Which one is newer? Which one is newer technology.
Which one performs better
Which company made xscale and which made qualcomm?
Which phone brands use which? (ie. HTC, Samsung, LG, etc.)
Moved to Q&A section
Qualcomm is a vendor, XScale is the name of an Intel processor normally found in PDAs such as the Dell Axim and HTC Universal. XScale is pretty old, Qualcomm is bang up-to-date. Qualcomm makes the Snapdragon and Scorpion processors, commonly found in high-end HTC smartphones like the HD2, Desire and Desire HD/Z
Swyped from my HTC Desire running LeeDrOiD 2.3d with Tapatalk.
XScale was Intel's venture into the ARM arena, before selling it, lock, stock and barrel to Marvell, who now manufacture and develop XScale processors. Intel now concentrate on their x86 Atom series of processors.
XScale is an ARMv5 architecture processor, ARMv5TE to be precise, whereas Qualcomm's Snapdragons are ARMv7.
Sometimes it is not always easy to compare one type of ARM processor to another, as clock frequency is not always proportional to the performance. An example is TI's OMAP chip, as found in the Wizard. While it only runs at 200MHz the device performs on a par with other PDAs with ARM chips running at 400/500Mhz
Also some versions have more peripheral units included alongside the processor's silicon. Comms, graphics, sound, keyboard controllers etc.
Related
I was wondering if there is any comparison table or a website that compares the performance of these CPUs, which I think are the most commonly used in pdas nowadays.
1. 32bit Intel XScale PXA270 at 520MHz (eg. XDA Flame)
2. 32bit Qualcomm MSM7200 at 400MHz (eg. Touch II)
3. 32bit Samsung SC32442 at 400MHz (eg. HTC Trinity 100)
mgkkelis said:
I was wondering if there is any comparison table or a website that compares the performance of these CPUs, which I think are the most commonly used in pdas nowadays.
1. 32bit Intel XScale PXA270 at 520MHz (eg. XDA Flame)
2. 32bit Qualcomm MSM7200 at 400MHz (eg. Touch II)
3. 32bit Samsung SC32442 at 400MHz (eg. HTC Trinity 100)
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Click to collapse
There aren't many comparisons and the existing ones, including user reports, are pretty unreliable. For example, several users state the Qualcomm-based Kaiser is slow; other users state it's fast etc.
"Intel Bulverde 520 MHz"
The one in the Universal
OR
"Qualcomm MSM7201A 528 Mhz"
in the new HTC HD unit
I feel they are the same. Am I right?
qualcomm is much better
Its similar the difference between a 2.5ghz Pentium 4 and a 2.5ghz Core2Solo
i don't think that core2solo and pentium4 with ht much differ
l2tp said:
i don't think that core2solo and pentium4 with ht much differ
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Click to collapse
Google up "Instructions per second" and you'll understand.
The Netburst architec of P4 is one of the worst example in history of it. A failure by engineering standard.
The PXA270 Processor in the Universal actually runs at 624mhz and is underclocked. The HTC X7500 uses the same CPU running at 624mhz. It is clearly the better CPU.
genetik_freak said:
The PXA270 Processor in the Universal actually runs at 624mhz and is underclocked. The HTC X7500 uses the same CPU running at 624mhz. It is clearly the better CPU.
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Click to collapse
Very, very wrong.
I wouldn't say that the Intel two processors are exactly the same, with one just being underclocked via software. Notice how intel puts out multiple pentiums of a given generation at different speeds? Would you venture to say that all those chips are the same too?
Also, clock speed is a poor metric when comparing chips from different companies. PDADB.Net says that the Intel chip has a ARMv5TE instruction set and the Qualcom chip has a ARMv6 instruction set. The Intel is a generation behind.
Comparing
Wikipedia says
Main article: Megahertz myth
The clock rate of a computer is only useful for providing comparisons between computer chips in the same processor family. An IBM PC with an Intel 486 CPU running at 50 MHz will be about twice as fast as one with the same CPU, memory and display running at 25 MHz, while the same will not be true for MIPS R4000 running at the same clock rate as the two are different processors with different functionality. Furthermore, there are many other factors to consider when comparing the speeds of entire computers, like the clock rate of the computer's front side bus (FSB), the clock rate of the RAM, the width in bits of the CPU's bus and the amount of Level 1, Level 2 and Level 3 cache.
Clock rates should not be used when comparing different computers or different processor families. Rather, some software benchmark should be used. Clock rates can be very misleading since the amount of work different computer chips can do in one cycle varies. For example, RISC CPUs tend to have simpler instructions than CISC CPUs (but higher clock rates), and superscalar processors can execute more than one instruction per cycle (on average), yet it is not uncommon for them to do "less" in a clock cycle. In addition, subscalar CPUs or use of parallelism can also affect the quality of the computer regardless of clock rate.
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Sonus you are correct about the Mhz comparison. However, the PXA270 in the Universal can be safely "overclocked" to 624Mhz because the chip is designed to max out at that speed.
I would still like to see some benchmark tests between the 624Mhz PXA270, and the 528Mhz Qualcomm MSM7201A.
Generations aside, I can't see the Qualcomm chip outperforming the Intel Chip by much, if any. Also, it should be noted that the PXA270 can be scaled, not sure if that is true for the MSM7201A.
The other catch phrase is "Performance per watt". I bet the MSM7201A has a huge advantage over PXA27x in that, mainly due to newer manufacturing process.
That may be true wuzy, but considering the PXA270 is almost 5 years old and still being used in new devices should tell you plenty about its capabilities and performance.
Not really... It does, however tell a lot about the stinginess of device manufacturers.
As for the overclocking, not every Universal can run 624 MHz without crashing because the CPUs are going through a selection process after manufacturing and there is simply no reason to use the best ones for a device that doesn't need them running at full speed.
The crashes are usually the result of the type of program used to overclock and also the rom. For the most part, people have found that 624mhz is pretty stable, inlcuding myself. Some have even pushed it beyond that speed, but that's another story...
Also take this into consideration:
The Universal has been on the market since 2005, almost 4 years now. By industry standards, it should be obsolete. Why is it not then? Simply, it is quite inexpensive compared to the newer devices having similar features, sometimes less. When it comes to performance vs. price vs. features, you just cannot beat the value of the Universal and its blistering fast 520/624mhz PXA270 CPU! The PXA270's performance is only rivaled by its bigger brother, the 800Mhz PXA320 which has made its way into some newer devices already.
genetik_freak said:
That may be true wuzy, but considering the PXA270 is almost 5 years old and still being used in new devices should tell you plenty about its capabilities and performance.
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Click to collapse
Try out a Diamond/Touch Pro with Opera9.5 the next time you see one and notice the speed difference.
On MSM7201A compared to our PXA27x it's a lot more smoother.
The lack of driver for MSM7200 on a lot of devices released last year tainted our perception on the new generation chips I think.
Touch HD vs. ASUS Galaxy7 at end of the year... hmmm
I think you're missing the point wuzy.
I know there are newer devices out now that can deliver slightly better performance in some areas than the Universal, but considering how old our device is, it is to be expected. All I'm saying is that given the age of the Universal compared to what's out there now, The Universal has held up well. Furthermore, with all the new cooked roms popping up, you can expect the Uni to live even longer!
Take a look at H.264 decompression and real high performance tasks and the PXA270 looses so badly against the PXA320 that it is not even funny anymore...
Why does the Uni keep up with most software? Because most programs are written for the old ARMv4 instruction set, thus wasting a lot of CPU cycles on newer processors that have already moved on. Apart from that the average application simply does not need that much CPU power to begin with.
The Uni held out well in a market that is very slow to adapt new technologies to begin with. The Axim x50v had a dedicated graphics chip at the end of 2004 - how many applications make use of that today? Only some games (ports, emulators) and media players. For those alone the Axim has held out better than the Uni though as it is still one of the best performing PPCs on the market.
Our little one will be around for quite a while, but it is far, far away from what nowadays devices can offer and it shows if you run anything beyond mail and office apps on it.
Which Processor is faster & better
I feel from your input above that "Qualcomm MSM7201A 528 Mhz" has higher performance, clock rete, Instructions per second, & Performance per watt when compared to the "Intel Bulverde 520 MHz" about 2:1 am I right ?
Another Question:
What is the highest speed Processor available for the PDA industry today?
Best Regards.
IMHO the ARM Cortex processors are very far up the ladder when it comes to performance and energy consumption. The Pandora makers claim 10 hours of runtime for their device. Together with its media chip this little bugger is capable of decoding 720p HD video streams (take a look at the Archos 5)
I am not sure if the MSM7201A chipset's CPU alone reaches twice the performance of the Uni, but you will see a huge difference in apps that support and need the latest in CPU architecture (media players & games). If (one way or the other) the 3D capabilities can be put to use you will probably see more than a 2:1 performance boost.
The sad truth is the Universal is one of the slowest VGA devices around. Especially considering lack of the graphical accelerator (which was even present in prototypes).
Too bad the dedicated 3D chip didn't make it into the final design. But it's still better than having a 3D accelerator without drivers! I have a Sharp EM-ONE here with a GoForce 5500 that could theoretically accelerate many video formats. The sad truth is that because there are no drivers no media player can make use of the chip. Even worse: Because the graphics chip still controls the display video is even slower because the optimized X-Scale drivers can't be used. It's like Sharp and NVidia wanted to punish users double So, as bad as it is, the Uni is not the worst device out there!
x86
I wonder why there´re no x86 cpu´s placed in mobile devices yet. maybe because of the high power consumption? x86 cpu´s running at 528mhz would be more powerful than arm cpu´s. furthermore the device could run x86 os like xp embedded with more features and capabilities...
x86 CPU enabled systems are still too much power hungry and too much complicated to be used in such a small device (sounds weird when talking abut HTC Universal, doesn't it).
What is the difference between the MSM7201(A) processor (who ist built into devices like HTC Touch Diamond, HTC Touch Pro, HTC Touch HD, SonyEricsson Xperia X1) and the MSM7225 processor (who ist built into devices like HTC S740, HTC Touch 3G) ?
The are usually both clocked at 528 MHz and the Feature List seems to be similar.
I just noted that devices with MSM7225 processor has always a 320x240 Pixel QVGA Display while devices with MSM7201(A) processor has often a 640x480 Pixel VGA or 800x480 Pixel WVGA Display.
Someone correct me if im wrong, but isnt the qualcom processor the CDMA version of the Processor?
They are all GSM/WCDMA devices.
Im pretty sure the guy at the sprint store today told me that the difference between the GSM Diamond and the CDMA diamond was the processor thoguh so idk
The CDMA Processors are afaik named 7500A, 7501A and 7525 while the GSM/WCMDA Processors are named 7200, 7201(A) and 7225.
But now I've heard that the 7225 (and probably the 7525) doesn't include a GPU.
Interesting...
A quick google shows that both support the exact same features.
By this I mean connectivity (GSM/CDMA/3G), TV-out, 5MP Camera, Bluetooth, Wifi, (a)GPS, IrDa etc etc.
They are both built on the same 90nm process.
They are both RISC 32-bit structures built with ARM11 (36EJ-S) core with ARMv6 supported cores (like a DSP).
Where they differ is that the MSM725xx's are dual-cores whereas the MSM720x's are solo.
What this means; this will handle all your regular tasks but whatever the MSM720x's (Touch Pro) cannot handle, this won't do any better. For instance, if the Touch Pro cannot playback 720p HD movies at 30fps, this won't either.
So what good is the second core? It will help greatly in multitasking (open more tasks) and make the user interface (background tasks) feel much more quick/less laggy, at the expense of slightly reduced battery life.
The difference is that the MSM720x's were once the bleeding edge and were surpassed by the TI OMAP3xxx's and QSD. Whereas the MSM725xx's were released after this had happened, they just copied the old structure set, and were aimed for mainstream smartphones to provide cheaper alternatives.
To be honest, these SoC's provide much more performance at less power than the old SoC's (624MHz Intel Xscale PXA270 ie Marvell ARMv5) but whine and fall against anything built upon ARM Cortex A8 or ARM Cortex A9 series. So for today's standards they both are relatively slow processors for smartphones.
Sources:
http://pdadb.net/index.php?m=cpu&id=a7201&c=qualcomm_msm7201
http://pdadb.net/index.php?m=cpu&id=a7225&c=qualcomm_msm7225
http://www.qualcomm.co.uk/news/releases/2007/070212_enables_mass_market.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O2_Xda#Xda_Atom_Life
http://tweakers.net/reviews/1578/4/htc-legend-designstatement-van-aluminium-hardware.html
dont think 3d driver will ever come.....
there is not even a gpu in the prccesor......
Having a droid, I have dug into the details of TI's omap platform and I heard that the Xtreme will have the 3630. I am very impressed with the whole omapzoom.org and the platform itself. I am not at all familiar with the Qualcomm offerings. Anyone up for discussing the differences between these two platforms to include the advantages and disadvantages of each?
Cheers, jdeclue
TI Omap is based on the arm-cortex A8 tech which is supposedly to be more efficient and fast. Qualcomm has a long history of bad graphics support. The GPU is horrible. Well, its not exactly that bad but the drivers that are provided for the use for Qualcomm's GPU is often inadequate and hence underperforming. Sure the snapdragon is a whole lot better than the previous qualcomm SOCs (i.e. msm72xx series). But I feel that the reason for it is due to the higher clockspeed. The 1ghz speed tends to help with the peformance. But for me personally i would prefer the TI OMAP simply because it is a cortexA8 core which is better performing and the much better GPU.
So in a nutshell,
Qualcomm Snapdragon clockspeed maybe higher than the OMAP but the performance wise is comparatively close.
BUT however the OMAP GPU is better than Snapdragon.
With the ongoing increasingly graphically intensive trend, i think the way to go is with TI's OMAP. (Or untill qualcomm releases the 1.5ghz dual core snapdragon, then i would consider it )
There. That's my take.
Looking back, when I switch phones it is usually when there is a better device out with a significant improvement over my current device. My first smartphone was the Tmobile MDA (HTC Wizard), which I bought roughly 5 years ago. The next phone was the Tmobile Wing (HTC Atlas), with a much smaller form factor and faster CPU the device was a great improvement.
My next device was my first real HTC marketed phone, the Touch Diamond. The diamond, was a complete overhaul from the other two HTC phones I used. I loved every little part of it. But going from the Diamond to the glamorous HD2 was even more amazing, the screen, the size everything was perfect.
Now the question I have is that it is almost a year that the HD2 has been out and I ready to get a new phone, but I am wondering about what things I should consider.
I dont think that the Droid X, or the Galaxy S smart phones are really all that much better than the HD2, so I am more interested in the Cortex-A9 phones that are slowly trickling into the market.
The CPUs that will have Cortex-A9 dual core tech are as follows:
Nvidia
Tegra 2
1Ghz
Custom High Profile Graphics
(Motorola Olympus, LG Star)
Qaulcomm
Snapdragon 3rd Gen
1.2GHz/1.5GHz
Adreno 220
Verizon HTC Phone
Samsung
Orion
1GHz
Mali 400
(Nexus S)
Texas Instruments
OMAP 4
1GHz+
PowerVR SGX 540
(Pandaboard)
Marvell
Armada 628
1.5GHz + Custom 624MHz DSP
Custom High Profile Graphics
ST-Erricson
U8500
1.2GHz
Mali 400
So basically what should I do? Wait for all of them to come out and then decide, or get which one comes first.
I want the best processing power with the greatest graphics, and was thinking on Tegra 2 but found that Open GL ES benchmarks have low values for the Tergra2 platform lower than the SGX 540.
Galaxy Tab Results:
http://www.glbenchmark.com/phonedetails.jsp?D=Samsung GT-P1000 Galaxy Tab&benchmark=glpro11
Folio 100:
http://www.glbenchmark.com/phonedetails.jsp?D=Toshiba Folio 100&benchmark=glpro11
Are these a result of poor drivers or is Tegra really weaker than the SGX 540, (and thus weaker than the Mali 400)?????
Is the Nexus S a better choice than the Motorola Olympus, or should I wait for HTC's addition to the game with a 3rd gen Snappy. Will the adreno 220 GPU out power the Tegra 2 and Mali 400. What do you guys think, and what do you plan on doing.
Well firstly better hardware means nothing if the software is the bottleneck. Secondly, we've seen often the grunt of the cpu is more contributive to performance of programs than the gpu in Android OS. Thirdly, you're going to have to wait, see, buy, test these platforms to know which ones are superior... but here is what I've discovered during the course of 2010.
SoC's for 2011:
(listed in what I believe is the best to the worse)
+ ARM Sparrow: Dual-core Cortex A9 @2.00GHz (on 32nm die), unspecified GPU
+ TI OMAP 4440: Dual-core Cortex A9 @1.5GHz, SGX 540 (90M t/s)
+ Apple A5 (iPad2): Dual-core Cortex A9 @0.9GHz, SGX 543MP2 (130M-150M t/s)
+ Qualcomm MSM8660 (Gen IV Snapdragon): Dual-core Cortex A9 @1.5GHz, Adreno 220 (88M t/s)
+ TI OMAP 4430: Dual-core Cortex A9 @1GHz, SGX 540 (90M t/s)
+ ST-Ericson U8500: Dual-core Cortex A9 @1.2GHz, ARM Mali 400 (50-80M t/s)
+ Samsung Orion: Dual-core Cortex A9 @1GHz, ARM Mali 400 (50-80M t/s)
+ Nvidia Tegra 2: Dual-core Cortex A9 @1GHz, nVidia ULP-GeForce (71M t/s)
+ Qualcomm Scorpion (Gen III Snapdragon): Dual-core Cortex A8 @1.2GHz, Adreno 220 (88M t/s)
Notes: The SGX530 is roughly half the speed as the SGX535. The SGX540 is twice as fast as the SGX535. The Adreno 205(41M tri/sec) is supposedly faster than the SGX535 but slower than the SGX540 (thus, is likely to be in the mid). The Adreno 220 is twice the speed of the Adreno 205 but it is slightly slower than SGX540(88M vs 90M tri/sec). Samsung claims ARM Mali 400 to be 5 times faster than its previous GPU (S3C6410 - 4M tri/sec), about on par (80M tri/sec) with the Adreno 220, but few leaks benchmarked it to be only slighlty faster than the SGX535 (40M tri/sec). The gpu used in the Nvidia Tegra2 has been quite contained (little known). I estimated the Tegra2 has 71M t/sec (Tegra 2 Neocore=27fps/55fps=Galaxy S Neocore, x62% disadvantage of screen resolution, x 90Mt/s of SGX540 = 71M t/s). And recently some inside rumors via fudzilla actually confirmed this exact figure, so therefore the gpu-chip inside the Tegra2 is roughly equivalent to the MALI 400.
All of these details are based on officially announced, rumors from trustworthy sources and logical estimations, so discrepancies can be existent.
Last thoughts: As you can see there is some diversity in the next-gen chips (soon to-be current-gen), where the top tier (OMAP 4440) is roughly 1.5 times more powerful than the low tier (Tegra 2). However drivers and software will play a lead-role in determining which device could squeeze out the most performance. And this factor may alone favour the iPad2, Playbook or even MeeGo tablets to be better than the Honeycomb tablets which are somewhat bottleneck-ed by the lack of hardware accelaration and post-transcription through the Dalvik VM. I think we've hit the point where we could have some really impressive high definition entertainment, and even emulating the Dreamcast at decent/fullspeed.
edit2: Well, Apple's been boasting over x9 the graphical performance over the original iPad. There are 2 articles on anadtech, one in Geekbench and a processor-specific details from imgtech (I dug up from 12months ago). It has been found that its a modified Cortex A9, 512MB RAM and the SGX543MP2. Everything points to the SGX543MP2 being significantly faster than the SGX540, and the given number was 133 Million Polygons per second (theoretical) for SGX543MP4 which is double SGX543MP2 performance. The practical figure is always less. Imgtech said the SGX540 is double the grunt of the SGX535, benchmarks show the SGX543MP2 is (on average) five times the grunt as the iPad (SGX535). So going by imgtech (the designer of sgx chips), the theoretical value that I list above, should be 70M t/s ... going by Apple's claim it should be 200M t/s ... going by benchmarks it should be roughly 130 M t/s. Imgtech's value is definently wrong since they claimed its faster than the SGX540 valued at 90M t/s. Apple's claim also seems biased, they take only the best possible conditions and exaggerate it even more. It seems to be somewhere in between, and wouldn't you know it, the average of the two "false" claims is equivalent to the benchmarked value
edit3: The benchmarks are out for the 4th-gen QSD, which confirms everything prior. It's competing for top place against the 4440 and A5. I've changed the post (only updated chip's name).
If one were to choose between the processor of the A5 and the OMAP4440, they'd be really pressed to choose between more cpu grunt or more gpu grunt.
Just re-edited the post.
Apple's A5 details are added in, its looks to be one of the best chips for the year.
If I had to choose between the OMAP4440 and A5, I probably would be reduced to a head-tail coin flip!
Update:
The benchmark results of the Snapdragon MSM8660 are in.... and it goes further to support the list.
MSM660 = Dualcore A9 + Adreno 220 + Qualcomm modification (for better/worse).