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[Q] Processors

Can somebody explain me, how it is possible, that my Desire HD processor can run at 1,9Ghz, and it has got no cooling? Or how is it cooled?
I have got a notebook with Pentium 3 running at 1,0 Ghz, and it produces a lot of heat.
Is it because of new nm technology or what?
Thanx for explaining me that. Because i really don't understand it

Simple answer: a phone processor doesn't use as much power, therefore putting off less heat.
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The Mhz numbers can be pretty irritating
Even on the desktop, you can't rely on a 1.8Ghz processor actually being able to do more than another that's only clocked at 1.6Ghz. And that's with processors that are part of the same family.
The trick is that the instruction sets are different. Even though they may be able to process the same number of instructions in a given timeframe, a given problem may take a single instruction on one platform and a hundred on another.
Power consumption comes rises with the number of instructions available. ARM processors have only a very limited instruction set, so they need a lot less power finding out which instruction is coming it.
An example: all x86 (since the 486) chips are able to perform floating-point math, while ARM only gained that ability recently. So 1.1+1.1 is very simple on x86 (it's not actually a single instruction, but that's not the point here), but takes a lot of cycles on ARM (since it needs to implement all of this in software).

And a phone processor is smaller .

p0cait said:
And a phone processor is smaller .
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That's debatable. The dies are pretty close in size, for compareable ARM and x86 cpus.
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Android pre-installed on Atom x86 tablets

I've searched high and low for this but can't find any information. Does anyone know what is the source of the Android that comes pre-installed on various Chinese/Taiwanese tablets with Intel Atom (x86) processors? Is an image available somewhere? I'm pretty sure it can't just be Android-x86 as these tablets often use Atoms with PowerVR SGX 5xx graphics which IIRC are not supported by Android-x86 .

Like as not, you guessed right the first time...
I realize this is a pretty late response, but...
What you are probably looking for is Android-x86.org, in fact, after all.
I would not be one bit surprised, if any cheap-ish Chinese x86 tablet, you find, is running a knock-off of the Android-x86 project. The Chinese manufacturers may list atoms with PowerVR graphics chips, but what's listed, and what's functionally supported, when you receive the tablet may be two entirely different things.
That said, Android-x86 runs reasonably well, if you don't mind tweaking the kernel config to fit your hardware, before compiling. (Reasonably <> perfectly, of course...)
XTCrefugee said:
I've searched high and low for this but can't find any information. Does anyone know what is the source of the Android that comes pre-installed on various Chinese/Taiwanese tablets with Intel Atom (x86) processors? Is an image available somewhere? I'm pretty sure it can't just be Android-x86 as these tablets often use Atoms with PowerVR SGX 5xx graphics which IIRC are not supported by Android-x86 .
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tekowalsky said:
Chinese manufacturers may list atoms with PowerVR graphics chips, but what's listed, and what's functionally supported, when you receive the tablet may be two entirely different things.
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The fact that the cedarview/clover trail Atoms have PowerVR chips is down to Intel. That's how they're designed. It's not something an OEM could change, Chinese or otherwise.
Without hardware graphics support, cedarview Atoms are pretty hopeless. They simply aren't capable of doing things like HD video, or pretty much anything related to 3D graphics. There's some limited Linux support, but aside from that it's Windows only if you want a capable system. Without an Android driver (which Android-x86 lacks) it really wouldn't even be worth trying, believe me.
Most likely (as others have said in other threads) these tablets run Android-x86 with some custom (probably unlicensed) PowerVR driver

Don't bother with battery comparisons on the i9500, the phone is unfinished.

So I got my i9500 and already did some foolery with it.
Fine device, but I hate the raised lip around the screen edge. Something I definitely did not miss on the S3 and something very annoying.
Other than that small design critique:
THE ****ING PHONE ISN'T RUNNING FINAL FIRMWARE!
Basically the CPU is running on the cluster migration driver, meaning it switches all four cores from the LITTLE to the big cluster, as opposed to the core migration driver who does this in an individual core-pair manner.
You can pretty much throw all battery comparisons out of the window: it's completely unfinished and unoptimal.
I already compiled the kernel and flashed it without the cluster migration tidbit, but the phone won't boot. So yea. Current sources also useless.
Cleverly enough: you can't really distinguish between the two drivers apart from one manner: if /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpufreq/iks-cpufreq/max_eagle_count is present, you're running an IKS driver. If it's not, then you're running the sub-optimal IKCS driver.
So yea. We'll see what Samsung does about this, currently the advantages of big.LITTLE are pretty much unused.
Another nail in the coffin on how rushed and unprepared this phone has been.

Wow, this is seriously turning out to be a fiasco.

ChronoReverse said:
Wow, this is seriously turning out to be a fiasco.
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This is EXACTLY why at the end I don't care for technical details about socs but was rather waiting for real world usage first. As much I wanted to agree with Andrei Lux on how intelligent BigLittle is, I sort of felt that it wont be same at the end.
Question is now: Is this possible to fix in the near future?? So that maybe buying the Exynos will be beneficial if the devs take over. I wont bet on Samsung introducing mind-blowing improvements in that department in upcoming firmwares

Xdenwarrior said:
Question is now: Is this possible to fix in the near future?? So that maybe buying the Exynos will be beneficial if the devs take over. I wont bet on Samsung introducing mind-blowing improvements in that department in upcoming firmwares
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The code other driver is there in the kernel, it's just not used. No idea. It's not like we need Samsung for it: I already talked to a developer at Linaro about some incomplete switcher code that's being currently getting the green-light to be made public. But who knows how long that will take.
Whatever the case, I gather that they can't just let it be in the current state.

AndreiLux said:
The code other driver is there in the kernel, it's just not used. No idea. It's not like we need Samsung for it: I already talked to a developer at Linaro about some incomplete switcher code that's being currently getting the green-light to be made public. But who knows how long that will take.
Whatever the case, I gather that they can't just let it be in the current state.
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Any way to just disable cortex a15 altogether yet just to see how well cortex a7 will perform in simple texting, browsing, calling and to see what the battery life will be like on that?? (cause cortex a7 only uses like 200 something mw as opposed to 1000mw for snapdragon). I know u wont be able to game. How often does Cortex A15 hits in? cause I would suspect a much worse battery life with incomplete drivers doing the switching if its very often on. But PocketNow reports very similar battery results to snapdragon variant which I find odd

Xdenwarrior said:
Any way to just disable cortex a15 altogether yet just to see how well cortex a7 will perform in simple texting, browsing, calling and to see what the battery life will be like on that?? (cause cortex a7 only uses like 200 something mw as opposed to 1000mw for snapdragon). I know u wont be able to game. How often does Cortex A15 hits in? cause I would suspect a much worse battery life with incomplete drivers doing the switching if its very often on. But PocketNow reports very similar battery results to snapdragon variant which I find odd
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Use any app to limit the CPU frequency to 600MHz. That'll limit it to the A7 cores running to 1200MHz. Basically you can just use CPU-Spy. Everything <= 600 are A7's mapped at half frequency, everything above it are A15's at 1:1 frequency.
As for PocketNow: irrelevant. The difference is what could be instead of what is, the Snapdragon doesn't play a role in the discussion here.

WOW , thats sucks
Samsung was too rushed and ruined it :/

AndreiLux said:
Use any app to limit the CPU frequency to 600MHz. That'll limit it to the A7 cores running to 1200MHz. Basically you can just use CPU-Spy. Everything <= 600 are A7's mapped at half frequency, everything above it are A15's at 1:1 frequency.
As for PocketNow: irrelevant. The difference is what could be instead of what is, the Snapdragon doesn't play a role in the discussion here.
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Hey thanks, but I don't have the S4 to test it with since i'm still debating on which to get. I live in Canada and so the only version here which I can get a lot cheaper on a contract is LTE snapdragon, but I wont mind getting the Exynos since it got potential. Besides 16GB internal isn't enough for me. So that's why asking if u seen any improvements in battery when only cortex a7 ran? If a7 doesn't do much in power consumption, then no point spending 800 bucks and loosing LTE altogether...

@bala_gamer please see my PM its important...
Sent from my GT-I9500 using xda premium

Oh wow. Just got word (without further in-depth explanation) that this might actually be a hardware limitation. Coming from a reliable source.
No words...

AndreiLux said:
Oh wow. Just got word (without further in-depth explanation) that this might actually be a hardware limitation. Coming from a reliable source.
No words...
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Can you elaborate a bit more pls?
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that's not what samsung exynos advertised..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6UNODPHAHo

Is it possible that we're having a simpler Exynos 5 system technically closer to Exynis 5 Quad (plus 4 A7 cores) than a real seamless Octa-core system? It was strange reading that "Octa-core manufacturing starts in Q2" (April-June) then see Octa-core versions hitting reviewers early April, that's way too low time frame. Maybe this is a 1st-gen 5410. In any case, performance and current-state battery life beats the Snapdragon version, even if only just.

AndreiLux said:
Basically the CPU is running on the cluster migration driver,
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wtf? Well done Samsung... This is ridiculous...
AndreiLux said:
Oh wow. Just got word (without further in-depth explanation) that this might actually be a hardware limitation. Coming from a reliable source.
No words...
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Click to collapse
WHAT THE [email protected]??!!
Actually WTF is a massive understatement here....!!!
Please can you give more info about this matter whenever is possible? This is very serious...
Is it a specific hardware limitation? Something that Samsung specificly did in GS4 (I9500) ?
Because this can't be a generic exynos octa limitation. It makes no sense... Unless everything we've read from Samsung and ARM about exynos octa, are completely misleading...

A hardware limitation..? They advertised the functionality and to then release a device without it, is just plain stupid. Hopefully it is a just a kernel issue and can be resolved quickly.
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Probably Samsung will implement it in their Note 3 device? It's a conspiracy so that people buy their next Note phone but this news is sad.
Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk 2

Now what is this all about? Is this a very serious issue?

So its either all A15s or all A7s?
so would the 'octa' really be a better choice than the S600? That should be powerful enough.. and the S600 is pretty power efficient too

rkial said:
So its either all A15s or all A7s?
so would the 'octa' really be a better choice than the S600? That should be powerful enough.. and the S600 is pretty power efficient too
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What I understood is its either the full cluster of a7 or a15 is used/ functional based on the load, dynamically turning on one or two cores of a15 to work along with a7 may not be possible it seems.
I may be wrong, waiting for an elaborate exp from andrei
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bala_gamer said:
What I understood is its either the full cluster of a7 or a15 is used functional based on the load, dynamically turning on one or two cores of a15 to work along with a7 may not be possible it seems.
I may be wrong, waiting for an elaborate exp from andrei
Sent from my GT-I9500 using Tapatalk 2
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I was always under the impression this was the intention of Samsung's particular implementation of it. I thought it was common knowledge that Samsung's version worked on a 4 or 4 (A15) or (A7) basis.
Maybe he was talking about the ability to change that.

Overclock ?

Have anyone tried to overclock the shield tablet?

First off there is really no need. It is the fastest tablet on the market currently. Secondly you would need a custom kernel with overclocking built in. No one has done a kernel yet.
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nrage23 said:
First off there is really no need. It is the fastest tablet on the market currently. Secondly you would need a custom kernel with overclocking built in. No one has done a kernel yet.
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"It is the fastest tablet on the market currently" WITH Android. There are tablets with Windows and Intel Core i7 and a better GPU than the one of K1. Price is extortionate, yes.

perfectslim said:
"It is the fastest tablet on the market currently" WITH Android. There are tablets with Windows and Intel Core i7 and a better GPU than the one of K1. Price is extortionate, yes.
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Honestly i'm not so sure about those i7s. Look again and you'll see that they all have a "U" at the end of the model number. That denotes that it's an ultrabook version of the i7, not the normal version you're used to seeing on the desktop. Also, those all use embedded intel graphics chips. I'm not necessarily saying one is less/more powerful, but that it's a lot less straightforward than it might seem.

djuniah said:
Honestly i'm not so sure about those i7s. Look again and you'll see that they all have a "U" at the end of the model number. That denotes that it's an ultrabook version of the i7, not the normal version you're used to seeing on the desktop. Also, those all use embedded intel graphics chips. I'm not necessarily saying one is less/more powerful, but that it's a lot less straightforward than it might seem.
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Intel's embedded graphics have impoved, but they are still pretty poor compared to a gpu (in most reasonable cases). Even my desktop i5's embedded I wouldn't use for anything more than watching a video. My laptops core2duo can't really even do that lol. The mobile/ultrabook versions of the i7s have a much wider range of cpu's and specs and many aren't very powerful, so I agree on it not being so clear on performance capabilities.
I haven't had any issues with the K1 so far that I felt it needed to be overclocked. It will probably be a little bit before you see tons of extra's like that anyway because there aren't a lot of people developing for this right now and there are other things that need work.

djuniah said:
Honestly i'm not so sure about those i7s. Look again and you'll see that they all have a "U" at the end of the model number. That denotes that it's an ultrabook version of the i7, not the normal version you're used to seeing on the desktop. Also, those all use embedded intel graphics chips. I'm not necessarily saying one is less/more powerful, but that it's a lot less straightforward than it might seem.
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Click to collapse
The K1 is almost as fast as an Intel HD 4000 (3DMark), but the 4400 and 5000 in new Intel chips are definitely much better. CPU-wise, there is no comparison in both single-core and multi-core performance. Obviously there is a huge price difference though.

Why is the proprietary ARM(64) preferred to the open SPARC(64) architecture?

Just wondering:
Most mobile devices, Android or Windows or {i, watch}OS, come with an ARM/ARM64 RISC processor. As far as I know, ARM is a proprietary architecture, directly connected to additional development cost because Advanced RISC Machines must grant a license first before you can start to assemble a new smartphone. (I never tried to buy an ARM license, maybe they just sell you a joker for all of your future devices?)
Given that the well-established SPARC/SPARC64 RISC processor is open and royalty-free, it's strange to never have seen a SPARC smartphone/tablet/whatever in the past few years. What makes ARM worth the additional cost?

Because there are mobile designs available for arm chips but none for sparc. Why would you burn money trying to make something as good as what you already have?
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^ what he said, partially. SPARC64 is a very interesting and worthwhile architecture that is pretty much dead except for one line of servers. There are no extant low-power SPARC/SPARC64 cores. ARM is King of Low Power. Intel can't beat them, there is pretty much no competition in the phone space. Lucky for us, ARM works really well in mobile devices.
As far as I know ARM licensing is not a big cost. And their ecosystem is relatively open, you can get tons of doc just by signing up.

midnightrider said:
There are no extant low-power SPARC/SPARC64 cores.
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AFAICS, that's not true:
http://www.fujitsu.com/global/about/businesspolicy/tech/k/whatis/processor/
Of course it will still have to be built, but 2.2 gflops/W seem to be a decent value.
midnightrider said:
And their ecosystem is relatively open, you can get tons of doc just by signing up.
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So is SPARC's. Without even signing up.

Blah blah blah. You're going around in circles.

That's not quite nice...

Rosa Elefant said:
That's not quite nice...
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What they mean to say is they have no idea xD