ARM demos the Cortex-A9's web browsing skills on video
By Donald Melanson 
posted January 5th 2010 10:24PM
posted January 5th 2010 10:24PM
We've been hearing reports of the ARM Cortex-A9 holding its own with the ever-present 1.6GHz Atom processor for quite a while now, but ARM is now taking advantage of CES to do a bit more up-front boasting -- like this recently-posted video demoing the processor's browsing performance against an average netbook. While it's obviously not entirely scientific, the Cortex-A9 does seem to lag only slightly behind -- which is all the more impressive considering that the ARM is running at just 500MHz compared to the Atom's 1.6GHz. Equally impressive: ARM's fine taste in websites. Head on past the break for the video.
@chaoscentral that is really good explanation from now one if i have to explain Preprocessors to my friend im gonna use this explanation. but Atom is also a virtual dual core (wat ever that means) wouldn't that also be close to the same way of running
@chaoscentral
To the two of you, actually, the Dual-core is two brains, but with only one memory-based portion (shared) which created the need in Intel's products for something like SmartCache, which allocates space dynamically. So, it is as if the two cars have the same pool.
Let's say there is a fat lady who takes up 10 spaces, and another pool of 10 one-space people. Two cars with 5 open seats will not hold her, but will drag her along very slowly. A bus/10-person car/pickup truck will have room, just no extra, and the groceries (background processes) can't fit, and so need another trip.
Virtual dual core (called hyper threading by Intel) is like a two-ended train. Both ends have motors and wheels and everything needed to run, and can split apart (well, pretend they can) to take half the load separately, but to different places. Together, they can take a bunch of fat ladies efficiently to the same location, providing a best-of-both-worlds approach in all but power efficiency. One which I will not dare enter for lack of knowledge.
I'm not quite THAT ignorant, but more and more software is multi-threaded, including browsers and some well-known plugins, so having 2 cores should make a difference even when browsing if you are dealing with a system that's easily taxed.
And it just is a bit unfair to compare 2 clockspeeds but ignore that one is a dual core and the other not.
Again: not that there's anything wrong with ARM's, in fact I think they do just fine showing their qualities without such foolishness as twisting comparisons.
The point is is that it isn't all about cpu speed as people tend to compare the Snapdragon to the ARM cpu. We have to get out of the "higher frequency equals better and faster real life speed" trap.
@(Unverified)
Snapdragon is a SoC (system on a chip) built around an ARM core, ie: it is an "ARM CPU."
@ryanplusplus Snapdragon is an SoC built around the Scorpion CPU, which conforms to the ARMv7 architecture, but was designed by Qualcomm. See http://blogs.arm.com/smart-mobile-devices/qualcomm-delivers-on-the-smartbook-promise/
kewl ! i want that cortex !
not bad, not bad
Cortex A9 rocks. I hope the next nokia netbook has one.
This looks awesome, i hope it gets into phones (with adequate software to use the power) by the time my contract runs out
@(Unverified)
Maybe it could even get into the standard Engadget logo!