M1 = overclocked mobile ARM processor?

[UBS28]

Even the 5nm Snapdragon 888 looks alot like a M1 chip, as it is a 5nm ARM chip with 8 high-performance cores and 4 low efficiency cores.

Let alone the A series that is in the iPad’s.

 

[sergioarista]

Even the 5nm Snapdragon 888 looks alot like a M1 chip, as it is a 5nm ARM chip with 8 high-performance cores and 4 low efficiency cores.

Let alone the A series that is in the iPad’s.

Yes

 

[Gnattu]

If you only look at the CPU cores, then yes, these cores are originated from A14 and adjusted a little (cache, etc) to fit the need.

 

[lemonkid]

I think that the energy efficiency needed in a mobile processor due to the limits of their battery, brought new insights in how a processor should work. The need to have high performance at low energy consumption asked for new ways to design processors.
This soon resulted in processors that where also in their performance superior to old energy eating designs. Simply because they were more efficient. Using less energy also means staying at low temperature and that ment that more calculations could be made without overheating.
That led to the thought to use these processors also in other equipment, tailored to the need of of that equipment. At a use of not even 10 Watt the M1 can do a better job than most desktops using 75 Watt.

 

[thenewperson]

Even the 5nm Snapdragon 888 looks alot like a M1 chip, as it is a 5nm ARM chip with 8 high-performance cores and 4 low efficiency cores

The Android crowd's chips are more 1 high performance + 3 mid performance + 4 efficiency cores.

But to answer your question, sure.

 

[leman]

Even the 5nm Snapdragon 888 looks alot like a M1 chip, as it is a 5nm ARM chip with 8 high-performance cores and 4 low efficiency cores.

Let alone the A series that is in the iPad’s.

Not sure what you are asking here. Yes, M1 is based on the same architecture as A14, with some tweaks here and there to make it more suitable for desktop use. Not quit sure what you mean with "mobile" processor in this context, Apples architecture seems to be fairly scalable to different needs and usage cases. M1 does outperform some of the fastest enthusiast-level desktop CPUs in tasks where single-core performance matters most.

As to Snapdragon, try putting it in a laptop and seeing how it will perform. My guess: probably not too good. It's awkward heterogenous design won't be too useful on the desktop. A limited amount of super-efficiency cores are a great idea, as you can offload all the low-priority tasks such as backups and data syncing onto them, saving the battery life and freeing the thermals for more important stuff. But this weird combination of high, mid and low-performance cores... frankly, I have a strong suspicion that this design was created so that Android phone makers could boast higher single-threaded scores as not to look ridiculous next to Apple. And the X1 core at 5nm is still slower than Apple's A13 at 7nm...

 

[dmccloud]

Even the 5nm Snapdragon 888 looks alot like a M1 chip, as it is a 5nm ARM chip with 8 high-performance cores and 4 low efficiency cores.

Let alone the A series that is in the iPad’s.

Not even close. If you want to see what happens when you put a mobile ARM-based processor in a PC-class machine, look at the Surface Pro X, Samsung Galaxy Book S, or Lenovo Flex 5G. All three of those machines are using mobile processors, and while all three run Windows on ARM natively, the M1 still outperforms all three machines when it runs WoA via either QEMU or Parallels. While the cores used in the A14 are from the same family as those used in the M1, the SoC itself is a wholly separate design with numerous changes all aimed at making the M1 a laptop/desktop class processor.