ARM's new flagship processor, the ARM Cortex-X2, is set to power more than just smartphones and other portable devices. The company has revealed that its latest range of CPUs will also be the brains behind ARM-powered PCs and laptops, hopefully offering an affordable yet powerful CPU option to manufacturers and developers.
ARM Reveals Flagship Cortex-X2 Armv9 Cortex CPU
ARM first announced its new Armv9 architecture in late March 2021, the first major architecture upgrade from the hardware manufacturer in around a decade. The new processor designs caused quite a stir, with ARM aiming to put processors in everything from smartphones to laptops and even desktop PCs.
Now, with the official revelation of its new top-of-the-line Cortex-X2 CPU on the official ARM blog, we're getting a solid picture of the performance jump between the hardware generations.
- The Cortex-X2 is the successor to 2020's Cortex-X1 and is part of ARM's custom design program. The key takeaway from the Cortex-X2 is the 16 percent performance increase on the previous generation. The Cortex-X2 becomes ARM's "most performant" Armv9 CPU and will deliver some serious overall performance boosts to portable devices.
- Similarly, there is a new Cortex-A710 which is the new "big" core aspect of ARM's trademark big.LITTLE design. The significantly upgraded A710 will deliver up to 30 percent better power efficiency and around 10 percent performance over 2020s Cortex-A78.
- Finally, there's another major update for the "LITTLE" core, too. The new Cortex-A510 is the first significant upgrade to the little core should bring a 35 percent performance increase over the Cortex-A55, which launched in 2017.
So, what does all of this actually mean?
Well, in short, ARM CPUs are going deliver much more bang for your buck. Most major smartphone and tablet manufacturers use ARM processor designs in their flagship hardware, so you can expect big gains when the new architecture hits the market proper.
Expect More ARM-Powered Laptops
ARM is looking squarely at the laptop market, too.
We have seen great momentum this past year in the laptop market for both Windows and Chrome laptops that are based on Arm technology. This drive for performance in the laptop market is reflected through the Cortex-X2, which is capable of delivering 40 percent single threaded performance improvements over 2020 mainstream laptop devices
With numbers like those and with the prospect of more efficient hardware to boot, expect to see many more ARM-powered Windows laptops and Chromebooks arriving soon.
The only downside is how long we may have to wait until ARM's new CPUs hit the market. With the ongoing semiconductor shortage affecting global CPU production, it's looking like 2022 is the earliest we'll see the new hardware. That's presuming the global chip shortage continues to ease, and production continues to increase.
