Cluster computing for smartphones, can it reach desktop level performance?

[Battousai01]

Is it possible to do a clustered computing setup for smartphones or mobile devices and reach a performance similar to a conventional desktop gaming cpu? If yes, how many smartphones for example with an SoC of Snapdragon 855 can reach similar performance of an AMD APU (for example Ryzen 3400G) or an i7-7700+GTX 1060?

I asked this because, I noticed, gaming on a smartphone with a Snapdragon 855 looks really good and I wonder what factors contribute to these efficiencies, I am thinking this could be due largely to the CPU architecture of smartphones which is a RISC and not an x86.

 

[darkswordsman17]

Short answer, no. Its not so much the CPU in the way you think, as games are mostly GPU dependent (and mobile GPUs just aren't that big which is why they're still quite efficient). Reason why it still looks nice is that modern games are quite decent looking even at non max settings. Also modern phones have pretty nice displays with high pixel density.