I saw some leaks regarding a phone (Nubia Z7), wich had me gooling and coming up short. It indicated it would boast a Snapdragon 800 SoC, but a Mali T658 GPU ? Is this technically possible - for a unit to use a different GPU other than the one "stock" onboard the SoC? The Snapdragon 800 originally comes with Adreno 330 onboard. Would the whole SoC have to be rebuilt, or is there a simpler way of doing this?
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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).
Hey guys , i'm from malaysia and it seems that my galaxy S2 is not running on the spec that i have been seeing on the net.
according to gsmarena, it is suppose to be:-
Dual-core 1.2GHz ARM Cortex-A9 processor, Mali-400MP GPU, Exynos chipset
but what i found on my s2 from Quadrant Standard is a
dual core 1.2 (min freq 300 max 1.2) Arm v7 Processor rev3 (v71)
the board seems to be the omap4sdp
and importantly it iis NOT the mali 400mp Gpu but it is the
PowerVR SGX540 open GL ES-CM 1.1 version.
Does anyone has this kind of spec? is it right ? or does different country might have different specs?
I would need some answer and explanation cause i couldnt find a reason why the spec of my s2 is diff as from the internet.
1. Adreno
Adreno series ATI which is made, or used to be called ATI imageon series, circa 2002-2004 is at the beginning of the release of this GPU series. In 2008, AMD imageon sold to one of the leading manufacturers of processors, namely Quallcom. And now ATI / AMD only supportsthe architecture and development only. Now Adreno series is inherited from all the SOC (System On Chip) made Quallcom.
2. PowerVR
PowerVR Series is the first artificial logic video also enliven the VGA market, but as the dominance of NVIDIA and ATI video logic now only play in the world of mobile gadgets GPU. PowerVR itself is not in production in finished form by power logic, but they are only a draft architecture, which sold thelicense to many of the leading processor manufacturers such asNEC, Intel, Freescale, Texas Instruments and others.
PowerVR Series now in its sixth series, the second ever used in its game console in the 1900s, the Dream cast, and Sega Saturn. PowerVR SGX Series 5 is the series most often found on smartphones, SGX GPU 5 is an elite in the world of smartphones, the world might belike BMW cars.
3. Mali
Mali series, this GPU is made in the ARM architecture, though still rarely heard his name, but its power can not be underestimated. Mali GPU series outstanding from HDTVs, gamingconsoles (PS3), up to a smartphone. Especially for smartphone, the series used is 400MP4 Mali (MP is the core indicators used). GPU is part of the SOC A9 1.2GHz Exynos dual-core CPU Samsung's Galaxy SII. Reportedly 400MP4 Mali is ableto render almost equivalent to the PS3 and Xbox 360.
4. GeForce ULP
Series GeForce ULP (Ultra Low Power) are concentrated in that part of the GPU Tegra 2 SOC manufactured by NVIDIA. GeforceULP uses quadcore 4 pixel shaders + 4 vertex shaders up to a total of 8 cores that are in it.
If for determining the performance of course can not be separated from what SOC is used, it is very difficult to determine the point which is used for comparison because each GPU is highly dependent on the performance and support of its SOC. For instance, SOC OMAP 4 series with SGX540 GPU vs quadcore Tegra 2 ULP GeForce GPU with 8core, hello who wouldwin? When to see the number of cores, by naked eyes 8core candidate who will be on the GeForce ULP but when calculating SOC capabilities then look OMAP 4 was able to bulldozeTegra 2, not only from the benchmark results, framerate, javascript rendering, but also within a matter of efficiency in the use battere .
This is not surprising because the OMAP 4 has a few secret weapons like supports dual channel DDR2 memory up to 1GB LP, where the new Tegra 2 is capable of using a single channel.Back again SOC capabilities greatly determine the outcome, as well as Snapdragon with its core scorpion, would be defeated perform with Tegra 2? Not really, mainly for multimedia results which force snapdragon and Adreno indeed in optimizingon this side.
i think andreno still the best one
andreno or mali :fingers-crossed:
guys I would like to go with Mali
If we're going to talk about actual numbers for actual GPUs that you can buy then this is what's available:
Adreno 320 (Snapdragon 600), Geforce ULP (Tegra3), PowerVR SGX 544MP3 (Exynos 5 quad), Mali T604 (Exynos 5 dual).
So far from what we know of 3DMark, GLBenchmark and some other tests, the approximate order of performance from best to worse is:
PowerVR, Adreno, Mali, Geforce.
This WILL change because of newer versions coming out (Tegra4 for example). For now though, I'd consider Adreno and PowerVR to be ahead, PowerVR for sheer performance and Adreno for a good balance between power, performance and die size.
ill go for mali
Hello,
I have a question that I've been scouring the internet for ages for but have never found the answer,
I own a Nexus 7 and a cheap Tablet that utilizes the Mali 400-MP.
In my expirences with general gaming (and benchmarks) the Mali 400 outperforms the tegra by a long shot.
My question is why this is the case, I checked the specs of both chips and the tegra has 12 cores vs the Malis 4 cores, the Tegra even has a higher clock rate so I just can't understand why the Tegra is less powerfull.
Is it just that the games I play are optimized for the Mali better than the tegra?
My thanks to anyone who can shed some light on this
chip are different as Pentium dual @3Ghz = core 2 duo @1.6Ghz
Both have 2 core, but since the first is netburst an the second core architecture they don't have the same way to calculate, manage tread etc etc
Thanks
chocoboss said:
chip are different as Pentuim dual @3Ghz = core 2 duo @1.6Ghz
Both have 2 core, but since the first is netburst an the second core architecture they don't have the same way to calculate, manage tread etc etc
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Wow that was fast! thanks for responding so quickly,
im still a little unsure, the Tegra 3 uses the ARM Architecture and so does the Mali so i don't think its that simple, i could be wrong i guess...
if it is just for that reason, how would you go about comparing the two to find out which is better when looking at the specs?
Edit: ive just checked, they both use The ARM v7 Instruction Set, and i think they are both variations of the ARM Cortex-A9 chip,
plus what im looking for is more a comparison of the GPU where as i think Architectures are more to do with CPU's.
SIMD's and MAD's
I've been scouring the internet and came across the fact that the Mali 400 has more SIMD Units.
Could this be why the Mali is better? I must admit that I'm not really sure what a Single Instruction Multiple Data unit does performance wise.
Bump.
Recap: my question is why a GPU with more cores and a higher clock speed has less GFLOPS than a GPU with less cores and a lower clock speed
I was going to buy a tablet for uni, and as i have some experience with computers i decided to compare the tablets and buy which was best for me, however i realized I'm a complete greenhorn in terms of phone/tablet hardware.
I found that these two processor was the ones i had to pick from:
Samsung Exynos 5250 - A15 Dual core @ 2 Ghz
Has an excellent GPU T-604
Rockwell Rk3188 - A9 Quad core @ 1.8 GHz
Has an decent GPU Mali 400
I know that the Exynos has a MUCH better GPU and has the newer A15 architecture, clocked at higher speed but is a dual core.
But the Rockwell is a quad core but has a older A9 architure and has the worse GPU.
I tried to search for a comparison but came nil because I was comparing between different release date/architecture.
Could you guys people explain to this newbie the advantages and disadvantages of each processor, and which one i should pick?
Which Processor is better? why is it better? Better by how much?
Which processor would be better at Nds emulation? I know android nds emulator support multicore and GPU support
Rk3188 (quad core) vs exynos (better GPU, architechture)
Which one has the lower battery consumption?
Thank you for your time.
at first is it Rockchip RK3188 , not Rockwell .. 2nd, A15 is faster than A9 even A9 is in A9 quad core state, for better compatibility support for apps and games .. take exynos chip but the price is hinger than rockchip RK3188 tablet... battery comsumption are vary depnds actual MAH on the tablet + how the user usage on it's tablet + version ROM that perform
Tablet is not only about processor, build quality, screen, speakers - its a package.
As you did not mention exact models under comparison, it depends on what you look for and budget.
For price/quality top score, you can't go wrong with one of Cube u9GTV (quad) tablets :
Retina, aluminum body, IPS, HDMI, stereo speakers and 9+ hours of battery.
I have one myself, and I used the dual core (old model) for a year, so I know they last well and are robust.
One of issues to consider is that having ADB over USB to Cube tablets is sometimes a mess, so I'm using ADB over IP to debug things, which might be not the best solution for a developer.
Best luck with your choice!
Ramjali said:
I was going to buy a tablet for uni, and as i have some experience with computers i decided to compare the tablets and buy which was best for me, however i realized I'm a complete greenhorn in terms of phone/tablet hardware.
I found that these two processor was the ones i had to pick from:
Samsung Exynos 5250 - A15 Dual core @ 2 Ghz
Has an excellent GPU T-604
Rockwell Rk3188 - A9 Quad core @ 1.8 GHz
Has an decent GPU Mali 400
I know that the Exynos has a MUCH better GPU and has the newer A15 architecture, clocked at higher speed but is a dual core.
But the Rockwell is a quad core but has a older A9 architure and has the worse GPU.
I tried to search for a comparison but came nil because I was comparing between different release date/architecture.
Could you guys people explain to this newbie the advantages and disadvantages of each processor, and which one i should pick?
Which Processor is better? why is it better? Better by how much?
Which processor would be better at Nds emulation? I know android nds emulator support multicore and GPU support
Rk3188 (quad core) vs exynos (better GPU, architechture)
Which one has the lower battery consumption?
Thank you for your time.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse