Arm beefs up processors and graphics for Windows laptops

Chip maker Arm is announcing a series of graphics and processor improvements to its central processing units (CPUs) and graphics processing units (GPUs) for Windows laptops.

Rene Haas, president of the IP Products Group division at the Cambridge, England-based company, said in a blog post that the new Arm Cortex-A76 CPU will have 35 percent better performance from a year ago for productivity applications.

The new Arm Mali-G76 GPU, he wrote, will enable untethered gaming and on-device machine learning (ML) with 30 percent higher efficiency and performance over previous generations.

Above: Arm’s going for the full spectrum of computing.

Image Credit: ARM

And the Arm Mali-V76 VPU will enable UltraHD 8K viewing experiences across more devices.

“Over the last five years, we’ve seen CPU performance on smartphones increase an average of 20-plus
percent every year without compromising battery life,” Haas wrote. “However, the same cannot be said for laptops reliant on other architectures, which have struggled to adapt to a slowing Moore’s Law over the last few years, delivering annual performance gains averaging only single-digit percentages while failing to enable any significant increases in battery life.”

He added, “This cadence of significant smartphone performance efficiency increases enabled by Arm did not go unnoticed by the Windows laptop ecosystem which now have integrated Arm-based SoCs from Qualcomm into their initial Always-Connected PC offerings. These Arm-based laptops are already paying off with an unprecedented 20-plus hours of battery life and steadily improving performance thanks to ongoing OS and application optimizations.”

Arm’s new designs will help close any perceived gap between its processor designs and the incumbents (Intel and Advanced Micro Devices), Haas said.

“Our new client IP platform solution for 2019 has generated a level of excitement within our ecosystem
which I have never seen during my 5-plus years at Arm thanks to the possibilities it offers for increased
productivity, immersive AR/VR and gaming, AI/ML, and UHD 8K viewing experiences on more devices,” Haas wrote.

Above: Arm is making its chips faster for Windows laptops.

Image Credit: ARM

The new Arm Cortex-A76 CPU, based on DynamIQ technology, delivers laptop-class performance while
maintaining the power efficiency of a smartphone, he wrote.

“We’ve already seen the success of the recently launched Arm-based Windows 10 PCs, delivering unimaginable 20-plus hours of battery life, a true LTE connected PC, and a trusted Windows app ecosystem,” Haas said. “Building on that momentum, the new Cortex-A76 CPU brings choice and flexibility to consumers from a trusted architecture, delivering the 35 percent year-over-year performance gain along with 40 percent improved efficiency.”