Nvidia: Not Enough Money in a PS4 GPU for us to bother

[Outrage]

Source for the first is The Linley Group and NVIDIA documents. Source for the second is GTC 2013.

On the lab bench, Nvidia’s Cortex-A15 CPU core clearly outperforms Qualcomm’s Krait CPU. Real tablets and smartphones, however, will likely use slower memory than the PC-style DDR3 in Nvidia’s test system. More important, few products have the thermal capacity to run all four Tegra 4 CPUs at their maximum speed, even for short periods. For these reasons, Tegra 4 systems will not match Nvidia’s quoted performance. But until we see actual products, we don’t know how big the shortfall will be.

thats from linley, and the guy who wrote it has held the jobb as director of Strategic Marketing @ nvidia, i would take his hype with a pinch of salt.

 

[ams23]

This is utterly ridiculous and you know it. Even nvidia themselves state (and I quote) "Tegra 4 compare favorably against Qualcomm’s current offerings, but it also appears to have an edge over Qualcomm’s pending Snapdragon 800." Nvidia hype machine anyone? There is no source that can quantify this, period. If you're taking nvidia's PR spin at their word, I don't know what to say....neither chip is released yet. Give me a break.

However, there are some sources we can quantify. Microsoft and google. We know what google's opinion was. They went with Qualcomm for their Nexus refreshes.

Tegra 4, S4 Pro, and S600 benchmarks are already available, so one should be able to extrapolate to get an estimate of S800. Anyway, if you don't trust any of the existing analysis, then wait two months and you will see.

As for the Google and Microsoft refreshes, it is what it is. If Google and Microsoft need something now, they need to go with Qualcomm because Tegra 4/4i/i500 only started sampling relatively recently. This is not the end of the world for NVIDIA, as new product cycles come and go every 6-9 months. Since the Nexus 7 appears to be selling reasonably well, there is no guarantee it will be replaced anytime soon. In fact, the logical thing for Google to do would be to release a higher performance Nexus 7.7 or 8 variant positioned above the current Nexus 7.

 

[ams23]

thats from linley, and the guy who wrote it has held the jobb as director of Strategic Marketing @ nvidia, i would take his hype with a pinch of salt.

Sure, take with a pinch of salt, but Tegra 4 benchmark results were repeatedly performed on thin reference fanless tablets at MWC, so that should be representative of what we will see in production devices. The biggest question mark is how much will throttling effect performance in a smartphone form factor, but from past experience with Tegra 3, it should be no worse than about 20-25% slower in a smartphone than in a thin fanless tablet.

 

[notty22]

Few articles showing off new HDR features standard in all phones/tablets that use Tegra4
http://www.slashgear.com/nvidia-tegra-4-chimera-camera-technology-hands-on-22275013/
http://www.droid-life.com/2013/03/19/video-nvidia-tegra-4-hdr-demo-at-gtc/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=skaudcrYtnM

 

[NTMBK]

You conflate low cost with low margin.

If it costs me $5 to make a Tegra and I sell it for $10, my gross margin is 50%.

NVidia produced a larger chip than their rivals (5 cores) on a more expensive process (LPG). I don't think they're going to manage lower costs than their rivals.

 

[ams23]

NVidia produced a larger chip than their rivals (5 cores) on a more expensive process (LPG). I don't think they're going to manage lower costs than their rivals.

That is not necessarily true. With Tegra 3, NVIDIA used an older 40nm fabrication process while Qualcomm moved to the newer 28nm fabrication process. Wafer costs tend to rise initially when moving to a new fabrication process, and wafer supply tends to be more constrained on the newer fabrication process than the older fabrication process. So NVIDIA was likely able to save a significant amount of cost by staying on the 40nm fabrication process. And even at 40nm, the SoC die size of Tegra 3 was relatively small at ~ 80 mm^2. Each ARM Cortex A9 core is barely above 1 mm^2 in area, so the extra CPU core(s) does not make a huge difference here in terms of area. With Tegra 4i, NVIDIA is using a 28nm fabrication process, but their SoC die size will be about 50% smaller (!) than Qualcomm's S800, which will make it a more cost-effective design.

 

[badb0y]

When are Tegra 4 devices even coming to the market? I haven't heard anything that uses Tegra 4 except the Shield.

 

[ams23]

Tegra 4 devices will start to come to market towards the end of Q2 2013. Tegra 4i devices will not come to market until end of 2013 or early 2014 unfortunately due to the six month lag time between carrier certification and device production.

 

[PingviN]

1) Tegra 4, S4 Pro, and S600 benchmarks are already available, so one should be able to extrapolate to get an estimate of S800. Anyway, if you don't trust any of the existing analysis, then wait two months and you will see.

2) This is not the end of the world for NVIDIA, as new product cycles come and go every 6-9 months. Since the Nexus 7 appears to be selling reasonably well, there is no guarantee it will be replaced anytime soon. In fact, the logical thing for Google to do would be to release a higher performance Nexus 7.7 or 8 variant positioned above the current Nexus 7.

1) This is bull feces. The demo-unit running Tegra 4 was a non-consumer tablet. Obviously Nvidia doesn't have to worry about battery life on such a device. This compared to the HTC One a phone that is currently going out to consumers. Gee I wonder why T4 performs better. It can't possibly have anything to do with the higher power draw a tablet allows.

2) Nvidia cut their sales prognosis by $225 million for '13. Google and Asus wont keep the existing Nexus 7. It's gone. Nvidia lost the deal.

With Tegra 4i, NVIDIA is using a 28nm fabrication process, but their SoC die size will be about 50% smaller (!) than Qualcomm's S800, which will make it a more cost-effective design.

T4i will probably not even be remotely close to S800 performancewise, so it doesn't matter if it's more cost effecient. It's a Tegra 3 with Tegra 4 GPUs, go figure what it'll compete against (hint: not Snapdragon 800).

 

[NTMBK]

With Tegra 4i, NVIDIA is using a 28nm fabrication process, but their SoC die size will be about 50% smaller (!) than Qualcomm's S800, which will make it a more cost-effective design.

The Tegra 4i is still a Cortex A9 design though, and as such it's going to get slaughtered in performance by the S800.

 

[Imouto]

The T4i will use A9 cores instead of A15. It will be miles away from any Qualcomm chip. Also, the T4 doesn't have the LTE modem and other stuff on chip, obviously the S800 will be bigger.

 

[ams23]

1) This is bull feces. The demo-unit running Tegra 4 was a non-consumer tablet. Obviously Nvidia doesn't have to worry about battery life on such a device.

Don't be obtuse. The demonstrations of Tegra 4 at MWC 2013 were done on reference tablet designs with no heatsink and no fan. It would be completely inane for a company to allow the press to benchmark these reference tablets only to have performance go way down in a production tablet.

This compared to the HTC One a phone that is currently going out to consumers. Gee I wonder why T4 performs better. It can't possibly have anything to do with the higher power draw a tablet allows.

Tegra 4 should easily outperform S600 when both are used in a tablet form factor with respect to both CPU and GPU performance. To even debate that after seeing the latest benchmark results is insane.

2) Nvidia cut their sales prognosis by $225 million for '13. Google and Asus wont keep the existing Nexus 7. It's gone. Nvidia lost the deal.

No, there was an analyst who cut his own forecast by that amount due to Tegra 4 being late to market. NVIDIA did not give guidance for the full year. With respect to Nexus 7, you do realize that Google is still promoting and advertising that model as we speak at places such as youtube.com? Sure, at some point the Nexus 7 will have a successor and will be replaced, but as we sit and debate that the existing Nexus 7 is still selling (although there is no denying the fact that Tegra 3 production is ramping down as Tegra 4 production is ramping up).

T4i will probably not even be remotely close to S800 performancewise, so it doesn't matter if it's more cost effecient. It's a Tegra 3 with Tegra 4 GPUs, go figure what it'll compete against (hint: not Snapdragon 800).

Wrong again. You do realize that Tegra 4i uses the R4 Cortex A9 which has a substantial increase in IPC and far higher clock operating frequencies compared to the Cortex A9 used in Tegra 3? In fact, R4 Cortex A9 has some of the same features as the Cortex A15. Here is one (admittedly biased) comparison here: http://androidheadlines.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/tegra-4-vs-s800-e1361990474716.jpg . The Tegra 4i GPU also has numerous improvements vs. the Tegra 3 GPU. I don't think that Tegra 4i will actually exceed the performance of S800, but I do think it will be surprisingly close to S800 in CPU and GPU performance, which would be quite a feat considering that the SoC die size of S800 is twice as large in comparison.

 

[ams23]

The Tegra 4i is still a Cortex A9 design though, and as such it's going to get slaughtered in performance by the S800.

Like I said above, the R4 Cortex A9 has been rearchitected to have significantly higher IPC than previous Cortex A9's (running at a much higher CPU clock operating frequency too), and it has many of the same features as the Cortex A15. Read this whitepaper for more details: http://www.nvidia.com/docs/IO/116757/NVIDIA_Quad_a15_whitepaper_FINALv2.pdf

Also, the T4 doesn't have the LTE modem and other stuff on chip, obviously the S800 will be bigger.

Tegra 4i does have an LTE modem integrated on the SoC die. Tegra 4 and S600 do not have an LTE modem integrated on the SoC die. The die size of Tegra 4 is relatively small though, and the die size of the i500 baseband modem is extremely small, so even if you combined the two it would still be much less than the die size of S800. But that is not what was being compared in the first place.

 

[Imouto]

So the already smaller T4i die size packing a LTE modem won't hurt its performance. Sure bro, sure.

 

[PingviN]

Don't be obtuse. The demonstrations of Tegra 4 at MWC 2013 were done on reference tablet designs with no heatsink and no fan. It would be completely inane for a company to allow the press to benchmark these reference tablets only to have performance go way down in a production tablet.

Heat isn't the only problem a phone manufacturer has to deal with. Battery life is the bigger issue here. What was the battery life on this "reference" design? Why do you think Nvidia has no design wins to speak of with Tegra 4 if it's soooo awesome? Give me a consumer design phone with Tegra 4 that beats the Snapdragon 600 found in HTC One while offering the same performance with the same battery capacity. Then we'll talk.

Tegra 4 should easily outperform S600 when both are used in a tablet form factor with respect to both CPU and GPU performance. To even debate that after seeing the latest benchmark results is insane.

We'll see when Tegra 4 and Snapdragon 800 are available to consumers. Snapdragon 600 isn't Qualcomm's top tier product.

No, there was an analyst who cut his own forecast by that amount due to Tegra 4 being late to market.

Correct, but he cut his forecast because Google's not going with Tegra this time around. Nvidia didnt get the deal. Nvidia is out of the next Nexus 7. Q2 2013 will tell.

NVIDIA did not give guidance for the full year. With respect to Nexus 7, you do realize that Google is still promoting and advertising that model as we speak at places such as youtube.com?

Google marketers would have to be mentally challenged to stop promoting existing products before a successor is released.

Wrong again. You do realize that Tegra 4i uses the R4 Cortex A9 which has a substantial increase in IPC and far higher clock operating frequencies compared to the Cortex A9 used in Tegra 3? In fact, R4 Cortex A9 has some of the same features as the Cortex A15. Here is one (admittedly biased) comparison here: http://androidheadlines.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/tegra-4-vs-s800-e1361990474716.jpg . The Tegra 4i GPU also has numerous improvements vs. the Tegra 3 GPU. I don't think that Tegra 4i will actually exceed the performance of S800, but I do think it will be surprisingly close to S800 in CPU and GPU performance, which would be quite a feat considering that the SoC die size of S800 is twice as large in comparison.

It's still a Cortex A9 design. Krait had substantial improvements over A9, Snapdragon 600 has higher IPC and higher clock frequencies. I'm not going to bother looking into Nvidia's marketing slides.
Thinking mainstream T4i will be as fast as Snapdragon 800 in the same power envelope is ridiculous. You'll find that out for yourself later this year. Mortgage your home and buy Nvidia stock if you are so confident Nvidia's mainstream product will beat Qualcomm's top tier product.

 

[ams23]

So the already smaller T4i die size packing a LTE modem won't hurt its performance. Sure bro, sure.

I don't know what you mean by that. Both Tegra 4i and S800 have an LTE modem integrated on die.

 

[Imouto]

I don't know what you mean by that. Both Tegra 4i and S800 have an LTE modem integrated on die.

I mean what I said in my previous post, with both packing a LTE modem (S800 actually packing more goodies like the WiFi module and other stuff), the S800 having a larger die size and A15 cores will be miles away in performance.

You answered me for unknown reasons with unrelated babblery. Is that hard to understand?

 

[ams23]

Heat isn't the only problem a phone manufacturer has to deal with. Battery life is the bigger issue here. What was the battery life on this "reference" design?

For the majority of tasks (including movie and video playback, ebook/webpage reading, music listening, social networking, emailing, texting, calling, etc), Tegra 4 will be using it's low power battery saver CPU core, so the power consumption will be quite reasonable in these instances. Just to give an example, when watching 1080p video, the power consumption was shown and demonstrated to be less than 1w: http://droiddog.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Tegra4Battery.png . Now, the power consumption of Tegra 4 can be relatively high if all four main CPU cores are pegged, but that would be very unlikely to happen in most scenarios other than very graphically intensive gaming where the CPU cores are used to simulate physical effects. And when all four main CPU cores are being actively used, such as during web page rendering, the main CPU cores will complete the task as fast as possible and then switch over to the battery saver CPU core to save power. NVIDIA claims that TDP for Tegra 4 is 5w, while TDP for Tegra 4i is 1w.

Why do you think Nvidia has no design wins to speak of with Tegra 4 if it's soooo awesome?

According to NVIDIA, Tegra 4 already has more design wins than Tegra 3. Since Tegra 4 has only started sampling relatively recently, it is too early to announce design wins yet.

We'll see when Tegra 4 and Snapdragon 800 are available to consumers. Snapdragon 600 isn't Qualcomm's top tier product.

We'll see, but Tegra 4's strengths will probably be most evident in a tablet or clamshell form factor, while S800's strengths will probably be most evident in a high end smartphone form factor.

Correct, but he cut his forecast because Google's not going with Tegra this time around. Nvidia didnt get the deal. Nvidia is out of the next Nexus 7. Q2 2013 will tell.

Well, he cut his yearly forecast without anticipating that there would be additional new design wins for Tegra 4 that the company didn't have with Tegra 3. Still, if Google wanted to refresh the Nexus 7 by Q2 2013, there is no way that Tegra 4 could be used, for two reasons: 1) Timing: Tegra 4 started sampling relatively recently (about three months later than expected); 2) Product positioning: Tegra 4 will outperform the Exynos 5 Dual SoC used in the Nexus 10, so it would make little sense for Google to come out with a smaller and lower cost Nexus tablet that outperforms the more expensive Nexus flagship tablet.

It's still a Cortex A9 design.

It would be disingenuous to say that R4 Cortex A9 is basically the same as the previous Cortex A9 iteration. I suppose we will have to wait for some benchmarks to prove it though.

Thinking mainstream T4i will be as fast as Snapdragon 800 in the same power envelope is ridiculous.

The R4 Cortex A9 CPU in Tegra 4i will be operating at the same max clock operating frequency as the Krait 400 CPU in S800, while adding many of the same design features found in the Cortex A15 CPU. The ULP Geforce GPU in Tegra 4i has 60 shader execution units (48 pixel, 12 vertex) for high performance, but saves power and die size area vs. Adreno 320/330 due to differences in the shader and memory controller architecture.

Mortgage your home and buy Nvidia stock if you are so confident Nvidia's mainstream product will beat Qualcomm's top tier product

Now is not really a great time to take a position in NVIDIA stock IMHO, as it would be better to wait for some upward price momentum first.

 

[ams23]

I mean what I said in my previous post, with both packing a LTE modem (S800 actually packing more goodies like the WiFi module and other stuff), the S800 having a larger die size and A15 cores will be miles away in performance.

You answered me for unknown reasons with unrelated babblery. Is that hard to understand?

Sorry, but you weren't making any sense in the previous post. See my post above as to why or how Tegra 4i can approach S800 in CPU and GPU performance. By the way, S800 most certainly does not use Cortex A15 cores.

 

[Imouto]

I give up.

The T4i is packing a LTE modem in a way smaller die size than the T4 but somehow it will "get pretty close" to the S800 when you should expect both the S800 and the T4 to be tied taking in mind both companies PR.

Yeah, that makes perfect sense.

 

[PingviN]

I give up.

The T4i is packing a LTE modem in a way smaller die size than the T4 but somehow it will "get pretty close" to the S800 when you should expect both the S800 and the T4 to be tied taking in mind both companies PR.

Yeah, that makes perfect sense.

Qualcomm and Samsung are in big trouble that's for sure.

 

[Fx1]

Sorry, but you weren't making any sense in the previous post. See my post above as to why or how Tegra 4i can approach S800 in CPU and GPU performance. By the way, S800 most certainly does not use Cortex A15 cores.

BULL !

S800 uses a custom core which is not A9 or A15.

T4i uses 2.3ghz A9 clocked core.

There is a huge difference between the two

 

[ams23]

I give up.

The T4i is packing a LTE modem in a way smaller die size than the T4 but somehow it will "get pretty close" to the S800 when you should expect both the S800 and the T4 to be tied taking in mind both companies PR.

Yeah, that makes perfect sense.

I wouldn't say that Tegra 4i is "way" smaller than Tegra 4, but it is noticeably smaller (the die size of T4i is ~ 60 mm^2 while the die size of Tegra 4 is just a bit above 80 mm^2). The R4 Cortex A9 CPU used in Tegra 4i takes up less than half the area of the Cortex A15 CPU used in Tegra 4, and has better performance per watt and performance per mm^2 too in comparison. The GPU used in Tegra 4i takes up significantly less area than the GPU used in Tegra 4 due to a reduction in execution units and memory channels, and most likely has better performance per watt and performance per mm^2 too in comparison. The i500 baseband modem is downright diminutive. These are all reasons why T4i has a much smaller SoC die size than S800. The Tegra 4 and Tegra 4i dies shown in NVIDIA's slides are for illustrative purposes only and are not a real depiction of the actual functional units, nor are they drawn to scale next to each other either. I expect Tegra 4 to have a noticeable (and measureable) performance advantage over S800 when both are used in a tablet form factor, but the performance differences may be more minimal in a smartphone form factor.

 

[Imouto]

Dumb Nvidia, dumb for not using that awesome A9 R4 core in the Tegra 4 chip. Better perf per watt and perf per mm^2. Beats me why they haven't included it in their high end chip. Oh, yeah... maybe cuz it's nowhere near as powerful as an A15 is.

Also, releasing fake die shots should give you a clue about how much you should trust Nvidia PR.

 

[ams23]

BULL !

S800 uses a custom core which is not A9 or A15.

T4i uses 2.3ghz A9 clocked core.

There is a huge difference between the two

Did you even bother to read this thread? T4i doesn't use a standard Cortex A9, it uses a new and not-yet-released R4 rearchitected variant that has many features in common with the Cortex A15. S800 uses the Krait 400 CPU which is Qualcomm's own design. Since neither of these CPU's have been released yet, it is hard to say for sure exactly how they would stack up. The only thing we can probably conclude is that neither of these CPU's will quite match the performance of the Cortex A15.