[fremont_steve]

First - Android ain’t windows. So “Winstonee benchmarks” don’t buy you much. Another issue is that the K6 was done at maybe 350nanometers if memory serves. That is VERY different from 45nanometers. It just a completely different discussion.

[WalterSobchak2012]

The Nx686 from which the K6 core was derived was manufactured for Nexgen by IBM at 350nm, most K6 family chips sold were manufactured at 250nm (K6, K6-2 and K6-III) or 180nm (K6-2+ and K6-III+). A very small number were manufactured by AMD at 300nm. But that is beside the point Freescale will sell you a Motorola 68k family chip manufactured at 90nm.

And while Android isn't Windows - Windows 8 "Midori" will run on ARM. I have seen Windows running on ARM - it was painful. Microsoft has had Windows Vista, 7 and 8 running all running on ARM. They are bringing Windows on ARM to market because they don't want to be caught with their pants down like they were with Netbooks and ceede this space to Android and HP's WebOS devices.

It is clearly the intent of ARM and their licensees to push ARM cores into more mainstream performance intensive applications, but that will be very challenging in its present form. Hopefully Nvidia comes forward with something amazing. But the Cortex family isn't the basis of mainstream success.