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Qualcomm's Dual-core cpu inferior to others?

So I visited www.phonearena.com yesterday and saw the news about the HTC Pyramid.At first I thought wow,Qualcomm and HTC won't only get left behind but will have about the same technology and will run at higher frequencies.
But then I remembered something that troubled me.I remember reading somewhere that Qualcomm's dual-core CPUs will be based on the current-gen Cortex-A8 by ARM,while others,like Samsung's Orion,will be using the next-gen Cortex-A9 that is superior in both perfrormance and consumption,while being designed especially for dual-core CPUs,unlike the A8.
What's your take on this guys?

No one?
Sent from my Desire HD using XDA App

Strongly agree

i hope this isn't true. tegra 2 outperformed old cpu's with only one core running! that's because it's Cortex-A9. now, if it was Cortex-A8, i don't think there would be much of a difference.

In fact i think it is superior to the tegra 2 or Orion plat form despite being an cortex A8 architecture, but it is not a long term solution point proven as Qualcomm is developing it A9 counterpart the MSM 89xx
How it is superior? Well between A8 and A9 architecture to my knowledge there isn't much of a difference, the major one is enhanced soc and the capability to use DDR3 ram instead of being limited to ddr2
But how these two doesn't matter in the short term, well the first one is obvious because Qualcomm doesn't use just a Normal Cortex A8 architecture ( was used on the first gen of snapdragon) as the second generation MSM8255 used on the desire HD for exemple has an enhanced soc and cach point proven when compared to a lets say Omap 3 or hummingbird in every cpu benchmark i believe the MSM comes on top(correct me if i m wrong).
The second point which is about Ram, i don't believe we will be seeing DDR3 ram on smartphone anytime soon so at this it is a kinda useless advantage.
Now add to that if the rumors are correct that one cpu can be switched off if the charge is low then while the on tegra 2 which use a dual core architecture and not a dual cpu architecture.
Edit: this is true + Asynchronis clocking for each core!
Also in terms of graphics, the MSM8x60 comes with adreno 220 which is definitly faster than the adreno 205 almost as fast as the SGX540 and which is rumored to be faster than the GPU in tegra 2, the geforce, as for the Orion is believed to get the SGX543mp2 but Orion is not coming anytime soon, and probably will hit the market once tegra3 and MSM89XX is almost there (which comes with Adreno 300)
Hopefully this does help you, i know that not everything i mentioned is accurate, but i ll invite you to watch this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdVw9uBIr5I

But how these two doesn't matter in the short term, well the first one is obvious because Qualcomm doesn't use just a Normal Cortex A8 architecture ( was used on the first gen of snapdragon) as the second generation MSM8255 used on the desire HD for exemple has an enhanced soc and cach point proven when compared to a lets say Omap 3 or hummingbird in every cpu benchmark i believe the MSM comes on top(correct me if i m wrong).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Synthetic benchmarks like that though don't gauge real life performance though.

vbetts said:
Synthetic benchmarks like that though don't gauge real life performance though.
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Click to collapse
I do agree with you, but they do give a scal for the performance especially when there are different types that relies on a different system to test the perfomance.
In real world you have to agree that MSM8255 is the fastest CPU out there atm just look at how the Desire HD is a screamer! or even the G2/Desire Z with the same CPU but clocked 800mhz does a pretty great job even compared to the latest omap3/hummingbird phones.

Definitely, the MSM8255 45nm matches the old MSM8250 65nm even when the stock clock in the Z/G2 is only 800 mhz, versus that extra 200 mhz. The gpu is lacking compared to others.

vbetts said:
Definitely, the MSM8255 45nm matches the old MSM8250 65nm even when the stock clock in the Z/G2 is only 800 mhz, versus that extra 200 mhz. The gpu is lacking compared to others.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No,the GPU of the Desire Z/HD only lacks against the SGX540 of the Galaxy S!
Sent from my Desire HD using XDA App

kurolife said:
In fact i think it is superior to the tegra 2 or Orion plat form despite being an cortex A8 architecture, but it is not a long term solution point proven as Qualcomm is developing it A9 counterpart the MSM 89xx
How it is superior? Well between A8 and A9 architecture to my knowledge there isn't much of a difference, the major one is enhanced soc and the capability to use DDR3 ram instead of being limited to ddr2
But how these two doesn't matter in the short term, well the first one is obvious because Qualcomm doesn't use just a Normal Cortex A8 architecture ( was used on the first gen of snapdragon) as the second generation MSM8255 used on the desire HD for exemple has an enhanced soc and cach point proven when compared to a lets say Omap 3 or hummingbird in every cpu benchmark i believe the MSM comes on top(correct me if i m wrong).
The second point which is about Ram, i don't believe we will be seeing DDR3 ram on smartphone anytime soon so at this it is a kinda useless advantage.
Now add to that if the rumors are correct that one cpu can be switched off if the charge is low then while the on tegra 2 which use a dual core architecture and not a dual cpu architecture.
Edit: this is true + Asynchronis clocking for each core!
Also in terms of graphics, the MSM8x60 comes with adreno 220 which is definitly faster than the adreno 205 almost as fast as the SGX540 and which is rumored to be faster than the GPU in tegra 2, the geforce, as for the Orion is believed to get the SGX543mp2 but Orion is not coming anytime soon, and probably will hit the market once tegra3 and MSM89XX is almost there (which comes with Adreno 300)
Hopefully this does help you, i know that not everything i mentioned is accurate, but i ll invite you to watch this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdVw9uBIr5I
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ok,you convinced me!I'll be buyinh htc again!
Sent from my Desire HD using XDA App

vbetts said:
Definitely, the MSM8255 45nm matches the old MSM8250 65nm even when the stock clock in the Z/G2 is only 800 mhz, versus that extra 200 mhz. The gpu is lacking compared to others.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
As lotis said the only GPU that is faster than the Adreno 205 is the SGX540 and by a very slight marging in 3D while the Adreno wins in terms of 2D. The thing with Adreno GPUs is that they are clocked with the CPU and i believe the comparaisons were done with a G2 vs SGS + lagfix and froyo , i believe the GPU on the Desire HD does have a higher clock than the one on the G2 and thus perform better but again is this a fact or just another rumor if someone could confirm this..
But for a fact we all know that a stock G2 on pure android does 1600-1800 Quadrant score and a pure desire HD does a 1900-2100 on Android + sense out of the box

tolis626 said:
Ok,you convinced me!I'll be buyinh htc again!
Sent from my Desire HD using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i m looking forward to the pyramid hopefully HTC will show it on the MWC (but im afraid there is a chance that they won't because they've just released the desire HD counter part in the US aka thunderbolt and inspire 4G) or else i might be tempted by the Motorola Atrix

whats up with all the fear and worries ? quandrant for tegra2 is a mere 1911 . it will get its a** kicked by anthing qcom makes in 2011 .
that said , there is a low possibility quandrant only runs single core enabled on quadrant , but what makes u sure that other apps will run dual core then ?

souljaboy said:
whats up with all the fear and worries ? quandrant for tegra2 is a mere 1911 . it will get its a** kicked by anthing qcom makes in 2011 .
that said , there is a low possibility quandrant only runs single core enabled on quadrant , but what makes u sure that other apps will run dual core then ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Nothing!That's the thing!
At the moment there is no software that takes advantage of both cores.I think that Gingerbread also has problems.So we have yet to see the performance gains by dual-cores.

kurolife said:
In fact i think it is superior to the tegra 2 or Orion plat form despite being an cortex A8 architecture, but it is not a long term solution point proven as Qualcomm is developing it A9 counterpart the MSM 89xx
How it is superior? Well between A8 and A9 architecture to my knowledge there isn't much of a difference, the major one is enhanced soc and the capability to use DDR3 ram instead of being limited to ddr2
But how these two doesn't matter in the short term, well the first one is obvious because Qualcomm doesn't use just a Normal Cortex A8 architecture ( was used on the first gen of snapdragon) as the second generation MSM8255 used on the desire HD for exemple has an enhanced soc and cach point proven when compared to a lets say Omap 3 or hummingbird in every cpu benchmark i believe the MSM comes on top(correct me if i m wrong).
The second point which is about Ram, i don't believe we will be seeing DDR3 ram on smartphone anytime soon so at this it is a kinda useless advantage.
Now add to that if the rumors are correct that one cpu can be switched off if the charge is low then while the on tegra 2 which use a dual core architecture and not a dual cpu architecture.
Edit: this is true + Asynchronis clocking for each core!
Also in terms of graphics, the MSM8x60 comes with adreno 220 which is definitly faster than the adreno 205 almost as fast as the SGX540 and which is rumored to be faster than the GPU in tegra 2, the geforce, as for the Orion is believed to get the SGX543mp2 but Orion is not coming anytime soon, and probably will hit the market once tegra3 and MSM89XX is almost there (which comes with Adreno 300)
Hopefully this does help you, i know that not everything i mentioned is accurate, but i ll invite you to watch this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdVw9uBIr5I
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I hope you're right!!

I didn't think it was possible for an A8 to be dual core

The dual core cortex a8 qualcomm is building is a heavily customized version. It has features from a9 built into the cpu.
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App

hey what do you say about the net quad core processors from nvidia.. ? smart phones will become computers and our laptops will be just a notebook..for music and bigger games

alexandru.j91 said:
hey what do you say about the net quad core processors from nvidia.. ? smart phones will become computers and our laptops will be just a notebook..for music and bigger games
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
My laptop already is for surfing the net only because I prefer the large keyboard(it's a 17 incher after all ).Everything else I do with my smartphone,which has a 25% share of my gaming time.I also have a ps3!
Now,quad-core CPUs will first be for tablets(August 2011) and then for smartphones(Fall 2011?Maybe).These will pack some things like 12-core GPUs etc.Tests have already shown that they beat many dual-core x86 CPUs.What's next?Dunno,but I surely wanna see!

The next computers is possible, but relatively weak computers per say. But can any of our phones run crysis or crysis 2? Are they even remotely capable of generating over 10fps of it? Even the MALI 400MP, Tegra 2, adreno 220 or power vr SGX543 can't manage that. I don't think we'll be seeing any SoC's with that sort of power until maybe two years?
Point being, phones will never hold the same amount of power a computer can output. So computers will stay. Who's to say computer SoC's haven't been improving? sandybridge, quantum processing, six cores core i9, 48 cores? No one cares for computer news anymore?
Anyways onto the topic, looking at the new gpu benchmarks posted of the dual core snapdragon, 1.5ghz. They're making the other cpu's look bad. So maybe the SoC isn't that bad after all. looks like it was a prototype also so the finished product could be even better. Source:
http://blog.gsmarena.com/the-new-1-...sm8660-got-benchmarked-meet-the-new-champion/

Galaxy S just a label?

i was wondering. what exactly makes a Galaxy S device a Galaxy s device? i hope i made sense there...
because on twitter GalaxySsupport replied to a question i had originally asked to Samsungsupport about the infuse.

more or less. there are many phones named galaxy from samsung. then the galaxy s line came out, then the galaxy s conntinuum. then the galaxy indulge on metro pcs. then the i9003. galaxy s had a narrow line of hardware at first then they played with screens now the whole hardware profile can vary. the infuse is more galaxy s than the galaxy indulge, or the i9003. now they have the galaxy s 2 and will soon have the galaxy s 2 mini and galaxy s+ which will supposedly be based on a quallcom cpu.. so although the infuse has different gps hardware and mhl the radio is likely the same as the t959v sgs4g and is otherwise a galaxy s. samsung said it doesnt have the hardware requirements to be called a galaxy s when asked but it only seems to have hardware improvements. the audio chip is the same, the processor is the same, other phones called galaxy dont meet those requirements, and the phone is also capable of running gps and the camera while making phone calls, the sgs cant do either. im not really sure what game samsung is playing here but it seems galaxy s has been demoted to a label and att maybe didnt want that label because of the bugs and lack of support people think it had.

It seems to be a just a label. I mean this is way batter than any galaxy device out there. Poeple all up on dual core (I was one of them), what exactly do you need so much power for? How fast are you typing that you need a phone to keep up with you. The only phone that does require it would he the atrix because of its lapdock. But even then dual core seems to be a way to drain your battery if you don't know how to set up the phone correctly. And Samsung directed my question to the Galaxy S twitter account. I still think this phone meets and exceeds the requirements for a Galaxy S device.
Sent from my Infuse 4G.

I was checking the Samsung Galaxy S website
i have these comparisons
Samsung Galaxy S 4G:
Android Platform: 2.2
Display: 4.00" Super AMOLED
Camera: 5.0 MP rear VGA front
Processor: 1.0 Mhz
Samsung Infuse 4G:
Android Platform: 2.2
Display: 4.50" Super AMOLED Plus
Camera: 8.0 MP rear 1.2MP front
Processor: 1.2Ghz
and this device is not capable of being a Galaxy S device?
i think this phone has been ripped from it title.

multi core is hard to utilize fully(has to do with the way things are processed and applications are written) but the step from one to two can feel like a big difference in some situations. any lag caused by background services can disappear because there is a non busy processor core ready to go. the lag difference can give the perception of performance even if the actual speed something is processed at is not much faster. if a dual core comes out that has great battery life and no heat issues im sure it will be great. dual core doesnt throw me off that much, what gets me however is they are already talking about 4 core chips for phones! please figure out a way to make the architecture smaller or make 3d architecture like they have been talking about for years so we can get more hz and less power usage. it cant be easy to parallelize applications with simple functions that are written in java.
multi core is great for benchmarking but beyond 2 cores i dont see the point on a small screen and one is perfectly acceptable.

Atrix dual core. Lag and heat central on that phone.
Sent from my Infuse 4G.

My atrix got very hot as well. I haven't noticed any speed difference between my atrix and the infuse. I think overall the infuse is a far superior device.

i was speaking in theory about the lag. blur is a piece of crap. that and locked bootloaders are why i wont buy it. i dont mind limited development as long as i can get things the way i want them, lack of ability to flash roms seems like too much of a hinderance in getting the phone setup the way i want it. i will look at the attain, but with the audio issues im may wait for a while before i buy another phone.

I think I'm pretty much set with the Infuse.
Sent from my Infuse 4G.

Even then with Dual core, blur should be able to run really snappy.
but it doesn't. only real thing that i see dual core has to provide are better graphics in games.

Transformer27 said:
Even then with Dual core, blur should be able to run really snappy.
but it doesn't. only real thing that i see dual core has to provide are better graphics in games.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The best part is that kholk found while working on the bootloader that the Atrix kernel only loads one core on boot....lol....
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I997 using XDA App

h8rift said:
The best part is that kholk found while working on the bootloader that the Atrix kernel only loads one core on boot....lol....
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I997 using XDA App
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Click to collapse
OMG LOL. Epic fail. I knew something was up with that phone. LOL
Sent from my Infuse 4G.

Transformer27 said:
Even then with Dual core, blur should be able to run really snappy.
but it doesn't. only real thing that i see dual core has to provide are better graphics in games.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
the infuse gpu can keep up with some kernel tweaks and api support for tegra based games. the sgs renders some things better(not sure if that's true in a technical sense but certain benchmarks look more natueral) and in most cases can run similar frame rates, some overclocking and the sgx power vr540 gpu is a beast. dual core helps in games that are written for dual core especially if it uses tegra2 specific APIs, chainfire's chainfire 3d may help with that situation.
and well dual core would only help with lag caused by multi tasking. a laggy launcher on a single core may be just as laggy on a dual core(unless it is multi threaded), but a snappy launcher may lag if there is a background service running on a single core but is not likely lag to on a dual core even with background services. i guess i wasnt specific enough.
i guess im only reinforcing the idea that dual core is marketing nonsense because unless you are a multi tasking junkie you wont notice a bit of difference 90% of the time.

h8rift said:
The best part is that kholk found while working on the bootloader that the Atrix kernel only loads one core on boot....lol....
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I997 using XDA App
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Click to collapse
a large portion of the boot process is probably in one large thread making dual core useless untill the ui starts. though having the core ready would mean you could start playing with things while the ui is still loading making the wait for everything to load less annoying.

Dani897 said:
i was speaking in theory about the lag. blur is a piece of crap. that and locked bootloaders are why i wont buy it. i dont mind limited development as long as i can get things the way i want them, lack of ability to flash roms seems like too much of a hinderance in getting the phone setup the way i want it. i will look at the attain, but with the audio issues im may wait for a while before i buy another phone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What are the audio issues on the attain?

nstong said:
What are the audio issues on the attain?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
well the attain isnt tested yet, maybe i should have said sgs2. if the attain is the same as the sgs2 international supercurio wasnt very happy with the audio, and audio is important to me. it has a yamaha chip not a wolfson. not that yamaha is bad but it appears that the chip may be faulty or something. also wolfson was very cooperative in providing drivers and sources for supercurio's voodoo project. im sure it actually sounds good with the exception of the noise level. there are some clicking or popping issues from what i understand. i use in ear headphones and im sure id be able t to hear it.

Transformer27 said:
I was checking the Samsung Galaxy S website
i have these comparisons
Samsung Galaxy S 4G:
Android Platform: 2.2
Display: 4.00" Super AMOLED
Camera: 5.0 MP rear VGA front
Processor: 1.0 Mhz
Samsung Infuse 4G:
Android Platform: 2.2
Display: 4.50" Super AMOLED Plus
Camera: 8.0 MP rear 1.2MP front
Processor: 1.2Ghz
and this device is not capable of being a Galaxy S device?
i think this phone has been ripped from it title.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Just making sure about this, but you do mean a 1.0 Ghz processor on Galaxy S right? lol

my bad yeah. furious typing at the moment of doing the list. lol

[Q] Nexus S v/s Motorola Defy

I have seen all the feature sets of both devices.
All the hardware is almost the same except the CPU
- I want to know which of the following configs gives more performance taking into consideration tweaks and tools available on xda forums.
1 GHz ARM Cortex-A8 processor, PowerVR SGX540 GPU, Hummingbird chipset
OR
800MHz Cortex-A8 processor, TI OMAP3610 chipset

Bro there is no comparison even HTC desire was way better than motorola Defy..Nexus S even beats ATRIX in real life performance.

papubhai said:
Bro there is no comparison even HTC desire was way better than motorola Defy..Nexus S even beats ATRIX in real life performance.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
100% agreed.
but we need a more feature rich camera like the sgs

NS without a doubt. Motorola is just gross

Guys say something about the CPU OC capabilities

rsk_kelkar said:
Guys say something about the CPU OC capabilities
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i know that you can OC the Nexus S to 1.4GHz without any problems, someone even think about a 1.6GHz kernel....
but my NS runs with 1GHz very smooth
i saw the defy one time by a friend --> very laggy and to small for me

eiabea said:
i know that you can OC the Nexus S to 1.4GHz without any problems, someone even think about a 1.6GHz kernel....
but my NS runs with 1GHz very smooth
i saw the defy one time by a friend --> very laggy and to small for me
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i rooted my buddy's defy and threw on a custom rom (can't remember which one) but it ran decent, fairly smooth prolly cuz of the omap processor, but it wasn't what we would call "powerful".
the defy is considered an entry level android phone for those rugged users who want to step into the smartphone world with something durable

[Q] please introduce today's phones' CPU and GPU

Many people told me that samsung's CPU is the best,qualcomm's and TI's is not good,why? And I also want to know,what different from kinds of GPU?Is there GPU can called"The Best"?I am a Chinese student,my English is bad....Please don't care...

If you re looking at the dual core cpu's and you want benchmark "best" then the snapdragon whips the latest qualcom cpu in the sensation without some serious overclocking... to be fair though the sensation is still an amazingly fast handset so its hard to tell..

小刷同学 said:
Many people told me that samsung's CPU is the best,qualcomm's and TI's is not good,why? And I also want to know,what different from kinds of GPU?Is there GPU can called"The Best"?I am a Chinese student,my English is bad....Please don't care...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well technically speaking the iPad 2 has the best GPU on the market (by a long shot), but we're probably talking about Android here so:
The best is the Adreno 220 in the dual core Snapdragons. (ie...HTC Sensation, MyTouch 4G Slide), (Any Qualcomm chip ending in 8x60). The Mali400MP in the Galaxy S II is supposed to be amazing, but the benchmark performance is rather disappointing. Either it's clocked very low or comes with a terrible OpenGL stack or driver.
As for CPU performance. They're all fairly close. They're all using dual core ARM Cortex-A9s. The differences come from L2 cache amounts, pipelines, RAM type, etc. I don't think you would find any noticable in every day usage going from the Tegra 2 to the 3rd gen Snapdragons to the Exynos, etc.
If you're buying a single core phone the only ones to look at are Hummingbird based ones and 2nd gen snapdragons (ending in 8x55).

[Q] Question about specs and Seeder Entropy Generator

Hi there. I was reading this thread:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1987032
And it says that we can do this in any phone wich have an ARM proccessor.
So, i googled the atrix 2 specs and i read that our Atrix 2 has an 'Dual-core 1GHz ARM Cortex-A9 processor'
AND, it says that we have this: 'ULP GeForce GPU, Tegra 2 AP20H chipset'
Is this true or false? Do we have Tegra 2?
Because i research in many webs, and all say the same.
I think they're wrong.
Well, bye.
Thx for reading, and sorry if i had mistakes writting in english.

The Atrix 2 has a TI OMAP4430 processor in it, and the Tegra 2 you mentioned is what's in the original Atrix 4G. (Both are ARM processors, in fact almost every Android phone besides the Motorola RAZR i has an ARM based processor)
Now as for the entropy seeder, I can confirm that it works with the Atrix 2. The only place I've really noticed a difference though is when I unlock the phone and it loads the home screen - that used to lag and no longer does. But as for gaming performance, I can't tell any difference with or without it.