Does Anyone Explain Clock Speeds To Me Please? S/A Affirmative action

[Wiglaf]

The iPad has a 1 GHz ARM based processor. A netbook also in my office has a 2.0 GHz x86 based Atom processor.

My only minority staffer says "The iPad is probably a bit slower than the netbook because it has such a lower clockspeed."

Please tell me whether Hernandez is right or wrong, and if so, how right, and if not, how wrong, or if neither, what is wrong with the question?

TECH FORUM TAKIN' IT IN THE ASS :ANGRY:

[Asher]

Clock speed is expressed in Hz, or cycles per second.

In layman's terms, the problem is not all cycles are created equal. Some chips do more per cycle than others.

There's other factors here. The Atom netbook has a lot more software overhead because it runs a full-featured OS rather than the crippled smartphone OS like on the iPad. This means that more cycles are stolen from the CPU to run the OS compared to the iPad.

A 2GHz Atom chip is definitely faster than the 1GHz A4 in the iPad, but it's not just because of the clock speed.

[Wiglaf]

How do you know the A4 is slower?

[Asher]

Because it's a lower power design with less functional units at slower clock speeds.

The 1GHz A4 CPU is rated at 2000 DMIPS (Dhrystone Million Instructions per Second - a synthetic integer computation benchmark). A 2GHz Atom is rated at 5000 DMIPs per core (Netbooks only have 1 core, usually)

[Asher]

Atom chips are also larger and more power-hungry than the chips in the smartphones + iPad today. They're more powerful chips, but they're not really practical for smartphones because they'd use too much power and generate too much heat.

As a general rule:
Dumbphone CPUs < Smartphone CPUs < Netbook CPUs < Notebook CPUs < Desktop CPUs

The iPad has a Smartphone CPU, the Atom is a Netbook CPU.

[Wiglaf]

Thank you