Nuvia claims that its ARM server cores outperform mobile x86 cores

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Chip manufacturer Nuvia has announced its upcoming Phoenix CPU cores. These cores are based on the ARM architecture. Nuvia claims that the performance is better than, say, an AMD Ryzen 7 4700U or a Core i7-1065G7, with lower consumption.

Nuvia’s first ARM cores are called Phoenix, the company reports in a blog post. These cores will be used in the upcoming Orion-soc, which is intended for use in servers, according to Nuvia. Nuvia does not yet announce when its first chips will hit the market.

In its blog post, Nuvia gives, among other things, an indication of the expected performance per watt of its upcoming ARM cores, compared to other chips currently on the market. The company also discloses its testing methodology, including how the company measures power consumption. Nuvia uses mobile chips for its tests, including laptops and smartphones. However, the company claims there are “no major differences” between mobile cores and server cores and that both variants work in a similar way.

For example, the company is testing Apple’s A13 and A12Z chips, a Snapdragon 865, an AMD Ryzen 7 4700U and an Ice Lake Core i7 CPU from Intel. For this, the company used Geekbench 5 results, supplemented with its own current measurements per core of all tested chips. Geekbench 5 is a good ‘starting point’, according to Nuvia, as it offers support for different platforms and different workloads.

As part of the testing, the company is showing a slide showing the planned performance of the Phoenix cores, stating that “ the top portion of the curve has been omitted, ” to be fully disclosed at a later date. The Phoenix performance is “projected using performance modeling techniques that are in line with the industry standard for future CPU cores”, according to Nuvia. According to the company, the Phoenix cores must perform ‘up to twice’ better than the other chips. For example, according to the slide, the future Phoenix cores will offer better performance than the current x86 counterparts with relatively low power consumption. The Nuvia cores should also outperform the tested ARM chips at similar power consumption.

The existence of Nuvia was initially announced in November 2019. The company was founded by several former leaders of Apple and Google, including Gerard Williams III. He designed Apple socs, from the A7 in the iPhone 5S, to the A12X used in the 2018 iPad Pro. The company had pulled in $ 53 million in investment in November.

Projected single-threaded performance of the Phoenix cores, versus current mobile cores
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