lol @ Qualcomm

[JimmiG]

The galaxy s3 was the last phone I owned with a snapdragon. I remembered how laggy it was compared to my then international exynos galaxy s3, but not only that, battery life was horrendous as well. Judging by the S810 fiasco, nothing has changed with Qualcomm...and I doubt things will change with the s820, either.

Not true. S4, 800, 801 and 805 were really good and didn't have any issues. The 808 is also pretty good in many other phones, and I'd probably choose it over the 810 if I was shopping for a phone today. Don't know why the 5X has such problems with it. The 600 and 400 series are also great mid-range chips.

The problem is the 810 or rather the A57 cores. They are way too inefficient for a smartphone design. Samsung definitely outclassed the competition this generation. However I think they will also hit a thermal brick wall soon. The laws of physics applies to everyone in the industry.

 

[Exophase]

Seems to me that Apple left performance on the table, then. Their CPU/GPU can run at max clocks indefinitely, which means they probably could have implemented a very significant turbo.

Keep in mind that something like GFXBench shouldn't come anywhere close to needing full CPU clock speeds. I would argue that you want to be able to run GPU at max clock indefinitely given a low enough CPU load. An intermittent and short burst interval on a GPU isn't that useful because most demanding GPU loads aren't intermittent and short. I don't think it's really very desirable to have a game that runs better only for the first couple minutes. In fact, I'd argue that this is worse than keeping it at the sustainable speed because the user will be more frustrated with what feels like a bait and switch in performance. That is, unless they really only play games for a few minutes at a time.

I think we all know the only real reason they do this with GPU clocks is in the hopes that it'll last the duration of popular benchmarks.

 

[core2slow]

Not true. S4, 800, 801 and 805 were really good and didn't have any issues. The 808 is also pretty good in many other phones, and I'd probably choose it over the 810 if I was shopping for a phone today. Don't know why the 5X has such problems with it. The 600 and 400 series are also great mid-range.

Knowing what we know now in regards to synthetic benchmark and TDP testing in the last few years, I bet the result would prove otherwise with the s800/801/805.

 

[ChronoReverse]

Knowing what we know now in regards to synthetic benchmark and TDP testing in the last few years, I bet the result would prove otherwise with the s800/801/805.

No, the Snapdragon 800/801 was definitely a step above almost everything during its time. There's a reason why the Nexus 5X doesn't compare well to the SD801-equipped Nexus 5 in sustained tests.

 

[poofyhairguy]

Exynos 7420 did pretty well with stock ARM.

Only compared to what Qualcomm did. Apple's 2015 SoC blows it out of the water. Honestly Nvidia's 2014 K1 is probably better too. I expect the Qualcomm 820 to wipe the floor with the 7420. The Intel Atom Z3580 also beats it in a lot of ways.

ARM Holdings spent £167.8 million on R&D in 2014. Apple is spending billions:

Intel and Qualcomm are also spending billions. ARM can't keep up with those resources. Their designs can't keep up. Even Samsung knows this, they are coming out with their own designs:

http://www.kitguru.net/components/c...-and-gpu-cores-in-design-stage-due-next-year/

Pretty soon there will be a clear divide in the marketplace between the haves (custom designs) and the have nots (license ARM designs).

 

[lopri]

I think you misunderstood that piece. Race to idle has never existed in mobile SoCs. It's a myth.

Oh, wow. I thought you had been gone. So happy to see you back here. Of course you are right about the myth of "Race-to-idle." "Race-to-idle" is a strange concept to apply to an SOC without power consumption anyway. Once a perf/watt curve is given that says all about how that SOC "races" and "idles" so you are left scratching head just what "race to idle" is for.

Plus there are activities that "race-to-idle" does not quite fit even in a descriptive manner; real-time communication that require persistent connectivity is an obvious one on mobile; video/audio that need to supply constant information is another; and perhaps now encryption.

So.. "Race-to-idle" is indeed a vacuous concept and I was playing a devil's advocate (to make a rather sarcastic point in a follow-up post). But I still accept your correction and stand corrected.

P.S. I also need to make some clarifications as to the follow-up post I made. Shall do so after dinner.

 

[teejee]

Only compared to what Qualcomm did. Apple's 2015 SoC blows it out of the water. Honestly Nvidia's 2014 K1 is probably better too. I expect the Qualcomm 820 to wipe the floor with the 7420. The Intel Atom Z3580 also beats it in a lot of ways.

ARM Holdings spent £167.8 million on R&D in 2014. Apple is spending billions:

Intel and Qualcomm are also spending billions. ARM can't keep up with those resources. Their designs can't keep up. Even Samsung knows this, they are coming out with their own designs:

http://www.kitguru.net/components/c...-and-gpu-cores-in-design-stage-due-next-year/

Pretty soon there will be a clear divide in the marketplace between the haves (custom designs) and the have nots (license ARM designs).

Spending 167 million on IP design only without any physical products is a lot.

You need to understand ARM's business model, that is the key to ARM's huge success.
A big part of the R&D cost for a SOC with ARM licensed cores is taken by the other involved companies. ARM does one small part and only charge a small fee per SOC.
This is called specialization, the basis for the economical evaluation for the last couple of thousand years.

 

[ChronoReverse]

Only compared to what Qualcomm did. Apple's 2015 SoC blows it out of the water.

Well, it's tremendously better than the iPhone 6 Plus in multi-thread (in fact still winning against the 6S) and only a little behind in single-thread so I'd say it did a great job.

The A9 came later and blew it out of the water but the Exynos in the GS6 certainly was the best SoC before that.

 

[Bryf50]

Only compared to what Qualcomm did. Apple's 2015 SoC blows it out of the water.

Not in any of the benchmarks I've seen. The 7420 is in between the A8 and A9 in both CPU and GPU performance. Right where it should be.

 

[poofyhairguy]

Well, it's tremendously better than the iPhone 6 Plus in multi-thread (in fact still winning against the 6S) and only a little behind in single-thread so I'd say it did a great job.

It certainly was better than anything else in Androidland in 2015.

 

[poofyhairguy]

Not in any of the benchmarks I've seen. The 7420 is in between the A8 and A9 in both CPU and GPU performance. Right where it should be.

Actually the A8 is closer to it than it is to the A9:

What really gets me is the GPU. Samsung isn't even close there (I know ARM didn't design the GPU):

We haven't seen a gap like that since the iPhone 4S. The Galaxy S6 gets a pass because it came before the iPhone, but that Note 5....

 

[ChronoReverse]

The PowerVR GPU Apple licensed certainly is a monster.

But CPU wise, non-javascript benchmarks have the GS6 nearly matching the iPhone6 in single thread and nearly doubling for multithread. Try to look past Javascript benchmarks (which is a true advantage of Apple software) and look at a range of benchmarks instead of just Basemark. Especially if you are going to use the overall score which is skewed by the graphics subtest as evidence of CPU prowess.

 

[shabby]

The PowerVR GPU Apple licensed certainly is a monster.

Why isn't anyone else using them?

 

[poofyhairguy]

Why isn't anyone else using them?

Intel and Mediatek use PowerVR GPUs. Only Apple uses the really nice ones though.

 

[poofyhairguy]

The PowerVR GPU Apple licensed certainly is a monster.

But CPU wise, non-javascript benchmarks have the GS6 nearly matching the iPhone6 in single thread and nearly doubling for multithread. Try to look past Javascript benchmarks (which is a true advantage of Apple software) and look at a range of benchmarks instead of just Basemark. Especially if you are going to use the overall score which is skewed by the graphics subtest as evidence of CPU prowess.

Fair enough.

 

[lopri]

The A9 is the fastest and the most advanced mobile SOC today. No question about it. It is crazy to think about what it actually is. (8 MB L3 are you kidding me)

 

[pete6032]

Other than playing a game, I am not sure what you would do on your phone for 12 minute or longer increments that would fully stress the phone to the point that the big cores turning off would lead to a visible performance decrease.

 

[StrangerGuy]

Meh, I'm already done with high-end Android SoCs. I went from Apple A9 down to a lolSnapdragon 400 and the real world difference in speed is only very slightly worse even though the raw performance gap is so big that you can fit whales through it (2500 vs 400 Geekbench ST). I don't need anything more than something like a cheapo Helio X10 SoC that can be found in phones 1/3 of the price of flagships for the long foreseeable future.

 

[core2slow]

Meh, I'm already done with high-end Android SoCs. I went from Apple A9 down to a lolSnapdragon 400 and the real world difference in speed is only very slightly worse even though the raw performance gap is so big that you can fit whales through it (2500 vs 400 Geekbench ST). I don't need anything more than something like a cheapo Helio X10 SoC that can be found in phones 1/3 of the price of flagships for the long foreseeable future.

Same. As i get older and game less, priority has certainly change. Sure, i still get my fix with an A9 through my work iphone, but personally, i couldn't care less (ok, maybe to a certain extent) what SoC is in my personal phone just as long as I can stream videos from a browser effortlessly on a +6in screen with a big ass battery.

 

[lopri]

What is funny is that you can't still game on Macs. Not the good ones, anyway. It's been that way for.. ever.

 

[Mopetar]

Other than playing a game, I am not sure what you would do on your phone for 12 minute or longer increments that would fully stress the phone to the point that the big cores turning off would lead to a visible performance decrease.

That's a fair point. Honestly there isn't much that should put it under full load for more than two minutes to be honest. I suppose if you have a lot of background apps running it will have a bigger impact on performance than if the chip wasn't throttling so heavily, but there are other solutions to that problem.

 

[tsupersonic]

Meh, I'm already done with high-end Android SoCs. I went from Apple A9 down to a lolSnapdragon 400 and the real world difference in speed is only very slightly worse even though the raw performance gap is so big that you can fit whales through it (2500 vs 400 Geekbench ST). I don't need anything more than something like a cheapo Helio X10 SoC that can be found in phones 1/3 of the price of flagships for the long foreseeable future.

Did the same. My last two flagships were the iPhone 6 and Galaxy S6. I re-evaluated my needs, and found I really didn't need a high end phone. At the end of the day, I want something fast enough, with awesome battery. My daily driver these days is a Moto G/2015 (2 GB RAM model). Are there times it lags or is slow opening something? Absolutely, but it's fast enough otherwise. The battery life is also unstoppable, I've gotten 10+ hrs SOT, but I typically average 6-8 hrs.

 

[lopri]

Edit: nevermind.

 

[Commodus]

What is funny is that you can't still game on Macs. Not the good ones, anyway. It's been that way for.. ever.

You can, it's just that you have to buy a ridiculously high-end Mac to play recent 3D titles (right now, a 27-inch iMac, the Mac Pro or the higher-spec 15-inch MacBook Pro). And that's not necessarily a condemnation of Apple, either -- its focuses on the Mac have long been on creativity and ease of use, not the hardcore gamer crowd.

iOS is different: handhelds are a natural fit for gaming, and the App Store lends itself well to that. I do wish Apple took gaming more seriously across the board, but it's at least aware of where people are most likely to be playing these days.

I'm curious to see how the Snapdragon 820 handles gaming in real life. The 808/810 aren't terrible depending on the device, but there's no question that you want an iPhone or iPad if you care about high-performance mobile gaming in 2015.

 

[StrangerGuy]

You can, it's just that you have to buy a ridiculously high-end Mac to play recent 3D titles (right now, a 27-inch iMac, the Mac Pro or the higher-spec 15-inch MacBook Pro). And that's not necessarily a condemnation of Apple, either -- its focuses on the Mac have long been on creativity and ease of use, not the hardcore gamer crowd.

iOS is different: handhelds are a natural fit for gaming, and the App Store lends itself well to that. I do wish Apple took gaming more seriously across the board, but it's at least aware of where people are most likely to be playing these days.

I'm curious to see how the Snapdragon 820 handles gaming in real life. The 808/810 aren't terrible depending on the device, but there's no question that you want an iPhone or iPad if you care about high-performance mobile gaming in 2015.

TBH the A9, 820, 8890...By this point the differences are very much purely academic really. The app ecosystems these chips find themselves running simply doesn't have the economics to make traditional graphic-pushing AAA games work. It's all virtually coding for the lowest common denominator hardware out there because F2P/P2W.

Yeah, I'm also pretty baffled by why Apple still haven't invested in producing AAA type iOS exclusive games to actually drive their SoC superiority home, seems like a big missed opportunity.