CPU in the mobile space right now is more software then hardware. While there are Android phones that are using Medfield they run the x86 branch of Android which right now has less developer support and lags behind ARM in getting updates. Also some apps that use specific ARM instructions won't work on Android x86. I think the more natural fit for Intel in the mobile space is with Microsoft and Windows 8/Windows Phone 8 where it's not gonna be the red headed step child. In that sense the adoption rate of Intel hardware in the mobile space is ultimately gonna be determined by how well Microsoft does with Windows/Phone 8.

One thing Intel does very well is across the board improvements with each iteration of there chips and if they keep the same trend going in another generation or 2 I think ARM is going to have a hard time keeping up. Yes we know that ARM Cortex A15 chips are suppose to be released soon, yes they will be faster then the A9 chips but they will be more power hungry as well that is why designers are using tricks like slower companion cores to deal with the issue while Intel's chip seem to be doing well throughout the entire power range. When you look at the big picture ARM and Intel are trying to achieve the same thing but both sides are going about it in opposite directions. ARM CPU's start life as low performance/low power architecture, there problem is trying to figure out a way to match Intel's performance (Ivy Bridge) while maintaining the low power. Intel on the other hand has the high performance (Ivy Bridge)/high power architecture, they just need to figure out a way to put that performance into a low power package. My personal opinion is that Intel has the easier task, as AMD has shown you reach a point where it becomes much harder to improve performance (IPC wise) while FAB improvements will pretty much always net you power improvements. Intel has been especially successful at achieving improve IPC, higher clock speeds, and lower power draw with each new chip, that's a very dangerous combination imo. The real treat to ARM from Intel will come next year with the release of the 22nm Silvermont ATOMs.

 

[Nemesis 1]

Gosh that about sumed it up perfectly