A Comparative Analysis of ARM and x86-64 Laptop-Class Processors: Architecture, Assembly-Level Performance, and Energy Efficiency
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arXiv
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| Format: | Preprint |
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2026
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| _version_ | 1866908982520578048 |
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| author | Özyılmaz, Mustafa Mert |
| author_facet | Özyılmaz, Mustafa Mert |
| contents | ARM-based and x86-64 laptop processors differ not only in instruction-set design, but also in memory hierarchy, core organization, system integration, and power-management mechanisms. This study presents a combined architectural and experimental comparison of an Apple M3 system and an AMD Ryzen 7 3750H system. The architectural analysis contrasts AArch64's fixed-width load-store design with the variable-length, memory-operand-rich x86-64 instruction model, and discusses how register organization, calling conventions, heterogeneous core organization, memory behavior, and low-power mechanisms shape observed performance and energy characteristics. The experimental part uses two native assembly benchmarks: a recursive Fibonacci workload and an integer matrix-multiplication workload. The analysis combines repeated timing measurements, processor-energy measurements, and cross-platform microarchitectural counter measurements from matched portable-C profiling runs. The Ryzen platform is decisively faster on the branch-heavy Fibonacci benchmark, while matrix multiplication shows no meaningful timing advantage for either platform in the present measurements. In contrast, the Apple platform is markedly more energy-efficient, reducing energy-to-solution by approximately 5.82$\times$ on Fibonacci and 6.38$\times$ on matrix multiplication. These results are interpreted as platform-level findings rather than as pure ISA-only effects, reflecting differences in implementation, system integration, and measurement methodology in addition to instruction-set structure. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2604_18896 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2026 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | A Comparative Analysis of ARM and x86-64 Laptop-Class Processors: Architecture, Assembly-Level Performance, and Energy Efficiency Özyılmaz, Mustafa Mert Hardware Architecture C.1.0; C.4 ARM-based and x86-64 laptop processors differ not only in instruction-set design, but also in memory hierarchy, core organization, system integration, and power-management mechanisms. This study presents a combined architectural and experimental comparison of an Apple M3 system and an AMD Ryzen 7 3750H system. The architectural analysis contrasts AArch64's fixed-width load-store design with the variable-length, memory-operand-rich x86-64 instruction model, and discusses how register organization, calling conventions, heterogeneous core organization, memory behavior, and low-power mechanisms shape observed performance and energy characteristics. The experimental part uses two native assembly benchmarks: a recursive Fibonacci workload and an integer matrix-multiplication workload. The analysis combines repeated timing measurements, processor-energy measurements, and cross-platform microarchitectural counter measurements from matched portable-C profiling runs. The Ryzen platform is decisively faster on the branch-heavy Fibonacci benchmark, while matrix multiplication shows no meaningful timing advantage for either platform in the present measurements. In contrast, the Apple platform is markedly more energy-efficient, reducing energy-to-solution by approximately 5.82$\times$ on Fibonacci and 6.38$\times$ on matrix multiplication. These results are interpreted as platform-level findings rather than as pure ISA-only effects, reflecting differences in implementation, system integration, and measurement methodology in addition to instruction-set structure. |
| title | A Comparative Analysis of ARM and x86-64 Laptop-Class Processors: Architecture, Assembly-Level Performance, and Energy Efficiency |
| topic | Hardware Architecture C.1.0; C.4 |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.18896 |