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[Ars] Tegra 4i benchmarks are in!

NTMBK

NTMBK

Lifer
The privacy oriented Blackphone runs on a Tegra 4i, and Ars Technica were good enough to run some benchmarks:

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http://arstechnica.com/security/201...he-blackphone-the-android-for-the-paranoid/3/

Fairly predictable results, though weird that the One M8 did so badly on the GFxBench Offscreen test- in Anandtech's review it hit 28fps on T-Rex, versus the 3.4 here!
 
NTMBK said:
Fairly predictable results, though weird that the One M8 did so badly on the GFxBench Offscreen test- in Anandtech's review it hit 28fps on T-Rex, versus the 3.4 here!
Click to expand...

If you go and look at Ars Technicas original review for the M8 it scored 73 and 28 fps in the Egypt and T-rex offscreen test respectively, so the author of this review must have bungled something.

Also the GS5 scored 71/28 in a previous review and the iphone 5s scored 57/24

So all in all I wouldn't really trust this review as far as the graphics scores go, which is sad really, since that was arguably the most interesting thing about tegra 4i.
 
monstercameron said:
seems run on the mill...what is the advantage of nvidia silicon?
Click to expand...

The Tegra 4i is not supposed to be cutting edge. I believe it is 4 A9 cores of the most recent arm revision that runs up to 2.3 Ghz with and integrated modem. This is much more so a Tegra 3 really than a Tegra 4. This phone also may have reduced numbers due to having a number of always on security features.
 
The memory results from Geekbench for the 4i are interesting. Interesting, as in terrible. What's the problem there, I wonder?
 
DrMrLordX said:
The memory results from Geekbench for the 4i are interesting. Interesting, as in terrible. What's the problem there, I wonder?
Click to expand...

If this is like a somewhat improved tegra 3 those might be in line with what to expect. I remember T3 being gimped by a single channel and slow memory setup. We all have to remember this is in many ways a 2 1/2 year old cpu with some improvements.

I believe the main point of T4i was nvidia's first integrated modem for mid-low range phones.
 
Well no wonder why almost no one used it. At first glance, I thought these were be Tegra K1 benchmarks, given the timeframe.
 
DrMrLordX said:
The memory results from Geekbench for the 4i are interesting. Interesting, as in terrible. What's the problem there, I wonder?
Click to expand...

The 4i is only single channel memory. Seems many high end phones are dual channel now.
You would think dual channel would be a key part for Nivida to keep their GPU breathing well.
 
Jimzz said:
The 4i is only single channel memory. Seems many high end phones are dual channel now.
You would think dual channel would be a key part for Nivida to keep their GPU breathing well.
Click to expand...
You'd also think that using an architecture base that wasn't over 5 years old would help... about time they're reconciling that issue.
 
Homeles said:
You'd also think that using an architecture base that wasn't over 5 years old would help... about time they're reconciling that issue.
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Years needed to get their own CPU design group producing is not surprising given just implementing ARMs bog standard designs can take a year+. Still no 64 bit standard ARM out yet only Apple with their billion+ dollar custom design. That Nvidia's 64 bit ARM design is mature enough to apparently get a Google Nexus design win is impressive.

Even so, Tegra 4i was late and even if it had been on time was seemingly targeting mid-range phones which now relegates it to the "budget" segment.
 
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monstercameron said:
seems run on the mill...what is the advantage of nvidia silicon?
Click to expand...

Price (at least theoretically) in theory the tegra 4i pricing for a final phone should be occupying the moto g to moto g lte pricing area ($100 to $250 range) anything $300+ should kick the tegra 4i ass. That said this is competitive and is easily in the galaxy s4 area but is not better than the s5. The moto g is roughly comparable to the s3 to nexus 4 area sometimes better sometimes slower.

Now the actual price of the phone is not up to the chip designers but instead the oems. If oems refuse to release phones or release phones at the target prices that is both the oem and nVidia's fault.
 
Single channel . . . that makes some sense. Even if you double the memory benchmark numbers (which, granted, might not be what would happen in GeekBench given a dual-channel memory controller), the 4i still looks pretty bad in comparison, at least on the dual core test.
 
Vesku said:
Years needed to get their own CPU design group producing is not surprising given just implementing ARMs bog standard designs can take a year+. Still no 64 bit standard ARM out yet only Apple with their billion+ dollar custom design. That Nvidia's 64 bit ARM design is mature enough to apparently get a Google Nexus design win is impressive.

Even so, Tegra 4i was late and even if it had been on time was seemingly targeting mid-range phones which now relegates it to the "budget" segment.
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I was talking about the GPU. Sorry for not clarifying.
 
NTMBK said:
Given how clearly broken the One M8 results are, I'm a bit reluctant to draw any conclusions from the GPU benchmarks.
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Well it's certainly better than the GPU in most ~$200-250 unlocked phones. CPU also better than the ~1.2GHz A7s found in most of that price range. Could have competed for the more premium phone designs if it wasn't "late". So if I see an Tegra 4i in an unlocked phone of that price range I'll be interested.

On another note, definitely something amiss with Arstechnica's HTC One (M8) graphic results: http://anandtech.com/show/7893/the-htc-one-m8-review/7
 
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DrMrLordX said:
Single channel . . . that makes some sense. Even if you double the memory benchmark numbers (which, granted, might not be what would happen in GeekBench given a dual-channel memory controller), the 4i still looks pretty bad in comparison, at least on the dual core test.
Click to expand...

It's the same memory controller used in Tegra 3, they improved it with T4 & completely reworked it with TK1. Even doubling the width would still be bad due to the aged memory controller in use.

It's a step up from Cortex A7 @1.2-1.5GHz (maybe higher) & the Mali MP400/450 typically found in this segment. A year or so ago this chip would have been a good thing, today it'd be better off using A12/17.
 
Competition is S400 and co. Nothing of them uses more than A7 or the low speed Krait processors.

Tegra 4i offers much more performance than these SoCs. But this doesnt really help because nobody cares about the performance in the <$200 segment.
 
Vesku said:
Well it's certainly better than the GPU in most ~$200-250 unlocked phones. CPU also better than the ~1.2GHz A7s found in most of that price range. Could have competed for the more premium phone designs if it wasn't "late". So if I see an Tegra 4i in an unlocked phone of that price range I'll be interested.

On another note, definitely something amiss with Arstechnica's HTC One (M8) graphic results: http://anandtech.com/show/7893/the-htc-one-m8-review/7
Click to expand...
It was a bit unfair of a statement on my part. Obviously, they were updating the GPU to some extent. They couldn't have used Tesla or Fermi, as that would have been even worse. In fact, it might have been revelations from their mobile venture that gave us the big leaps we got with Kepler and Maxwell.

And yes, Tegra 4's biggest shortcoming, including the "i" variation, was its time to market.
 
sontin said:
Competition is S400 and co. Nothing of them uses more than A7 or the low speed Krait processors.

Tegra 4i offers much more performance than these SoCs. But this doesnt really help because nobody cares about the performance in the <$200 segment.
Click to expand...

Yeah. It's actually really unfortunate that T4i didn't take off.
 
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