You're comparing a chip with two[1] cores to a 4 or 10 core chip so the comparison is complicated. It'd be straightforward for them to add more cores – and we'll see that with the next iPad Pro, I'm sure – but at some point they're going to hit scaling issues for things like memory bandwidth.

The real difference, though, is power: that 6700-K uses 91W and the A10 should be around 2W. There's no way you can put a 6700-K in a normal laptop and the mobile processors appear only to be delivering single-core scores which are already within iPhone 7 range.

The other question is how often single-core or even multi-core performance matters for the average user vs. GPU performance since that's often the only place where people are limited by something other than network or storage speeds. I think a growing number of people are within the range where their needs would be satisfied with perhaps an extra core or two but a lot more GPU capacity.

1. They apparently activate either the fast or slow cores based on load but don't have all 4 active at the same time: http://arstechnica.com/apple/2016/09/iphone-7-and-7-plus-rev...

Performance per watt is what matters. Those two chips are completely different in terms of power.

The i7-6700K is a 91 watt chip. Remove that and they are fairly close, worse the A10 line has been improving much faster than Intel's chips over the last five years.

Also, don't forget it's really the mid range chips that matter and the A10 is very much a mid range chip without the benefit of excessive binning.

What's the power consumption of the last AX CPUs btw ? I just laughed thinking about the iPhone 7 main "board" that fits under the space key. An A10f laptop would be a the board + 4 batteries and a IO hub... how long would that last ?

The AX line is really a system on a chip, but the CPU is something like 0.1 to 0.2 watts. Remember these get ~1/3 of a ~2,0000 mAh battery and can last for several hours.

Only if it's asleep the whole time. The TDP is closer to 4-5 watts.

iPhone 6 has a 1810 mAh battery at 3.82volts = just under 7 watt hours. If the phone including display, cellphone chips, wifi, Bluetooth, Ram, and COU etc add up to 4 watts you would not get 2 hours of use from the phone.

You can indeed chew through the battery in about 2.5 hours at high load: http://www.anandtech.com/show/9686/the-apple-iphone-6s-and-i.... And the iPhone can't actually sustain maximum performance (and thus maximum power consumption) because of thermal limits: http://arstechnica.com/apple/2015/09/a-3d-touch-above-the-ip.... On the 6s, the CPU clockspeed drops from about 1.8 GHz to 1.4 GHz after 30 minutes of sustained load.

To the extent you're comparing A10 power usage to Intel's published numbers, keep in mind that Intel's TDP is what the processor uses to operate at the rated clock speed at full load indefinitely. In typical usage (where the CPU operates in short bursts and sleeps the rest of the time), the average power consumption will be a lot lower.

7 / 2.5 is still under 3w for the total prone draw.

All of which suggests in a laptop with active cooling and higher energy budget say 20W you could sustain 2+ ghz x6 cores or 20,000 to 24,000 with minor adjustments. Which is in the ballpark of Intel's high end desktop performance and faster than their mobile chips.

The real issue is Intel is dealing with a well funded competitor who does not care about x86. And the computer history has a long line of companies who where eaten from below as people where happy to pay a lot less for fewer features.

If you want to compare seemingly different things, it is useful, and almost required, to normalize.

What is being discussed here is the trend. No one is claiming that the A10 chip is faster than the 6 core i7-K line.