Intel Corp (INTC)

[chipguy]

Everyone here acknowledges that everything else being equal, x86 cores consume significantly more power and die, right?

UTTER NONSENSE!

The baggage of x86 vs RISC is relatively small for an expert x86 design
institution like Intel. The more ambitious the performance target the
smaller disadvantage x86 has. For a ~3 way OOOE high frequency
superscalar the disadvantage for x86 is probably 10% core area, 5%
performance everything else being equal.

Please Note:

1) In a mobile SoC the CPU(s) represent a small fraction of the die
and typically half or less of the power budget. This means the x86
disadvantage is in the noise at the device level and is effectively
undetectable at the system level of hardware.

2) Everything else is far from equal. No one other company has
either as good process technology as Intel to make high performance
MPUs or the accumulated knowledge how to design high performance
CPU cores, cache hierarchies, memory systems, and system fabrics.

The problems Intel is having with penetrating the mobile market
has NOTHING to do with x86 (at least on the silicon side, there are
still major software issues to iron out) but rather choosing the right
ingredients and their proportions for everything else on the SoC die
BUT the CPU cores.