With the passage of time, people's attention has gradually shifted from PC laptops to mobile phones and tablets, and the era of mobile Internet has arrived. However, Intel, a traditional giant, has been slow to respond. Until this year, we only saw the first smart phone with X86 architecture, and Lenovo K800, the first domestically launched smart phone, announced its delisting only a few months after its launch, which also led to people's suspicion of Intel's X86 mobile phone chip. However, most consumers are more concerned about the power consumption of X86 chips, Does Intel's X86 chip really consume power as we imagine?

In the eyes of most people, the ARM chip with a reduced instruction set is more power efficient than the X86 chip with a complex instruction set. However, the power consumption of a mobile phone chip is not simply determined by the architecture. The power consumption of mobile phones is also related to the process, power management and system control of chips.

When it comes to process, this has always been one of Intel's strengths. Intel is still the leader in process, which is also a big chip for Intel in reducing the power consumption of X86 architecture chips. Intel has its own factory, and its process is generally a generation ahead of that of TSMC, Samsung and other manufacturers, that is, 2-3 years. So it is difficult to surpass Intel in process. In the first half of 2012, the 28nm process was not fully rolled out, which has led to the delay of the release of a new generation of ARM architecture processors. Intel's 22nm process is relatively mature. If Intel applies it to mobile platform processors, Intel's power consumption may surpass that of most ARM processors.

In terms of power management, Intel has 45 power domains on the latest Medfield platform. These 45 domains can quickly adjust the power and clock switches according to the use of mobile phones, so that the entire platform enters the lowest power consumption state.

In the infrared heat graph below, we can see the heat output of the CPU under different working conditions. We can see that Intel's power control is very good. In the lowest power consumption state, the CPU only works with very low power consumption.

The infrared heat map of the CPU in working state shows that most of the CPU and GPU are green.

When the CPU is in the non working state, only a small part of the CPU is green, and the heat generation is low.

In the SOi1 system state, the CPU and GPU work very low, and the heat generation is also very low.

In the SOi3/S3 system state, only the power management is still green, and the entire chip is in the lowest power consumption state.

In some actual tests, we also saw that the mobile phones using Intel processors really save power. In a endurance test, the Verge, a foreign media, compared Motorola's Razr I and Razr M, which are basically the same in other aspects except for chips. Razr I uses Intel's X86 architecture processor Atom Z2460, while Razr M uses Qualcomm's dual core Snapargon S4,. The result of comparison is that RAZR M can run continuously for 7 hours and 22 minutes, while Razr I can run for 8 hours and 42 minutes. It is obvious that Razr I with Intel processor saves power than Razer M.

Also in Engadget's battery test, they repeatedly played videos of Razr I and Razr M, and used social networks and email synchronization. Finally, Razr I could play for 9 hours continuously, while Razr M could only play for 8 hours.

It can be seen that the chip architecture only affects the power consumption of mobile phones. The power consumption of mobile phones depends on the manufacturing process and power management of the chip. In addition, graphics, video, audio, network and other functions are all in one chip. Therefore, the overall power consumption of a chip cannot simply be said that the chip of X86 architecture will consume more power than the phone of ARM architecture. The overall power consumption of the chip depends more on the software and manufacturing process than on the processor structure. In this regard, the X86 processor has the advantage because Intel's technology has great advantages.

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