ARM CPU and Intel x86 CPU performance comparison

With the advent of the mobile Internet era, ARM-based CPUs such as Qualcomm and Texas Instruments have attracted more and more attention, while the former king of Intel x86 architecture seems to be struggling in the mobile Internet due to power consumption issues.

Compared with ARM architecture, Intel x86 architecture has stronger performance but higher power consumption, which is a well-known fact. So how much stronger is the CPU performance of Intel x86 architecture than that of ARM architecture? Let's do a simple evaluation of a single Core.

My PC CPU: Intel Pentium Dual-Core CPU E5300 2.60GHz (Launched 2008Q1 x86)

My phone's CPU: Qualcomm Snapdragon S2 MSM8255 1.0GHz (Launched 2010Q2 ARMv7)

From the above description, it can be seen that Intel CPU was launched two years earlier than Qualcomm CPU.

 

We use the Whetstone benchmark (Whetstone: floating-point arithmetic performance) to test the CPU performance. The general steps are as follows:

1. Download Whetstone source code

2. Use gcc to compile Windows PC version executable program in MinGW environment

3. Use arm-none-linux-gnueabi-gcc to compile Android Native C version executable program in Linux cross-compilation environment

4. Run the test program in Windows

5. Run the test program in Android ARM Linux

6. Summarize the running time

 

    1. Download Whetstone source code

You can download the source code file directly at the following address:

http://www.netlib.org/benchmark/whetstone.c

 

2. Use gcc to compile Windows PC version executable programs in MinGW environment

Compile in MinGW using the following command line: gcc -static whetstone.c –O0 -o whetstone -lm

Note: -O0 is used to prevent gcc from optimizing the code to ensure the accuracy of the comparison test

 

3. Use arm-none-linux-gnueabi-gcc to compile Android Native C version executable program in Linux cross-compilation environment

    Use the following command line to compile in the Linux cross-compilation environment: arm-none-linux-gnueabi-gcc -static whetstone.c –O0 -o whetstone -lm

For more information about how to set up a Linux cross-compilation environment, see my other article: "Setting up an ARM cross-compilation environment in Ubuntu 10.04"

http://blog.csdn.net/xt_xiaotian/article/details/6836739

   

    4. Run the test program in MinGW

Run the program 100 times and observe the output.

$ time ./whetstone.exe 100

Loops: 100, Iterations: 1, Duration: 8 sec.

C Converted Double Precision Whetstones: 1250.0 MIPS

real    0m8.698s

user    0m0.s

sys     0m0.015s

   

    5. Run the test program in Android ARM Linux

Assume that adb (Android Debug Bridge) has been configured in the system. Connect the phone to the USB data cable and turn on USB debugging. Enter adb shell in the cmd window to enter the Android adb shell. Then configure as follows:

1. Use mount –o remount,rw /system to mount the /system directory as writable. Press Ctrl + C to exit the Android adb shell and return to the cmd window.

2. Use adb push C:\whetstone /system to copy the whetstone program compiled in the Linux cross-compilation environment to the /system folder in Android Linux.

3. Use chmod whetstone to set the program as executable

4. Run the program using time ./whetstone 100 and observe the output.

The output is:

Loops: 100, Iterations: 1, Duration: 148 sec.

C Converted Double Precision Whetstones: 67.6 MIPS

real 2m 28.88s

user    2m 28.25s

sys     0m 0.02s

 

6. Summary of running time

The same program, with the same number of loops, takes 8.698 seconds to run on an Intel CPU and 148.88 seconds to run on a Qualcomm CPU.

It can be concluded that in terms of floating point operations, the Intel Pentium Dual-Core CPU E5300 2.60GHz is 17 times more powerful than the Qualcomm Snapdragon S2 MSM8255 1.0GHz. According to Intel's Moore's Law, CPU performance will double every 18 months. It can be roughly calculated that the Intel CPU is 42 times more powerful than the Qualcomm CPU of the same grade and time.

    The test may not be accurate, but it does reflect the performance gap between the two different types of CPUs to a certain extent. Everyone is welcome to reply and tell us the test values ​​of your own ARM CPU and PC CPU.

--This
comparison is not scientific.
The main reason is that you run too few cycles. The user time of Windows is ignored. The user time of Android is about the same as the running time.
The difference can be seen only when the number of cycles is increased. The difference should be close to 1 times, not 42 times.
--In
comparison, Qualcomm MSM8255 is only equivalent to an Intel Pentium III Mobile 750MHz. Link: http://ark.intel.com/products/27410/Mobile-Intel-Pentium-III-Processor-750-MHz-256K-Cache-100-MHz-FSB