Exophase (exophase.delete@this.gmail.com) on June 4, 2013 10:36 am wrote:
> anon (anon.delete@this.anon.com) on June 4, 2013 4:03 am wrote:
> > Why would you think that? Intel has not proven to be particularly honest when they have not had
> > the advantage -- which up to now has been "most of the time", when trying to compete with ARMs.
> >
>
> Intel's tests comparing Silvermont and Saltwell are more likely to be accurate than tests between
> an x86 and ARM processor. They don't have a strong incentive to make their current product look
> bad when it'll be selling for another six months. So I doubt they deliberately sabotaged it by
> using inferior binaries than they could have, using poorly representative test setups, etc.

I wouldn't expect them to sabotage Saltwell (that would be crazy), but instead show Silvermont in the best possible light. For example show the best-case improvements rather than average improvements over a large range of benchmarks, and for iso-power/performance choose the point in the graph where the difference is maximal rather than the average over the full operating range. Simply showing the power/performance graphs for Saltwell and Silvermont would be far more informative and interesting but I'm sure there is a reason they weren't shown.

> Most of Intel's test numbers were comparing with Saltwell, and those numbers alone
> paint a strong picture. As for comparisons between Saltwell and various ARM cores,
> I'd feel better using third party tests - fortunately those exist.

I suppose from those ARM calculated the projected Silvermont results.

Wilco