[pedroaraujo]

An ARM CPU is hardly comparable to an Intel/AMD CPU. And I don't mean in terms of performance.

The CPUs from Intel/AMD are much more than a simple CPU, they are a complete system on a chip with a lot of more features that go beyond processing power for your system. On the other hand, an ARM CPU is just a simple CPU.

If you want to make comparisons, a more correct one would be between the Intel/AMD CPUs and a Snapdragon processor.

[monocasa]

ARM chips have been full SoCs for far longer than x86 chips have been. It took a while for Intel and AMD to integrate the memory controllers and PCI root complex onto the CPU rather than in the northbridge.

AKAIK, only the Versatile/RealView style boards that an SoC manufacturer would get directly from ARM come with bare ARM chips. Anything other than that is an SoC.

[pedroaraujo]

ARM doesn't design SoCs, ARM designs CPUs.

My point is that an Intel/AMD product is a complete solution while an ARM product is just the very basic implementation of a CPU.

ARM doesn't mandate on anything related to the SoC except for the CPU, everything else related to PCI buses, memories, physical implementation, chipsets, etc, is up to the SoC developer to decide and implement.