The ARM 32-bit instruction set is the base 32-bit ISA used in the ARMv4T, ARMv5TEJ and
ARMv6 architectures. In these microproccessor, the instructions set is used in
applications requiring high performance, or for handling hardware issues such as
interrupts and processor start-up.
"All ARM instructions can also be "conditionalised" to only execute when previous
instructions have set a particular condition code. This means that instructions only have
their normal effect on the programmers’ model operation, memory and co-processors.
This conditionalisation of instructions allows small sections of if- and while-statements to
be encoded without the use of branch instructions."
http://www.arm.com/products/processors/technologies/instruction-set-architectures.php
x86 tends to have a lot more instructions. This can explain the much larger total number
of transistors that x86 chips tend to have ( compared to ARM) and also this is part of
why x86 chips tend to draw more power.
Below are some instructions from both Arm and x86 cpus. However each different
generation of processors that come out are a little different.