Intel Corp (INTC)

[morrowinder]

Any guesses on: Apple A9/X process size/number of cores?

Some here think that Apple got 70% with just memory/architecture optimizations. That could theoretically be true but I question that. But noone really knows. Apple only got 25% last time, so 70% seems like they added cores and they only focused on "CPU" for that which suggests the core friendly Geekbench benchmark. I think that the easy pickings may be gone architecturally for Apple. Now I could be wrong and 20nm really could be that awful that they squeezed out 70% through other means. It would be very smart to exploit the SHA thing for example to exploit Geekbench. But what about a tricore A9 and a Quad core A9x? 16nm TSMC FinFet seems reasonable as I am unaware of any 14nm products or 16nm products on the market for TSMC yet. Samsung hasn't indicated Apple is a customer have they? The phones are heavier and larger. This might point to a larger battery which supports the more cores theory. The major questions that need answering are: why did Apple emphasize CPU heavy benchmarks? Why is the phone heavier? Why did they not disclose FINFET or 14nm? Or 16nm if indeed it is that and merely describe it as a new transistor architecture.