Mobile Kepler thread

[Mondozei]

So Tegra 5 is coming out this year.

Nvidia claims it will be a "major discontinuity".

The graph is a bit misleading. The jump that the iPad 4 made compared to Galaxy S4 is far greater in terms of percentage than the iPad 4 > Tegra 5. But even so, it is still very impressive, if what Nvidia claims is correct(which in of itself is speculation).

Nvidia also demonstrated Tegra 5 running this demo:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vx0t-WJFXzo

They've also tried playing Battlefield 3 on the Tregra 5 SoC with the Kepler GPU. So this is what we know. Tomorrow they will reveal more so I thought I'd create this thread in the meantime because I am very interested in what they have to show.

Will they give more specifics, like how many CUDA cores, what TDP and so on? Or will they do mostly demos. Considering their PR announcement it does appear it will be a bit more substantative. And the question then becomes if Tegra 5's GPU will be better, or even much better, than Qualcomm's Adreno 420.

 

[Raghu]

When was Battlefield3 compiled for ARM?

 

[krumme]

So Tegra 5 is coming out this year.

Nvidia claims it will be a "major discontinuity".

The graph is a bit misleading. The jump that the iPad 4 made compared to Galaxy S4 is far greater in terms of percentage than the iPad 4 > Tegra 5. But even so, it is still very impressive, if what Nvidia claims is correct(which in of itself is speculation).

Nvidia also demonstrated Tegra 5 running this demo:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vx0t-WJFXzo

They've also tried playing Battlefield 3 on the Tregra 5 SoC with the Kepler GPU. So this is what we know. Tomorrow they will reveal more so I thought I'd create this thread in the meantime because I am very interested in what they have to show.

Will they give more specifics, like how many CUDA cores, what TDP and so on? Or will they do mostly demos. Considering their PR announcement it does appear it will be a bit more substantative. And the question then becomes if Tegra 5's GPU will be better, or even much better, than Qualcomm's Adreno 420.

As its the first time we see a modern gpu arch in mobiles i think we can hope for some major gains on the gpu side. Hopefully it can lay the foundation for a new generation of games. Mobile is starting to really sell games and a high perf modern arch is an important step. I am really looking forward to it.

What is questionable is, what the benefit is of beeing first here as the games dont take advantage. Secondly the rest of the solution must be up to the task; eg cpu dsp connectivity 4g+

I think nv is betting their future on this market. They need arm to succeed for the future b2c market of their business.

 

[Mondozei]

When was Battlefield3 compiled for ARM?

Here's the mobile Kepler demo on Battlefield 3. http://vimeo.com/63838994

 

[Mondozei]

As its the first time we see a modern gpu arch in mobiles i think we can hope for some major gains on the gpu side. Hopefully it can lay the foundation for a new generation of games. Mobile is starting to really sell games and a high perf modern arch is an important step. I am really looking forward to it.

So am I.

I do wonder, however, how much of their chart is really based in reality. Having a GPU capable of performance well above PS3 would be remarkable if true, but I am guessing that if it ever gets near those levels it will only be seen in its full-fledged iteration in tablets, not mobile phones.

Still, there are some questions about this precisely because Nvidia's CEO has been known as a bit of a blowhard who has overpromised and underdelivered a lot.

What is questionable is, what the benefit is of beeing first here as the games dont take advantage. Secondly the rest of the solution must be up to the task; eg cpu dsp connectivity 4g+

Yeah. Only a few weeks ago we found out that Tegra 5 will STILL not have an integrated LTE modem, which gutted Tegra 4. Tegra 4i will have it, but it is aimed at mid to lower-tier markets.

It's actually quite embarrassing if you actually aim for the high-end with the fullblown Tegra 5 SoC, which is what Nvidia is doing, and you're still missing that in 2014.


I thought about investing in Nvidia once but instead invested in Baidu instead. I'm glad that I did. I can understand a miss in one year, but not two misses in two consequetive years.

Nvidia could well have the best GPU on the market for mobile by far but it could still not do much difference since the rest of their SoC lacks the integrated solutions you need and cannot get away with when power consumption and efficiency is so constrained(not to mention space).

 

[Raghu]

Here's the mobile Kepler demo on Battlefield 3. http://vimeo.com/63838994

Thats not running on Tegra5. Its running on x86 machine that has a GPU very similar to what Tegra5 has. IIRC, it was from the investor day conference, right?

 

[lefty2]

So am I.

I do wonder, however, how much of their chart is really based in reality. Having a GPU capable of performance well above PS3 would be remarkable if true, but I am guessing that if it ever gets near those levels it will only be seen in its full-fledged iteration in tablets, not mobile phones.

Still, there are some questions about this precisely because Nvidia's CEO has been known as a bit of a blowhard who has overpromised and underdelivered a lot.



Yeah. Only a few weeks ago we found out that Tegra 5 will STILL not have an integrated LTE modem, which gutted Tegra 4. Tegra 4i will have it, but it is aimed at mid to lower-tier markets.

It's actually quite embarrassing if you actually aim for the high-end with the fullblown Tegra 5 SoC, which is what Nvidia is doing, and you're still missing that in 2014.


I thought about investing in Nvidia once but instead invested in Baidu instead. I'm glad that I did. I can understand a miss in one year, but not two misses in two consequetive years.

Nvidia could well have the best GPU on the market for mobile by far but it could still not do much difference since the rest of their SoC lacks the integrated solutions you need and cannot get away with when power consumption and efficiency is so constrained(not to mention space).

Even worse, Tegra 4i has no CDMA, so they cannot sell in the USA. Huang said in the earnings call not to expect too much for Tegra's chances in the handset market, more important are tablets and other areas like automotive.

 

[krumme]

So am I.

I do wonder, however, how much of their chart is really based in reality. Having a GPU capable of performance well above PS3 would be remarkable if true, but I am guessing that if it ever gets near those levels it will only be seen in its full-fledged iteration in tablets, not mobile phones.

Still, there are some questions about this precisely because Nvidia's CEO has been known as a bit of a blowhard who has overpromised and underdelivered a lot.



Yeah. Only a few weeks ago we found out that Tegra 5 will STILL not have an integrated LTE modem, which gutted Tegra 4. Tegra 4i will have it, but it is aimed at mid to lower-tier markets.

It's actually quite embarrassing if you actually aim for the high-end with the fullblown Tegra 5 SoC, which is what Nvidia is doing, and you're still missing that in 2014.


I thought about investing in Nvidia once but instead invested in Baidu instead. I'm glad that I did. I can understand a miss in one year, but not two misses in two consequetive years.

Nvidia could well have the best GPU on the market for mobile by far but it could still not do much difference since the rest of their SoC lacks the integrated solutions you need and cannot get away with when power consumption and efficiency is so constrained(not to mention space).

I am sure it will be well over ps3 levels. Look where adreno 420 is today.
What is the release date aprox? And what do we know about the rest of the soc. I guess its on 20nm? - so really end of year ?

 

[Mondozei]

Even worse, Tegra 4i has no CDMA, so they cannot sell in the USA. Huang said in the earnings call not to expect too much for Tegra's chances in the handset market, more important are tablets and other areas like automotive.

Yeah, it's embarrassing. Still, I saw that they got a partnership with Google and Audi the other day to provide a mobile computing system to Audi cars. Google will be doing much of the software and Nvidia will provide GPU's.

Thats not running on Tegra5. Its running on x86 machine that has a GPU very similar to what Tegra5 has. IIRC, it was from the investor day conference, right?

No offence mate, but I think the point is going over your head in a pretty major way. Let me explain. First, let's begin with the fact that I never wrote the demo was on an ARM SoC, just that they were demonstrating what Tegra 5 was capable of, regardless of platform.

Secondly, whether the Tegra 5 GPU was on an x86 or not does not really matter in you think it through.
Let's assume, for the sake of the argument, that it was an x86 chip. Would that change anything at all? If you think it does, you've missed the point entirely.

The point is that it can hit those levels of GPU performance in the first place.
What game is then used - or for that matter what platform - is really irrelevant. And that's not what the thread is about

I am sure it will be well over ps3 levels. Look where adreno 420 is today.
What is the release date aprox? And what do we know about the rest of the soc. I guess its on 20nm? - so really end of year ?

Adreno 420 is impressive, but just how impressive? Most Adreno 330 implementations have been at 115 GLOPS at 450 Mhz, even if the chip has a theoretical max throughput of 160 GFLOPS. So in the most baseline scenario we're looking at 161 GFLOPS(with 40% improvement). Otherwise it would be 224 GFLOPS if we use the 160 optimistic scenario. My point is that max value is not always adhered to due to other constraints and tradeoffs OEMs make. At 161 GFLOPS, it would be on par with the PS3 more or less.

However, hardware optimizations for the PS3 means games are just going to look better on PS3(the last of us is a good example) even with lower max throughput. Mobile GPU technology moves so fast and is relatively varied so a better analogy is PC GPUs, so throw out serious optimization savings out of the window, at least on Android.
So in this sense, it would still be below PS3-level graphics in real day usage, unless you get a bunch of maximized implementations and very strong optimizations/games can are high-level from the getgo(both unlikely, especially the latter as games released should play well on most if not all devices to be top sellers).

Kepler in smartphones will probably be where Adreno 420 is. So that's why Nvidia is forgoing it, because without the modem, the DSP, ISP and the awesome CPU etc, they have little to show for it compared to Qualcomm. And they will likely have to cut back a little on the raw GPU capabilities to fit a smaller power envelope compared to tablets.

From what I've read it will be coming around H2 2014, so probably for the September/October launches of phones and tablets(mostly tablets I'm guessing in this case).
And yes, it ought to be 20 nm. TSMC should be ready by 2H 2014. But you never know!

 

[krumme]

The basic problem is that qq 805 is on a fine tuned hpm process and is slated for h1 probably early on and in q4/q1 2015 probably an entire new arch is comming on 20nm and 16nm will follow shortly thereafter. And as usual for qq every half year they have something new. For 805 its also eg h265 decoding and more advanced camera and optics controlling! Man they are just adding on constantly to their soc making it difficult for all the other players. Its an extremely compettitive market and its evolving far faster than x86.

But i look forward to tegra 5. Tegra 3 is still on the market and was a success for the tablets.

 

[NTMBK]

Fudzilla are saying that Tegra 5 is on 28nm.

Nvidia will showcase Tegra 5, codenamed Logan, and it will focus on the GPU performance part as this is what they are good at. The GPU is Kepler derived and is the best one to date by far. Many people confirmed the superiority of the new GPU, backed by quad A15 CPU cores, all done in 28nm. We were surprised that Tegra 5 doesn’t have integrated LTE, but it works with external Nvidia made LTE chip.

http://www.fudzilla.com/home/item/33562-nvidia-to-present-project-denver-tonight

Good that they're finally getting unified shaders on Tegra, but I don't see any performance/W revolution if they're still on 28nm.

 

[Zodiark1593]

It's actually quite embarrassing if you actually aim for the high-end with the fullblown Tegra 5 SoC, which is what Nvidia is doing, and you're still missing that in 2014.


I thought about investing in Nvidia once but instead invested in Baidu instead. I'm glad that I did. I can understand a miss in one year, but not two misses in two consequetive years.

Nvidia could well have the best GPU on the market for mobile by far but it could still not do much difference since the rest of their SoC lacks the integrated solutions you need and cannot get away with when power consumption and efficiency is so constrained(not to mention space).

The Tegra 5 isn't going to be made with phones in mind, judging by the power and thermal characteristics of its predecessor (Nvidia Shield). By the looks of it, it seems Nvidia wants to make a push in portable gaming. In the handheld console space, the GPU takes precedence over the integrated LTE modem.

However, looking at the Tegra 4 used in Shield, I'm a little bit concerned about power use. Unlike smartphones, the effective battery life of handheld consoles are measured under constant full load, to an extent where performance even plays second fiddle so as to get useable battery life in the first place. The Shield is powerful, but bulky and not something I can carry alongside the smartphone unlike something like the 3DS.

I could speculate more, but I'll probably wait and see what the Tegra 5 brings when it actually launches.

 

[Raghu]

Let me explain. First, let's begin with the fact that I never wrote the demo was on an ARM SoC, just that they were demonstrating what Tegra 5 was capable of, regardless of platform.

Nvidia also demonstrated Tegra 5 running this demo:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vx0t-WJFXzo

They've also tried playing Battlefield 3 on the Tregra 5 SoC with the Kepler GPU.

Thats where you said that the demo was running on an ARM SoC. I had asked specifically when BF3 was compiled for ARM and you pointed me to a video that shows it running on x86.

I do understand your point about mobile Kepler perf. I dont know what made you think otherwise.

The UE4 engine demo today was pretty cool. I hope Android gaming takes off this year.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkJ5PupShfk

 

[sontin]

365 GFLOPs in 5W. That is 31% of the GFLOPs from the Xbox One while using only 5% of the power. That is a huge leap forwards.

Even worse, Tegra 4i has no CDMA, so they cannot sell in the USA. Huang said in the earnings call not to expect too much for Tegra's chances in the handset market, more important are tablets and other areas like automotive.

So, because they dont sell Tegra 4i in the USA means they have no chance in the handset market? Yeah. What about China? You know the country with more than a billion people?

Tegra 4i will sell quite well: A 60mm^2 Die, integrated LTE modem, 1W TDP and very powerful.

 

[NTMBK]

So, because they dont sell Tegra 4i in the USA means they have no chance in the handset market? Yeah. What about China? You know the country with more than a billion people?

Tegra 4i will sell quite well: A 60mm^2 Die, integrated LTE modem, 1W TDP and very powerful.

Yes, and you've been saying the same thing for a year now. If they'd actually started selling the thing last year it might have done alright, but who wants a Cortex A9 in 2014?

 

[sontin]

Yes, and you've been saying the same thing for a year now. If they'd actually started selling the thing last year it might have done alright, but who wants a Cortex A9 in 2014?

I guess the same people who want a OpenGl ES3.0 SoC. D:

People want fast and cheap smartphones. Tegra 4i will deliver that.

 

[Mondozei]

Thats where you said that the demo was running on an ARM SoC. I had asked specifically when BF3 was compiled for ARM and you pointed me to a video that shows it running on x86.

A Tegra 5 SoC isn't necessarily an ARM SoC, it could have been a modified x86 SoC.
I never stated it was ARM.
But just to underline things. If it ran on an x86 or ARM or whatever platform has no significance at all.

This thread is not about Battlefield 3's compability with ARM. That's what you're not getting. It's about Kepler's GPU performance.
And you still don't understand this. That's what amuses me.

I do understand your point about mobile Kepler perf. I dont know what made you think otherwise.

Please don't make me laugh.

 

[Mondozei]

Fudzilla are saying that Tegra 5 is on 28nm.

Good that they're finally getting unified shaders on Tegra, but I don't see any performance/W revolution if they're still on 28nm.

So I assume that the first version of the K1/T5 will be on 28 nm, the Quad A15.

Project Denver, the dual core 86 bit ARMv8 chip, though, will it be on 20 nm? It will be released later in the year so theoretically it could be done if it is released very late with TSMC's 20 nm process.
Anand says he thinks it will be 28 nm due to the fresh silicone and maybe it will be, but it could also be a prototype made for 28 nm.
The buzz before the event was that Project Denver was going to be late to 2015, but this changes a lot. It would be awesome if it came for 20 nm, but I think Anand's right that the time schedule to make that happen is very constrained and thus unlikely(but I hope that we skeptics are wrong!)

Also: he didn't give a specific release date to the month or even quarter. From what I've read on tech sites, it appears the first chip will come out H1 and the second in H2.

I feel like Project Denver has become the Nvidia equivalent of AMD's Mantle in the mobile space.
It sounds awesome, details are murky and we all want to know more about it.
(Understand that I'm not saying Project Denver is somehow an 'answer' to Mantle, that is G-Sync, but that the way the entire thing is handled is comparable to how mystery enshrouded Mantle at launch with people hungry for details).

 

[NTMBK]

I guess the same people who want a OpenGl ES3.0 SoC. D:

People want fast and cheap smartphones. Tegra 4i will deliver that.

A Cortex A53 SoC will be cheaper than Cortex A9 whilst delivering comparable performance, and Mali offers OpenGL ES3.0 with unified shaders, unlike the 4i.

 

[sontin]

And how many A53 SoC out in the market? Right. Even Mediathek is only releasing a 8-core A7 chip. Tegra 4i will come into the market in Q2. nVidia will talk about it at the MWC next month.

And using "unified shaders" as a argument. Lol. Nobody cares about it.

 

[NTMBK]

And using "unified shaders" as a argument. Lol. Nobody cares about it.

One of the most significant developments in GPU development, which greatly improved GPU efficiency? Sure, no-one cares about it.

 

[sontin]

Yes. If anybody cared he would buy a Tegra K1 smartphone.
BTW: Is there any Mali equipped tablet or smartphone out there which is faster than Tegra 4?

 

[Cerb]

A Tegra 5 SoC isn't necessarily an ARM SoC, it could have been a modified x86 SoC.
I never stated it was ARM.

No, it could not have been x86. nV agreed not to do that, even in firmware (like Transmeta). It could be ARM or MIPS, as an nV SoC, and they are already a licensee of ARM. You don't have to state that it's ARM for it to have to be ARM.

 

[sontin]

BTW:
The reference 7" tablet from nVidia gets 60FPS in the GLbenchmark 2.7 offscreen:
http://www.notebookcheck.com/NVIDIA-Tegra-K1-SoC.108249.0.html

More than twice as fast as the iPad Air.

 

[MrK6]

One of the most significant developments in GPU development, which greatly improved GPU efficiency? Sure, no-one cares about it.

sontin's just foaming at the mouth trying to defend nvidia, ignore him.

I could care about performance if battery life wasn't as abysmal as it's always been for Tegra. Not sure what nvidia doesn't get about this.



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