Chip giant dismisses the threat of ARM when it comes to tablets and Windows 8

May 12, 2012 14:10 GMT  ·  By

Speaking in Santa Clara at an investors’ meeting, Intel’s CEO Paul Otellini tried to do his best in downplaying Intel’s huge embarrassment from two weeks ago. He said that, when it comes to Windows and x86 software, Intel has much more experience.

The thing is that there is a strong possibility that Windows 8 ARM will not necessarily  use x86 native software, but rather popular Android ARM-based applications ported on Windows 8 ARM.

Sure, Intel’s ownership of the x86 architecture and the company’s strong relationship with Microsoft will certainly do a lot of good for Intel’s first attempt at capturing a piece of the tablet market.

Therefore, when it comes to x86 applications running on ARM processors, we will certainly witness some sort of performance loss due to the programming overhead.

Windows 8 Tablet edition, being tailored for x86, will most certainly perform great with Intel’s Clover Field as all the x86 software. The difference will likely reside in the functionality of the devices.

There is a strong chance that ARM’s A15 cores will achieve much better battery life than Intel’s Clover Field. After all, Intel’s Medfield is currently performing worse than ARM’s Cortex A15 processors while being able to achieve only 50 to 60 percent of the battery life of the ARM-based phones.

Intel’s Clover Field can only make things worse for the company, as the higher clock along with the GPU that is be twice as big, will likely burn through the battery life much faster.

On the other hand, the bigger GPU will most likely offer better performance that might offset the battery life handicap in the eyes of the users.

"We have the advantage of the incumbency, the legacy support," said Intel CEO Paul Otellini.

We’ll see if performance with disregard to battery life will be the winning card when it comes to Intel powered tablets.