Do people actually put the heavy processing power of the flagship phones to good use?

[kyrax12]

EX: like the Snapdragon 600 series and the Snapdragon 800 series.

Every year, mobile processing power keeps on increasing rapidly among flagship phones.

I mean, it seems that these kind of power is only really useful in terms of game emulation and etc.

I don't see much games on the google playstore that requires a powerhouse mobile processor.

Not saying that it is bad that mobile processors are becoming more powerful every year, but I am just curious on whether or not most people have a use for them.

 

[Ravynmagi]

The extra performance is typically noticeable in everyday activities like web browsing. I don't think you need powerful games to see the difference.

 

[shortylickens]

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=it.rortos.f18carrierlanding

 

[Rdmkr]

Somewhere around the 4x1.5Ghz Krait Snapdragon S4 Pro I think further CPU power increases become hard to really notice in daily non-gaming usage. Graphical power on the other hand is never in excess. Basic interface tasks in android require a lot of GPU power to be rendered properly.

ps. to test this on a rooted phone you can use apps like No Frills CPU Control to adjust your CPU maximum speed. I don't know whether it affects the GPU, though.

 

[soccerballtux]

no, and if we did, they'd be overheating and thermally throttling in a heartbeat

I was able to run POVRay 3.7 for 5 seconds before hitting 85C on my Nexus 5.

 

[paperwastage]

no, and if we did, they'd be overheating and thermally throttling in a heartbeat

I was able to run POVRay 3.7 for 5 seconds before hitting 85C on my Nexus 5.

Actually, that's the whole point

New CPUs means faster single thread performance.

You can load webpages and apps faster( Cpu scales up , does task and scales back down). Saves battery. User gets impressed with the speed and snappinness of the system

If you are doing long CPU tasks like benchmarking, then a higher frequency/speed CPU will get throttled earlier and gets scaled back, so its not that useful

 

[soccerballtux]

Actually, that's the whole point

New CPUs means faster single thread performance.

You can load webpages and apps faster( Cpu scales up , does task and scales back down). Saves battery. User gets impressed with the speed and snappinness of the system

If you are doing long CPU tasks like benchmarking, then a higher frequency/speed CPU will get throttled earlier and gets scaled back, so its not that useful

so put a proper heatsink in it so I can actually use it

the point is to replace desktop. don't fight me about it

 

[Eug]

I don't play CPU intensive games on my iPhone 5s but the increased speed for video export is nice. Also, having fast burst mode for the camera is awesome, and the camera is overall faster than previous iPhones. OS feel was excellent though with even 2012 hardware - iPhone 5, and even the iPhone 4S is very decent.

For web browsing you really start to notice slowdowns if you don't have at least an iPhone 5 though. I would not recommend anyone buy a new 4S in 2014, even on a budget.

However, when I had my dual-core 1.5 GHz Android phone, I felt like I needed a faster CPU speed just for OS navigation.

Similarly, my Nexus 7 2012 just feels slow overall just with basic usage.

The 2013 Android devices were a significant improvement in OS navigation feel over 2012 models.

 

[paperwastage]

so put a proper heatsink in it so I can actually use it

the point is to replace desktop. don't fight me about it

get a tablet (which acts as a gigantic heatsink)... tablets throttle later than phones as you would imagine (with the exact same CPU chip)

 

[Red Storm]

Until devices perform all tasks instantaneously, there is room for improvement.

 

[BrightCandle]

They are still well below ideal performance in a lot of applications, especially web apps. When scrolling is consistently 60hz then we can start to say its good, but they still aren't even achieving that let alone 120+ hz that we really want for something to be genuinely smooth. Most apps take noticable time to load, we have numerous examples of operations done server side instead of client side due to lack of resources. Phones are dog slow processors, its going to be a long time before they even catch the desktop, and those aren't quick enough either.

 

[TuxDave]

Until devices perform all tasks instantaneously, there is room for improvement.

And when it does accomplish all current tasks instantaneously... new tasks will be created.

 

[Red Storm]

And when it does accomplish all current tasks instantaneously... new tasks will be created.

Yep, and the cycle begins anew.

 

[sm625]

Check out this thread for an example of something that requires newer hardware:

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2373030

 

[sgrinavi]

Ya, but will it play Crysis?

 

[zCypher]

"heavy processing power"? lol?

mobile CPU design is not the same as the processors you see in desktops. what is considered CPU-intensive on a desktop today, you won't be doing any time soon with your "heavy processing power" mobile devices. the mobile devices are doing what they do exceptionally well and continue to improve which is great, because there's still tons of room for improvement. but to call it heavy processing power just made me lol. are you referring to the frequency at which the processors are running, or its number of cores or something? those alone do not at all tell us the whole story about its capabilities or to which tasks it is best suited.

i will say however that the software and its lack of optimization definitely does not take absolute efficient advantage of the available power, but this also continues to improve steadily.

 

[bearxor]

I think Apple has the right idea here. A fast, highly efficient dual-core processor seems more than sufficient. The only one that seems able to do the same as them is Samsung and they're not for some reason. Everyone else is really beholden to Qualcomm.

 

[poofyhairguy]

When there is an ARM phone that can decode Hi10P files on the CPU then we are fast enough.

 

[ChronoReverse]

Wish granted then? My S600 can already do 720p Hi10P with softsubs and I know the fastest S80x CPUs can do 1080p.

 

[Red Storm]

I think Apple has the right idea here. A fast, highly efficient dual-core processor seems more than sufficient. The only one that seems able to do the same as them is Samsung and they're not for some reason. Everyone else is really beholden to Qualcomm.

There seems to be a lot of excitement over Nvidia's K1 chip. As a consumer it's always nice to have more players in the game.

 

[bearxor]

Hopefully they get some design wins besides Surface 3.