So on my thread for the Nexus 6P bootloop fix, @btvolta asked me this question:
btvolta said:
I am still on the previous modified ex kernel and my phone seems to run just the same as before my blod experience. How many cores are normally running if not for the blod issue?
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He had a good question, as many other people were reporting that the 6P was running almost the same, if not even better, with only half the cores enabled.
Below is the reply I gave to him. I decided to post it into this thread, because I would like to know what you guys think about my theory about Qualcomm's chips, and even correct me if I'm wrong, as I would like to understand this situation as accurately as possible. (Although I do ask that those of you who do disagree with me, do it respectfully, and I will treat you the same)
XCnathan32 said:
So me typing this reply ended up in me going about a long rant about my theories about Qualcomm. Tl;Dr to your question: Stock 6P uses 8 cores, fixed 6P uses 4, Qualcomm 810 using 8 cores probably overheats so much, that it thermal throttles heavily, resulting in performance only slightly higher than the same processor, with 4 cores, that thermal throttle much less.
Trigger warning for anyone about to read this: I harshly bash on Qualcomm in this semi-angry rant, if you are a diehard Qualcomm fan, you should probably not read this.
On a stock Nexus 6P, 8 cores are enabled in ARMs big.LITTLE configuration. big.LITTLE is where there is a cluster of power efficient, slower cores to handle smaller tasks (in the 6P's case, 4 Cortex A53s running at 1.55GHz), and a cluster of more power hungry, high performance cores (for the 6P, 4 Cortex A57s running at 2GHz)
On a bootlooping 6P, a hardware malfunction related to the big cluster causes this bootloop, so this fix remedies the problem by disabling the high performance big cores.
The stock 6P is supposed to use the Cortex A57 cores and some of the Cortex A53 cores for foreground tasks. So you would think that a working phone should have double the performance of a phone with this fix, right? After all, it's using 4 more cores, and those cores are clocked almost 25% higher. The reason that (I think) performance is not noticeably affected, is because Qualcomm's Snapdragon 808/810 SoCs, are a horrible, rushed project, that could be designed better by a group of monkeys.
Even with 4 cores disabled, my phone can still thermal throttle (for those who don't know, thermal throttling is when CPU/GPU performance is intentionally limited by software to keep temperatures in check) when playing games, or even watching YouTube. The big cores run way hotter, and they thermal throttle insanely easily, see this graph here. In 30 seconds, the big cores are already to 1.8GHz (From 2GHz), in 60 seconds, the big cores are down to 1.4GHz, and in 3 minutes, 3 freaking minutes, the big cores are thermal throttled down to 850MHz, which is 235% slower than the advertised 2000MHz, and 182% slower than the little cores 1.55GHz.
So my guess is that the big cores thermal throttle so easily, and the high heat output of the big cores results on the little cores overheating, which results in the little cores being thermal throttled along with the big cores. So 4 cores that typically do not thermal throttle, are better than 8 which do. Either that, or when the big cores overheat, the device turns off the big cores and only uses the little cores, which is essentially this fix.
For those of you that think my description of the 808/810 was slightly (extremely) harsh, you're right. However, here's why I was so hard on them: I feel like Qualcomm rushed development of the 808 and 810 to get it to flagship devices. The 808 and 810 were also the first (and last) of it's processors to use the TSMC 20nm manufacturing process. So my guess would be that Qualcomm designed the processor based on that manufacturing process, and then after finding out about the poor thermals of their new chips, it was too late to redesign their chip, because they had to give it to manufacturers. After all, a "Flagship device" can't use a last gen processor. So the overheating chips were given to manufacturers just so their phone could look better on a spec sheet.
Also, Qualcomm VP McDonough said "The rumours are rubbish, there was not an overheating problem with the Snapdragon 810 in commercial devices"(source). However his response to heat issues and benchmarking problems in the early Flex 2 and One M9 was because they weren't final commercial versions of the devices. "Everything you're saying is fair. But we all build pre-released products to find bugs and do performance optimisation. So when pre-released hardware doesn't act like commercial hardware, it’s just part of the development process." In that context, performance optimisation most likely means "allow the devices to run hotter than they should before they throttle" (source) which results in problems later down the line (like maybe half of the cores failing, causing a record number of bootloops in devices?)
The whole reason I typed this rant, was to express my frustration at how Qualcomm (most likely) caused tens of thousands of people to have devices that performed worse than they should have performed on paper, and even result in broken devices. And I haven't seen many people blame Qualcomm for the bootlooping problem, and everyone blames Hauwei/LG/Google, while Qualcomm twiddles their thumbs and keeps ranking in money for their domination in the mobile SoC market. Now obviously, I'm not 100% sure that Qualcomm is to blame for the bootlooping problems, and no one will probably ever know who caused the problem. So this is just a theory that I have. But it is awfully suspicious how the same chip has had problems in multiple devices, even when different companies manufactured the devices.
Even if Qualcomm isn't to blame for the bootlooping problems, it is hard to deny that their chips have serious overheating issues. Samsung themselves basically admitted that the 810 had problems, as every single one of their Galaxy S devices (at least US models) have used a snapdragon processor, except for the galaxy S6, where Samsung opted to use their own Exynos processor instead of the 810, even on the US model.
Please feel free to reply and discuss/argue my points, as I would really like to hear what you guys think about my theory.
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Well, if it's true what you're saying, Qualcomm is the bad guy here. It all points towards an overheating issue with the powercores, which are designed and made by them. However, I feel that the OEMs who purchase these SoCs from them should take responsibility for their choice to use them in their devices and step up. If this theory you have can be proven by extensive testing, a lawsuit should be fairly easy to win and Qualcomm should be forced to better their development and testing.
I may be jumping the gun a bit here, but seeing Qualcomm has a bit of a monopoly on the SoC market, we, the consumers should stop putting our trust in devices using their chipsets. I've had several devices with a Qualcomm chipset and every single one of them were crap. I've had a Samsung Galaxy S2 (which I hated because of the software Samsung put on that device) but the hardware (Exynos) was top notch at the time.
Ok, that's about all of my two cents. Thanks for the good read btw.
NeoS said:
Well, if it's true what you're saying, Qualcomm is the bad guy here. It all points towards an overheating issue with the powercores, which are designed and made by them. However, I feel that the OEMs who purchase these SoCs from them should take responsibility for their choice to use them in their devices and step up. If this theory you have can be proven by extensive testing, a lawsuit should be fairly easy to win and Qualcomm should be forced to better their development and testing.
I may be jumping the gun a bit here, but seeing Qualcomm has a bit of a monopoly on the SoC market, we, the consumers should stop putting our trust in devices using their chipsets. I've had several devices with a Qualcomm chipset and every single one of them were crap. I've had a Samsung Galaxy S2 (which I hated because of the software Samsung put on that device) but the hardware (Exynos) was top notch at the time.
Ok, that's about all of my two cents. Thanks for the good read btw.
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Just happened to be Huawei was making the device and even though Huawei has their own in house chip but since Huawei brand was not really familiar to US, maybe Google is not convinced to market a Nexus brand with some Hi Silicon Kirin processor but they need to get another Nexus device out that year.
If just it was Samsung back then to make the Nexus device, maybe Google is ok with Samsung Exynos chip.
How great would the 6p be IF it could utilize the a57 cores? I'm using Franco Kernel, and he has it set up to barely use the big cores. I'm guessing mostly for battery savings of course, but on a 6p that thus far hasn't had the infamous battery meltdown, to have half of the cores (and the most powerful) cores sitting at lowest frequency for 95% of the time is kind of a shame. I'm willing to dust off my pitchfork
Related
X10 is garbage! this is outrageous!
Yes really, they got it working, you want it so bad try porting it yourself
Sent from my MB860 using XDA App
cry about it?
if you want it so bad for your phone, learn to port it yourself. until then, since you rely solely on other peoples' hard work and sweat, shut up and be patient.
dLo GSR said:
cry about it?
if you want it so bad for your phone, learn to port it yourself. until then, since you rely solely on other peoples' hard work and sweat, shut up and be patient.
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Oh snap. That was awesome.
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I might start to look into trying to port it this weekend
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firefox3 said:
I might start to look into trying to port it this weekend
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Good news man
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Being that there are currently no EGL libs for anything except PowerVR SGX devices under ICS yet, and they're closed source and tightly dependent on the kernel there doesn't seem to be a huge point until the official updates start to hit for a range of devices.
Sure, Desire, HD, X10, N1 have ports of a sort at the moment, in fact there shouldn't be too many problems getting them working aside from the graphics drivers but they're just for fun with the framebuffer driver given how much of ICS' UI rendering is done with GPU acceleration in mind. You wouldn't want to use it day-to-day. The browser is surprisingly responsive on the Desire though (I'd say moreso than GB, despite the software rendering), as is the Market (the new one always lagged really badly for me on the Desire before) - glimmers of hope for ICS' eventual performance on older devices. The keyboard lags like you wouldn't believe though!
The Atrix should fly under 4.0.1 though, if it ever happens - bearing in mind the fact that the SGX 540 in the Galaxy Nexus is pretty much in a dead heat with Tegra 2's GPU, we've got a lower resolution screen, and can overclock past the its stock speeds.
Javi97100 said:
Good news man
Sent from my MB860 using XDA App
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Its turning out to be harder then i though... I think no one will get it until offical updates come out for other phones
Azurael said:
Being that there are currently no EGL libs for anything except PowerVR SGX devices under ICS yet, and they're closed source and tightly dependent on the kernel there doesn't seem to be a huge point until the official updates start to hit for a range of devices.
Sure, Desire, HD, X10, N1 have ports of a sort at the moment, in fact there shouldn't be too many problems getting them working aside from the graphics drivers but they're just for fun with the framebuffer driver given how much of ICS' UI rendering is done with GPU acceleration in mind. You wouldn't want to use it day-to-day. The browser is surprisingly responsive on the Desire though (I'd say moreso than GB, despite the software rendering), as is the Market (the new one always lagged really badly for me on the Desire before) - glimmers of hope for ICS' eventual performance on older devices. The keyboard lags like you wouldn't believe though!
The Atrix should fly under 4.0.1 though, if it ever happens - bearing in mind the fact that the SGX 540 in the Galaxy Nexus is pretty much in a dead heat with Tegra 2's GPU, we've got a lower resolution screen, and can overclock past the its stock speeds.
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So EGL = gpu driver? If thats the only setback, would it be possible to get an ICS rom with software rendering as a proof of concept, or are there other pieces missing?
GB/CM7 is pretty good on the Atrix, if we dont see ICS for a few months it doesn't hurt us in any way. I'd like to think most of us can be patient if we lack the skills to help.
I noticed the Captivate got a port of it too since i9000 ROMs and Cap ROMs are interchangeable. I thought its funny that it's running on the HD a Windows Mobile 6.5 phone lol. Let's all try to be patient and we will eventually see it.
Edit: not to mention I'm sure if it's not already it will soon be on iPhone too. It seems like iPhones always get the new Android versions kinda early. I'm not sweating it I love my Atrix in its current state.
According to anandtech, Tegra 2 support is essentially ready, so I think as long as nvidia releases the source for ics (libs?), someone will try to port it. Hell, I have a good 5 weeks during break, I might as well try then.
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Azurael said:
Being that there are currently no EGL libs for anything except PowerVR SGX devices under ICS yet, and they're closed source and tightly dependent on the kernel there doesn't seem to be a huge point until the official updates start to hit for a range of devices.
Sure, Desire, HD, X10, N1 have ports of a sort at the moment, in fact there shouldn't be too many problems getting them working aside from the graphics drivers but they're just for fun with the framebuffer driver given how much of ICS' UI rendering is done with GPU acceleration in mind. You wouldn't want to use it day-to-day. The browser is surprisingly responsive on the Desire though (I'd say moreso than GB, despite the software rendering), as is the Market (the new one always lagged really badly for me on the Desire before) - glimmers of hope for ICS' eventual performance on older devices. The keyboard lags like you wouldn't believe though!
The Atrix should fly under 4.0.1 though, if it ever happens - bearing in mind the fact that the SGX 540 in the Galaxy Nexus is pretty much in a dead heat with Tegra 2's GPU, we've got a lower resolution screen, and can overclock past the its stock speeds.
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Actually, no, despite being a much older GPU, the SGX 540 found in the GNexus outpaces the Tegra 2 due to its higher clock rate by 7% or 45% depending on the GLBenchmark being run. Both GPU tests were done at 720p resolution. Also, you can't overclock the GPU, only the CPU.
edgeicator said:
Actually, no, despite being a much older GPU, the SGX 540 found in the GNexus outpaces the Tegra 2 due to its higher clock rate by 7% or 45% depending on the GLBenchmark being run. Both GPU tests were done at 720p resolution. Also, you can't overclock the GPU, only the CPU.
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Buddy, check out any of the kernels available in the dev thread and you'll see that the GPUs are overclocked.
WiredPirate said:
I noticed the Captivate got a port of it too since i9000 ROMs and Cap ROMs are interchangeable. I thought its funny that it's running on the HD a Windows Mobile 6.5 phone lol. Let's all try to be patient and we will eventually see it.
Edit: not to mention I'm sure if it's not already it will soon be on iPhone too. It seems like iPhones always get the new Android versions kinda early. I'm not sweating it I love my Atrix in its current state.
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Doubt the iPhone will see ICS, the newest model that can run android as far as I know is the iPhone 3G, which was incredibly slow under Gingerbread.
mac208x said:
X10 is garbage! this is outrageous!
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222 posts and zero thanks? Is this what you do, go around XDA and post useless threads like the guy complaining about returning home early despite nobody asking him to "to get MIUI ported on his grandma's phone"?
Are you guys related by any chance?
edgeicator said:
Actually, no, despite being a much older GPU, the SGX 540 found in the GNexus outpaces the Tegra 2 due to its higher clock rate by 7% or 45% depending on the GLBenchmark being run. Both GPU tests were done at 720p resolution. Also, you can't overclock the GPU, only the CPU.
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Depends on the benchmark, yes - texture-heavy rendering tends to perform better on the 540 in the OMAP4460 thanks to it's dual channel memory controller and high clock (and that's probably the directly relevant part to UI rendering to be honest, though as I said - lower resolution screen ) but the Tegra 2 is quite substantially ahead in geometry-heavy rendering (and games on mobiles are starting to move that way now, following the desktop landscape over the past 5 years or so.) Averaged out, the performance of the two is very close.
Plus, as I said, the GPU in my phone is running at 400MHz which ought to even things out in the GLMark 720p tests somewhat even if they are biassed to one architecture or the other. While the GPU in OMAP4460 may overclock just as well from its stock 400MHz, I'm only really concerned that the phone can run as fast as a stock GNexus to maybe skip the next generation of mobile hardware and tide it over until Cortex A15-based SoCs on 28nm process start to emerge with stronger GPUs. I don't really think I'm CPU performance bound with a 1.4GHz dual-core A9 - and increasing the number of equivalent cores without a really substantial boost in GPU horesepower seems worthless right now, even if ICS takes better advantage of SMP (re: Disappointing early Tegra 3 benchmarks - although it does seem GLMark stacks the odds against NVidia GPUs more than other benchmarks?)
Azurael said:
Depends on the benchmark, yes - texture-heavy rendering tends to perform better on the 540 in the OMAP4460 thanks to it's dual channel memory controller and high clock (and that's probably the directly relevant part to UI rendering to be honest, though as I said - lower resolution screen ) but the Tegra 2 is quite substantially ahead in geometry-heavy rendering (and games on mobiles are starting to move that way now, following the desktop landscape over the past 5 years or so.) Averaged out, the performance of the two is very close.
Plus, as I said, the GPU in my phone is running at 400MHz which ought to even things out in the GLMark 720p tests somewhat even if they are biassed to one architecture or the other. While the GPU in OMAP4460 may overclock just as well from its stock 400MHz, I'm only really concerned that the phone can run as fast as a stock GNexus to maybe skip the next generation of mobile hardware and tide it over until Cortex A15-based SoCs on 28nm process start to emerge with stronger GPUs. I don't really think I'm CPU performance bound with a 1.4GHz dual-core A9 - and increasing the number of equivalent cores without a really substantial boost in GPU horesepower seems worthless right now, even if ICS takes better advantage of SMP (re: Disappointing early Tegra 3 benchmarks - although it does seem GLMark stacks the odds against NVidia GPUs more than other benchmarks?)
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I would expect the Tegra to beat a nearly 5 year old GPU, but it only does so in triangle throughput. Tegra just uses a very poor architecture in general. Look at how little actual horsepower it can pull. The Tegra 3 gpu pulls 7.2GFLOPs @300mhz. The iPad GPU and the upcoming Adreno 225 both pull 19.2 GFLOPS at that same clockspeed. I honestly have no idea what the engineers are thinking over atNnvidia. It's almost as bad as AMD's latest bulldozer offerings. It's really more of Tegra's shortcomings than GLMark stacking the odds. PowerVR's offerings from 2007 are keeping up with a chip that debuted in 2010/2011. The Geforce just doesn't seem to scale very well at all on mobile platforms. But yea, all Nvidia did with Tegra 3 was slap in 2 extra cores, clocked them higher, threw in the sorely missed NEON instruction set, increased the SIMDs on the GPU by 50% (8 to 12), and then tacked on a 5th hidden core to help save power. Tegra 3 stayed with the 40nm process whereas every other SoC is dropping down to 28nm with some bringing in a brand new architecture as well.
edgeicator said:
I would expect the Tegra to beat a nearly 5 year old GPU, but it only does so in triangle throughput. Tegra just uses a very poor architecture in general. Look at how little actual horsepower it can pull. The Tegra 3 gpu pulls 7.2GFLOPs @300mhz. The iPad GPU and the upcoming Adreno 225 both pull 19.2 GFLOPS at that same clockspeed. I honestly have no idea what the engineers are thinking over atNnvidia. It's almost as bad as AMD's latest bulldozer offerings. It's really more of Tegra's shortcomings than GLMark stacking the odds. PowerVR's offerings from 2007 are keeping up with a chip that debuted in 2010/2011. The Geforce just doesn't seem to scale very well at all on mobile platforms. But yea, all Nvidia did with Tegra 3 was slap in 2 extra cores, clocked them higher, threw in the sorely missed NEON instruction set, increased the SIMDs on the GPU by 50% (8 to 12), and then tacked on a 5th hidden core to help save power. Tegra 3 stayed with the 40nm process whereas every other SoC is dropping down to 28nm with some bringing in a brand new architecture as well.
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Don't you get tired if writing those long rants? We understand you know something about CPU architecture, and that Tegra isn't the best one out there, but damn man, it's the same thing in every thread. Just chill out and try to stay on topic for once
Sent from my MB860 using Tapatalk
edgeicator said:
I would expect the Tegra to beat a nearly 5 year old GPU, but it only does so in triangle throughput. Tegra just uses a very poor architecture in general. Look at how little actual horsepower it can pull. The Tegra 3 gpu pulls 7.2GFLOPs @300mhz. The iPad GPU and the upcoming Adreno 225 both pull 19.2 GFLOPS at that same clockspeed. I honestly have no idea what the engineers are thinking over atNnvidia. It's almost as bad as AMD's latest bulldozer offerings. It's really more of Tegra's shortcomings than GLMark stacking the odds. PowerVR's offerings from 2007 are keeping up with a chip that debuted in 2010/2011. The Geforce just doesn't seem to scale very well at all on mobile platforms. But yea, all Nvidia did with Tegra 3 was slap in 2 extra cores, clocked them higher, threw in the sorely missed NEON instruction set, increased the SIMDs on the GPU by 50% (8 to 12), and then tacked on a 5th hidden core to help save power. Tegra 3 stayed with the 40nm process whereas every other SoC is dropping down to 28nm with some bringing in a brand new architecture as well.
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I think you are not seeing the whole picture...
The Tegra 3 (Et-Al) is not just about its quad core implementation, remember that the GPU will offer 12 cores that will translate in performance not seeing as of yet on any other platform.
Benchmarks don't tell the whole story! Specially those benchmarking tools which are not Tegra 3 optimized yet.
Cheers!
Sent from my Atrix using Tapatalk
WiredPirate said:
I noticed the Captivate got a port of it too since i9000 ROMs and Cap ROMs are interchangeable. I thought its funny that it's running on the HD a Windows Mobile 6.5 phone lol. Let's all try to be patient and we will eventually see it.
Edit: not to mention I'm sure if it's not already it will soon be on iPhone too. It seems like iPhones always get the new Android versions kinda early. I'm not sweating it I love my Atrix in its current state.
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LOL I ran all the iDroid ports on my iphone. Not one was even in alpha stage, I would not even count iDroid as a port since you cant use anything on it.
So I've been lurking on the prime's forums for a while now and noticed the debate of whether the new qualcomm dual core will be better or the current tegra 3 that the prime has. Obviously if both were clocked the same then the tegra 3 would be better. Also I understand that the gpu of the tegra 3 is better. However, for normal user (surf web, play a movie, songs etc) isn't dual core at 1.5 ghz better in that an average user will rarely use more 2 cores? The way I understand it each core is able to handle 1 task so in order to activate the 3rd core you would have to have 3 things going on at the same time? Could someone please explain this to me?
First of all, the tegra 3 can go up to 1.6 ghz. Secondly, all 4 cores can be utilized by a multi threading app. Lastly, battery is great on tegra III due to teh companion core.
jdeoxys said:
First of all, the tegra 3 can go up to 1.6 ghz. Secondly, all 4 cores can be utilized by a multi threading app. Lastly, battery is great on tegra III due to teh companion core.
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But the native clock for that qualcomm would be 1.5 meaning o/c can take it higher. Also doesn't being dual core compared to quad core give it an edge in battery? You do bring up a good point with the multi threading app. Also to clarify I am not standing up for the qualcomm chip or putting down the tegra 3 just trying to get things straight.
Thanks
Hey I'm the ....idiot aboard here....lol
But the tegra 3 has a companion core, being a fifth core, to take over when the tablet is not stressed. Thus saving the battery.
I am just repeating what I have read, I have no knowledge of how it all works. I guess that is how we can get better battery life.
Just trying to help the OP, maybe some one way smarter can chime in. Shouldn't be hard....lol
Quad core is better by far. On low level tasks, simple things, and screen off/deep sleep the companion core takes over. Meaning its running on a low powered single core. This companion core only has a Max of 500Mhz speed. So when in deep sleep or low level tasks, companion core alone is running everything at only 102mhz -500Mhz. Most of the time on the lower end. Therefore tegra3 has the better battery life since all it's low power level tasks are ran by a single low powered companion core. That's 1 low powered core compared to 2 high powered cores trying to save battery. Quad core better all around. We hsvent even begun real overclocking yet. The 1.6Ghz speed was already in the kernel. So if you rooted n using vipercontrol or ATP tweaks or virtuous rom, we can access those speeds at any time. Once we really start overclocking higher than 1.6Ghz we will have an even more superior advantage. Anyone knows 4 strong men are stronger than 2..lol. tegra3 and nvidia is the future. Tegra3 is just the chip that kicked down the door on an evolution of mobile chip SoC.
---------- Post added at 10:13 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:06 PM ----------
If you really want to learn the in and outs of tegra3, all the details, and how its better than any dual core, check out this thread I made. I have a whitepaper attachment in that thread you can download and read. Its made by nvidia themselves and goes into great detail on tegra3 by the people who created it, Nvidia. Check it out.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1512936
aamir123 said:
But the native clock for that qualcomm would be 1.5 meaning o/c can take it higher. Also doesn't being dual core compared to quad core give it an edge in battery? You do bring up a good point with the multi threading app. Also to clarify I am not standing up for the qualcomm chip or putting down the tegra 3 just trying to get things straight.
Thanks
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The maximum clock speed isn't all that important, since during tasks like web browsing, watching videos & movies and listening to music you will never push the processor to its highest available clock speed anyway. All mobile devices will underclock their processors so that you rarely have unused clock cycles eating up battery life. So all things being relatively equal performance would be about the same between both tablets during these types of lightweight tasks.
If you have a lot of background processes running, then the quad-core system might have an edge in performance since theoretically different tasks can be pushed off to different processors. However this use case is rarely found in Android. You might have an app checking weather or syncing photos in the background, or you might have music playing while you web surf, but those are generally fairly lightweight tasks that usually won't test the processor performance of your device.
In tasks that will stress you processor, such as 3D gaming, then quad cores have a very large advantage over dual core systems, despite the slight difference in maximum clock speeds. In addition the Tegra 3 has a more powerful GPU than the new Qualcomm chip, which will definitely make a noticeable difference in gaming performance.
Now when it comes to ultra-low power tasks or when the tablet is on Standby, the Tegra 3 uses its "companion core" which has incredibly low power requirements, so it can continue to sync your email, twitter and weather updates for days (or weeks) while having very little impact on the Transformer Prime's battery.
So in short, the Tegra 3 is more likely to outperform the Qualcomm in situations where you actually need extra performance. In light tasks performance between the two should be about the same. Battery life is yet to be definitively determined, however the Tegra's 3 ultra-low power companion core should give it an edge when only doing light tasks or on standb.
Keep in mind, the Tegra 3 in the TF Prime has a maximum clock speed of 1300Mhz. One core has a maximum clock speed of 1400Mhz. If all things were equal, a difference of 100-200 Mhz n a 1Ghz+ processor is practically unnoticeable in daily usage.
almightywhacko said:
The maximum clock speed isn't all that important, since during tasks like web browsing, watching videos & movies and listening to music you will never push the processor to its highest available clock speed anyway. All mobile devices will underclock their processors so that you rarely have unused clock cycles eating up battery life. So all things being relatively equal performance would be about the same between both tablets during these types of lightweight tasks.
If you have a lot of background processes running, then the quad-core system might have an edge in performance since theoretically different tasks can be pushed off to different processors. However this use case is rarely found in Android. You might have an app checking weather or syncing photos in the background, or you might have music playing while you web surf, but those are generally fairly lightweight tasks that usually won't test the processor performance of your device.
In tasks that will stress you processor, such as 3D gaming, then quad cores have a very large advantage over dual core systems, despite the slight difference in maximum clock speeds. In addition the Tegra 3 has a more powerful GPU than the new Qualcomm chip, which will definitely make a noticeable difference in gaming performance.
Now when it comes to ultra-low power tasks or when the tablet is on Standby, the Tegra 3 uses its "companion core" which has incredibly low power requirements, so it can continue to sync your email, twitter and weather updates for days (or weeks) while having very little impact on the Transformer Prime's battery.
So in short, the Tegra 3 is more likely to outperform the Qualcomm in situations where you actually need extra performance. In light tasks performance between the two should be about the same. Battery life is yet to be definitively determined, however the Tegra's 3 ultra-low power companion core should give it an edge when only doing light tasks or on standb.
Keep in mind, the Tegra 3 in the TF Prime has a maximum clock speed of 1300Mhz. One core has a maximum clock speed of 1400Mhz. If all things were equal, a difference of 100-200 Mhz n a 1Ghz+ processor is practically unnoticeable in daily usage.
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Wow! Thanks for taking the time for breaking it down for me like that! I understand exactly where your coming from and now have to agree.
demandarin said:
Quad core is better by far.
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At least that is what Nvidia would like you to think.
The Tegra 3 uses an older ARM core for it's quad core design while Qualcomm uses their own ARM instruction set compatible core for their Krait S4 design. For most current benchmarks the Qualcomm Krait S4 dual core seems to outpace the Tegra 3 by quite a large margin. And of course Krait will be expanded to quad core later this year.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/5563/qualcomms-snapdragon-s4-krait-vs-nvidias-tegra-3
Dave_S said:
At least that is what Nvidia would like you to think.
The Tegra 3 uses an older ARM core for it's quad core design while Qualcomm uses their own ARM instruction set compatible core for their Krait S4 design. For most current benchmarks the Qualcomm Krait S4 dual core seems to outpace the Tegra 3 by quite a large margin. And of course Krait will be expanded to quad core later this year.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/5563/qualcomms-snapdragon-s4-krait-vs-nvidias-tegra-3
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There's already another thread on what you just mentioned and the Krait claims were easily shot down. Tegra3 still a better chip overall. Plus krait gpu was subpar to tegra3. We have more links and stuff in other thread showing Prime still right up there
demandarin said:
There's already another thread on what you just mentioned and the Krait claims were easily shot down. Tegra3 still a better chip overall. Plus krait gpu was subpar to tegra3. We have more links and stuff in other thread showing Prime still right up there
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As unlikely as that seems considering the slower cores that Nvidia uses, links to real benchmarks ( not self serving white papers ) would be appreciated. I have glanced at your Tegra3 thread but have not read it all the way through after I saw that it seemed to depend a lot on a white paper and not real comparison tests. It is true that the current GPU the Krait uses is not as fast as the one in the Tegra 3, but graphics is only one element of overall performance. The only benchmarks that I have seen Tegra beat out Krait on were benchmarks that emphasized more than two threads, and then not by much.
Dave_S said:
As unlikely as that seems considering the slower cores that Nvidia uses, links to real benchmarks ( not self serving white papers ) would be appreciated. I have glanced at your Tegra3 thread but have not read it all the way through after I saw that it seemed to depend a lot on a white paper and not real comparison tests. It is true that the current GPU the Krait uses is not as fast as the one in the Tegra 3, but graphics is only one element of overall performance. The only benchmarks that I have seen Tegra beat out Krait on were benchmarks that emphasized more than two threads, and then not by much.
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Its not my tegra3 thread I'm talking about. I think its the Prime alternatives thread created by shinzz. We had a huge debate over it. More benchmarks n supporting arguments in that thread. Check it out if you get the chance.
demandarin said:
Its not my tegra3 thread I'm talking about. I think its the Prime alternatives thread created by shinzz. We had a huge debate over it. More benchmarks n supporting arguments in that thread. Check it out if you get the chance.
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Thanks, Will do. Gotta run for a doctor appointment right now though.
I frankly think the power savings with the fifth core is mostly hype. According to many battery tests I've read online and my own experiences with my Prime, it doesn't get much different battery life from dual core tablets.
Quad core is better for future but problem for backwards compatibility... it's definitely good for tablet.
jedi5diah said:
Quad core is better for future but problem for backwards compatibility... it's definitely good for tablet.
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Here is another benchmark that shows that there is a least one current dual core that can soundly beat the Nvida quad core at benchmarks that are not heavily multithreaded.
http://www.extremetech.com/computin...ragon-s4-has-the-competition-on-the-defensive
Buddy Revell said:
I frankly think the power savings with the fifth core is mostly hype. According to many battery tests I've read online and my own experiences with my Prime, it doesn't get much different battery life from dual core tablets.
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No dual core android tablet battery last longer than an ipad1. My prime easily outlasts my Ipad in battery life. The battery hype is real. Tons of people here seeing 9-11hrs+ on a single charge with moderate to semi heavy use on balanced mode. Even longer on power savings mode.
demandarin said:
No dual core android tablet battery last longer than an ipad1. My prime easily outlasts my Ipad in battery life. The battery hype is real. Tons of people here seeing 9-11hrs+ on a single charge with moderate to semi heavy use on balanced mode. Even longer on power savings mode.
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Really? I get 9-12 hours constant use on balanced. Plus 6 more with the dock.
Sent from my PG8610000 using xda premium
I think if Krait were to come out with quad core then it would beat out tegra 3 otherwise no. Also they are supposed to improve the chip with updated gpu to 3.xx in future releases. Also benchmarks have been proven to be wrong in the past so who knows? Not like benchmarks can determine real life performance, nor does the average user need that much power.
Companion core really does work
jdeoxys said:
Really? I get 9-12 hours constant use on balanced. Plus 6 more with the dock.
Sent from my PG8610000 using xda premium
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Strange, we just started uni here (Australia) and I've been using my prime all day, showing it off to friends (to their absolute amazement!) showing off glowball, camera effects with eyes, mouth etc. 2 hours of lecture typing, gaming on the train, watched a few videos and an episode of community played music on speaker for about 40 mins, webbrowsed etc etc started using at lightly at 9 am (only properly at say 1:30 pm) and it's 10:00pm now and GET THIS!!:
72% battery on tablet and 41% on the dock. It's just crazy man. No joke, it just keeps going, I can't help but admit the power saving must be real :/
Edit: Whoops, I quoted the wrong guy, but you get the idea.
That's what I'm saying. Battery life on prime is great. Add a dock n battery life is sick!
I do agree a quad core variant of krait or S4 will give tegra3 a really good battle. Regardless I'm more than satisfied with power of tegra3. I'm not the type as soon as i see a newer or higher spec tab, ill feel like mines is useless or outdated. With have developement going hard now for this device. Just wait till the 1.8-2ghz+ overclock roms n kernels drop. Then we would even give new quad core higher speed chips a good run.
Above all of that, Android needs to developement more apps to take advantage of the more powerful chips like tegra3 and those that's upcoming. Software is still trying to catch up to hardware spec. Android apps haven't even all been made yet to take advantage of tegra2 power..yet lol. With nvidia/tegra3 we have advantage because developers are encouraged to make apps n games to take advantage of tegra3 power.
Regardless we all Android. Need to focus more on the bigger enemy, apple n IOS
So in 2011 we have Tegra 2, in 2012 we have Tegra 3 so my questions is what will come in 2013? Octo-core or an improved version of quad core cpus?
Fasty12 said:
So in 2011 we have Tegra 2, in 2012 we have Tegra 3 so my questions is what will come in 2013? Octo-core or an improved version of quad core cpus?
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Well as octo core desktop CPUs havnt really caught on yet I would guess just better quad cores likely with more powerful GPUs
Tegra 3 is already very powerful, presuming the will increase ram and make them more battery efficient or even higher clock speed. 12 core tegra gpu is pretty amazing already and anything better must be godly
Sent from my HTC Desire using xda app-developers app
If u mean for mobile platform , Will we really need beyond Quad core, having seen how SGSIII is smoothly running with it, beyond that what more perfection ( yaa still more can be expected) and speed u will need to do ur work . As known Android use other cores on need basis , why u need to see ur 2-3 cores never used.. i think its just more curiosity n to have more advaced/latest will be the only reason to have such high cpu on ur mobile..
What I like to see is ups in RAM installed and lows in RAM usage by system...
Sounds like octo-mom..the debate.lives on.. battery vs performance...but to answer your question I think it would be hexa-core which is 6..let's wait and see what is to come...
Sent from my SGH-T989 using Tapatalk 2
s-X-s said:
If u mean for mobile platform , Will we really need beyond Quad core, having seen how SGSIII is smoothly running with it, beyond that what more perfection ( yaa still more can be expected) and speed u will need to do ur work . As known Android use other cores on need basis , why u need to see ur 2-3 cores never used.. i think its just more curiosity n to have more advaced/latest will be the only reason to have such high cpu on ur mobile..
What I like to see is ups in RAM installed and lows in RAM usage by system...
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I agree. Cores are at there peak right now. The amount of CPU power we have especially in the higher end phones is enough to acomplish many, many things. RAM is somewhat of an issue especially since multitasking is a huge part of android. I really thing a 2gb RAM should be a standard soon. Also, better gpu's won't hurt
Sent from my HTC T328w using Tapatalk 2
If they decide to keep going on the core upgrade in the next two or so years, I see one of two possibilities happening:
1) Dual Processor phones utilizing either dual or quad cores.
or
2) Hexacore chips since on the desktop market there's already a few 6-core chips (though whether or not they would actually be practical in the phones architecture, no clue).
Generally speaking whatever they come out with next will either need a better battery material, or lower power processors.
I mean I'm pretty amazed by what my brother's HTC One X is capable of with the quad core, and here I am still sporting a single-core G2. But yes I would like to see more advancement in RAM usage, we got a nice bit of power, but how bout a standard 2GB ram for better multitasking?
I believe 2013 will be all about more efficient quad-cores.
May i ask what going from 1gb to 2gb will improve? Loading times?
hello everyone, could you tell me what is cuad core?
Quad core means that a processor has four processing units.
Because there are more, that means that a process, theoretically, gets executed 4 times faster.
Read more about it: http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-core_processor
Maybe i7 in mobile devices?
I'm sure it will stay at quad core cpu's, anything more is just overkill. They may introduce hyperthreading. It's going to boil down to efficiency.
Sent from my SPH-D700 using xda premium
I'd say the future lies in more efficient use of processors. Right now, Android is still far from optimized on multi-core processor-equipped devices. Project Butter is the start of a great movement by Google to optimize the operating system. Hopefully it spreads out to other OEMs and becomes the main focus for Android development.
Improving and optimizing current processors is the way hardware companies should go.
In my opinion, processor development is out running battery development. Optimized processors could reduce power consumption while preserving excellent speed and usability.
Sent from my Transformer TF101 using Tapatalk 2
building processors on more efficient ARM architectures is going to be the way to go from what I see......throwing four less efficient cores at a problem is the caveman method to dealing with it.....looking at you Samsung Exynos Quad based on tweaked A9 cores.....
the A15 based Qualcomm S4 Krait is more efficient on a clock for clock core for core basis and once the software catches up and starts using the hardware in full capacity, less more efficient cores will be preferred
I dont see anything beyond quads simply because they havent even scratched the surface of what can be done with a modern dual core processor yet.......throwing more cores at it only makes excuses for poor code.....i can shoot **** faster than water with a big enough pump......but that doesn't mean that's the better solution
We don't need more cores! Having more than 2 cores will not make a difference so quad cores are a waste of space in the CPU die.
Hyperthreading, duh.
More ram. Got to have the hardware before the software can be made to use it.
With the convergence of x86 into the Android core and the streamlining of low-power Atom CPUs, the logical step would be to first optimize the current software base for multi-core processors before marketing takes over with their stupid x2 multiplying game...
Not long ago, a senior Intel exec went on record saying that today, a single core CPU Android smartphone is perhaps better overall performing (battery life, user experience, etc) than any dual/quad-core CPU. Mind you, these guys seldom if ever stick out their neck with such bold statements, especially when not pleasing to the ear...
For those interested, you can follow this one (of many) articles on the subject: http://www.zdnet.com/blog/hardware/intel-android-not-ready-for-multi-core-cpus/20746
Android needs to mature, and I think it actually is. With 4.1 we see the focus drastically shifted to optimization, UX and performance with *existing/limited* resources. This will translate to devices beating all else in battery life, performance and graphics but since it was neglected in the first several iterations, it is likely we see 4.0 followed by 4.1 then maybe 4.2 before we hear/see the 5.0 which will showcase maturity and evolution of the experience.
Just my 2c. :fingers-crossed:
Will the tegra 3+ processor affect performance in any way? And what are its drawbacks as compared to snapdragon? Also does it have any advantages over the snapdragon?
Not really. The tegra 3 to be truthful is one of thebworst SOCs on the market. The krait s4/s4 pro both out perform it in every aspect. Be it standard voltage, dye leakage (smaller transistors 28nm, as opposed to t3's 40nm), performance at similar clock speeds (float point, multitasking, etc). I feel like nvidia really has no clue what theyre doing looking at the architecture for the tegra 3. TI's OMAP crushes the krait s4, and the exynos chipsets usually are on top of that. The only real drawback to having an exynos chipaet is the lack lf source documentation on sammys part which makes development difficult. But with all thats been going on regarding that it looks like thats about to change. Exynos with documentation is as good as it gets since youre getting a powerhouse CPU and GPu. The t3 has got an okay gpu at best. Sorry to burst your bubble :/ just stating facts
Sent from my SPH-D710 using xda app-developers app
MultiLockOn said:
Not really. The tegra 3 to be truthful is one of thebworst SOCs on the market. The krait s4/s4 pro both out perform it in every aspect. Be it standard voltage, dye leakage (smaller transistors 28nm, as opposed to t3's 40nm), performance at similar clock speeds (float point, multitasking, etc). I feel like nvidia really has no clue what theyre doing looking at the architecture for the tegra 3. TI's OMAP crushes the krait s4, and the exynos chipsets usually are on top of that. The only real drawback to having an exynos chipaet is the lack lf source documentation on sammys part which makes development difficult. But with all thats been going on regarding that it looks like thats about to change. Exynos with documentation is as good as it gets since youre getting a powerhouse CPU and GPu. The t3 has got an okay gpu at best. Sorry to burst your bubble :/ just stating facts
Sent from my SPH-D710 using xda app-developers app
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For me being USA ATT user would it then be best to choose the HTC ONE DLX instead of the ONE X+ due to the processors? Well neither are out yet so who knows if the US version processors will be any different. Just thinking with a 5" screen i'll need a back pack to carry it around, lol. Coming from an Iphone 4 3.5" screen to a possible X+ 4.7" screen is a huge jump in itself. Just can't stick with Apple after the huge let down of the Iphone 5 so making the switch as soon as these phones come out. New to all this stuff but had no idea Tegra 3 really that bad? Videos of the device look smooth and gameplay?
If you really wanna know about the power of the Tegra3, your gonna want to read these threads.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1476788
And
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1664391
The first thread will be a general discussion on the international HOX and has a lot of information concerning the Tegra3. A lot of pages, over 930, but worth the time to read to understand the Tegra3 chip and what it is capable of as well as some info regarding the S4. The second thread has 60+ pages and is concerning gaming on the HOX. Well worth the time to read and see what all had to be done to get the full potential of the Tegra3. You also have to evaluate your choices this way. The Tegra3 is built with gaming in mind. The S4Pro is built with all around performance in mind.
Sent from my HTC Vivid
Vrael007 said:
Will the tegra 3+ processor affect performance in any way? And what are its drawbacks as compared to snapdragon? Also does it have any advantages over the snapdragon?
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it's a good processor, but not in comparison to the Exynos 4 quad and the snapdragon S4/S4 pro. Those are definitely better SoCs
Sent from my iPad mini using Tapatalk HD
There's too much misinformation around and once I get my unit I will have about 28 days to decide if to keep it or skip this generation, I would like to use this thread to build evidence on how good or bad the international version of this device is, if Samsung scammed 90% of the world then they don't deserve our money.
I'm getting mixed feelings about this chip, In speed test G the 855 beats it by a huge margin, so most people went back spitting at it for being a badly optimized SoC.
Anandtech's Comparisons Show super disappointing scores for the S10 Exynos version, but many of the scores presented make no sense, with older hardware of the same OEM scoring better than the newest, I don't know how much to believe that review and I hope it is fake or badly executed, to my interest, my pre-order comes with the Exynos version and there's no way to have warranty on a 855 in the UK.
Then, the positive evidence we have is that it beats every other released phone on the market in battery usage, there's no such video about the 855 yet so we can't compare them, but that's all I found about the battery of this chip.
In a S10+ vs iPhone XS Max, the S10+ again Exynos beats the iPhone on almost every application, I didn't expect that to happen since it almost never happened, the apps are supposedly the same most of the time and they might as well have completely different algorithms to do the same task done superficially, but generally iOS apps are cleaner inside and their developers have higher standards of work, so how can Exynos be THAT much better?
From what I see the Exynos 9820 is not as what is perceived here on XDA....
Duncan1982 said:
From what I see the Exynos 9820 is not as what is perceived here on XDA....
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And that's a demo unit with 6GB of ram, there are even higher benchmarks with real ones around:
https://browser.geekbench.com/v4/cpu/12211126
But everyone is dismissing Geekbench as "not reliable", and in a way it is not reliable since it doesn't demonstrate the effectiveness of a good scheduler, even the crappiest ones will be pushed to maximum performance once geekbench runs, we need more comparisons with other tools.
it is a solid fact that the Exynos is much faster than anything else in single core performance except the apple A12 and is much faster than the SD855 , while the SD855 is faster in multi core but no by much,
my only concern with the exynos is the stuttering and frame drops and the smoothness overall , i don't care about benchmarks really , and the S10 is ultra fast in launching apps already in both the exynos and SD855 , but the main concern as i mentioned is the smoothness which i think will be related to how the KERNEL will handle & is optimized and if was targeting performance or targeting efficiency only.