There has been a lot of discussion regarding the increase of ARM cpu power while Intel/AMD tries to reduce power consumption of the x86 processor. Currently, ARM is nowhere near as powerful as traditional PC processors, but they are steadily increasing. The next iteration of ARM will be 40% faster clock for clock than the previous generation, be scalable to 8 cores, and will clock at up to 2.5Ghz all while having a TDP in the single digits. Intel needs to begin trying to break into the low power cpu market and are currently developing the Atom processor family further. Intel's new Z6 series will have a TDP of 3W, which is still much higher than the ARM family processors.

Eventually the two companies will cross paths (Intel looking for lower power, ARM looking for more performance.) Rumors are swirling that ARM processors will be ready to replace Intel/AMD processors in laptops by 2015. Rumors are also coming out of Apple saying that the MacBook Pro line will be moving to Apple's A# series of processors in the future allowing Apple full control over the design of their processors while simply licensing the cores from ARM. This would be a dream come true for Apple since they will then have control over all the components in their computers. It is doubtful that ARM will be in their desktop solutions any time soon.

Windows 8 will support the ARM architecture. This begs the question, what does the future hold for desktops? Intel won't go down swinging, but the future looks much different in a world were ARM is becoming more powerful. An ARM in a HTPC would be incredible, very low power consumption. They already have Android smart phones that plug into kb/m and hook to a monitor.

What say you guys? Is ARM a strong contender or do you think they will simply stay in the low end laptop and mobile market?

The most powerful ARM supercomputer in the world:
http://www.pcworld.com/article/24378..._in_spain.html