By: juanrga (nospam.delete@this.juanrga.com), August 15, 2014 11:39 am
Room: Moderated Discussions
David Kanter (dkanter.delete@this.realworldtech.com) on August 15, 2014 9:41 am wrote:
> I also am skeptical that anyone can match Intel in performance while trailing behind by a node. To do that,
> it is necessary to offer a very different product with a different system architecture. E.g., target workloads
> where cache does not help and simply slap down more memory controllers and cores (hint: that's a GPU!).
>
There are broad evidence on how low-end ARM processors on 28nm planar node match or outperform best Intel designs (for the same target) on 22nm FinFET.
The ISA advantage will be greatly reduced in the top-end side of the performance spectrum, but will not vanish. Keller mentioned during Core Day conference that his K12 core will have a "bigger engine" than its x86 sister thanks to the advantages of ARMv8 over x86-64, which allows to spend more transistors on compute.
Another key is that Intel process advantage will be reduced. Those server-class ARM SoCs that I mentioned will be made on 14/16 nm FinFET. Broadwell-EP and Skylake-EP on 14nm FinFET will not have a full node advantage.
> I also am skeptical that anyone can match Intel in performance while trailing behind by a node. To do that,
> it is necessary to offer a very different product with a different system architecture. E.g., target workloads
> where cache does not help and simply slap down more memory controllers and cores (hint: that's a GPU!).
>
There are broad evidence on how low-end ARM processors on 28nm planar node match or outperform best Intel designs (for the same target) on 22nm FinFET.
The ISA advantage will be greatly reduced in the top-end side of the performance spectrum, but will not vanish. Keller mentioned during Core Day conference that his K12 core will have a "bigger engine" than its x86 sister thanks to the advantages of ARMv8 over x86-64, which allows to spend more transistors on compute.
Another key is that Intel process advantage will be reduced. Those server-class ARM SoCs that I mentioned will be made on 14/16 nm FinFET. Broadwell-EP and Skylake-EP on 14nm FinFET will not have a full node advantage.