Why not use Intel processor for windows phone?

[Lalith Prabhudev]

One of my friend had an Asus zenphone 4 with Intel atom clocked at 1.2 ghz duel core, and 1 Gb ram that device can play asphalt 8 in full graphics and play modem combat 4 with no lag. IDK but I just wanted to ask u guys is Intel good for windows phone or snapdragon good

 

[anon(7900571)]

Intel is great but snapdragon is leading in mobile processor. One advantage of snapdragon is that they are very battery efficient. same goes apple own custom design A5/5X/6/6X and 7 chip which are all dual core with some quad core variants for iPad. They all are dual core though :wink:

 

[hotphil]

Number of cores isn't everything. Intel have wanted to get in the mobile space, but their chip architecture has been too power hungry. The Snapdragon (and others) design was for low-power use from the start. Intel are trying to re-do decades-old architecture to be more power-efficient. Just different design philosophies.

 

[xandros9]

The major reason to adopt Intel would be the x86 architecture.
Main reason to want x86 is to run legacy programs and other fancy things like your laptop or desktop computer.

Boon to tablets, not so much for the small phones.
But if WP was retooled for x86 and the price among other factors was right, don't see why no. However, its not going to be inherently better or faster because of the brand.

 

[AR2186]

The biggest reason that its basically all Snapdragon at this point is because Qualcomm has an integrated cellular radio in the SOC, which gives you a lot better power optimization. NVIDIA only recently got it integrated (on a throttled back Tegra 4) and Intel is about a year away. There could definitely be benefits to an x86 processor (once they get the graphics on par - maybe they can license the Nvidias mobile Kepler architecture...), but at present the power drain is too high

Edit: Just to add about the powerfulness of Intel vs Arm, it isn't even close. Intel blows away arm on a per core basis, but the power consumption is higher. Overall, though, the new atoms can stand on their own vs the other chips, they just don't yet have the radio integrated so the stand alone radio uses a good deal of power

 

[AR2186]

Interesting article on CNET talking about Intel's upcoming cell phone offerings

Meet Intel's SoFIA, the super-cheap smartphone chip created in Singapore - CNET