Tegra 3 refresh coming, 'Tegra 3+', In House LTE modem included

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LOL_Wut_Axel

Diamond Member
Mar 26, 2011
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Two Points, GPU and CPU:

On the CPU scores, you have to consider the fact that the S4 has two NEON DSPs per core compared to one per core with Tegra 3. Every benchmark you are claiming as proof that the S4 "trounces" the Tegra 3 all utilize NEON (heck Vellamo is basically a NEON test) in better manner than they handle more than two cores currently. In benchmarks that don't have a strong NEON component, like Sunspider, Tegra 3 wins over the production S4:

44430.png


And as mentioned Sunspider lacks more than 2 core support, so that is two real Tegra 3s cores beating the so-called A15-ish S4 cores. When you remember about the two unused cores, the S4 is embarrassed.

Before you argue that must mean four NEON DSPs is better than four actual cores, Tegra 2 proves that NEON isn't as important as one might think. Tegra 2 CPUs have no NEON support and they are still considered to be adequate for many users. NEON is mostly useful for multimedia like video playback. I think in the future when more programs (and benchmarks) can utilize more cores than the Tegra 3 will be a clear winner.

As soon as someone actually gets a S4 in their hands on this forum and they can run CF Bench on it (the TRUE CPU test on Android) we can finally see where the NEON starts and the S4 stops.


On the GPU, you are still going by the numbers that came from the reference silicon. Go look at the scores of the actual HTC phone linked above and it obvious on GPUs Tegra 3 is the clear winner. For example, the single best challenging benchmark we have to compare SoCs:

44441.png


Plus even if you want to argue the S4 is "good enough" I will remind you of the other side of Nvidia's strategy- lockdown of the actual game content. On my Tegra 3 tablet right now I get a graphics experience that in some cases surpasses the iPad and in all cases is better than any other Android tablet on the market.

The Tegra 2 sucked for many reasons (no decent h264 support, aforementioned lack of NEON, weak GPU) and eventually its stable of games in the NVidia Zone became mostly unlocked via Chainfire3D to be playable on the superior SoCs of the time such as the Exynos.

So far though Tegra 3 games are locked to the actual Tegra hardware. That means that even if the S4 gets new drivers that puts it ahead, or the new Exynos comes out with faster GPU, the only games on the Android platform that could actually use that extra power won't run on those SoCs.

Nvidia is pretty smart when it comes to selling silicon. I would wait to see what happens with the CPUs they actually design (aka the Tegra 4) before we start predicting their failure in the ARM market.

Sounds all like excuses to me. The S4's CPU trounces the Tegra 3's, and that's the end of the story. Architecture makes a big difference, especially seeing as ARM is still way, way behind x86 when it comes to overall performance (Int and Flop). Quad-core phones are an incredibly stupid idea, especially if each of those cores are slow compared to your immediate competition.

Also, I find your claims about gaming on a Tegra 3 tablet against the iPad dubious. The iPad 2, now more than a year old, has a PowerVR SGX543MP2 and that's a GPU that absolutely decimates Tegra 3, no question.
 

Bateluer

Lifer
Jun 23, 2001
27,730
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Sounds all like excuses to me. The S4's CPU trounces the Tegra 3's, and that's the end of the story. Architecture makes a big difference, especially seeing as ARM is still way, way behind x86 when it comes to overall performance (Int and Flop). Quad-core phones are an incredibly stupid idea, especially if each of those cores are slow compared to your immediate competition.

Also, I find your claims about gaming on a Tegra 3 tablet against the iPad dubious. The iPad 2, now more than a year old, has a PowerVR SGX543MP2 and that's a GPU that absolutely decimates Tegra 3, no question.

Tegra 3 was available nearly 6 months before S4. I'd expect the S4 to outperform a product that came out several months prior. Would be an incredible fail on Qualcomm's part if it didn't. Should also be noted that Qualcomm will stick with the S4 design for a long time, and after a year on the market, it'll be extremely dated compared to OMAP5/PVR6 and Tegra 4.

Gaming on a Tegra 3 running device isn't exactly going to be a slouch, even if it doesn't boast the raw transistor processing power of the SGX543MP2.

I'm glad you're not running the tech development show . . . by your logic, dual core in a phone is a stupid idea. Who'd need more than 1 core?
 

lothar

Diamond Member
Jan 5, 2000
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Plus even if you want to argue the S4 is "good enough" I will remind you of the other side of Nvidia's strategy- lockdown of the actual game content. On my Tegra 3 tablet right now I get a graphics experience that in some cases surpasses the iPad and in all cases is better than any other Android tablet on the market.

The Tegra 2 sucked for many reasons (no decent h264 support, aforementioned lack of NEON, weak GPU) and eventually its stable of games in the NVidia Zone became mostly unlocked via Chainfire3D to be playable on the superior SoCs of the time such as the Exynos.

So far though Tegra 3 games are locked to the actual Tegra hardware. That means that even if the S4 gets new drivers that puts it ahead, or the new Exynos comes out with faster GPU, the only games on the Android platform that could actually use that extra power won't run on those SoCs.

Nvidia is pretty smart when it comes to selling silicon. I would wait to see what happens with the CPUs they actually design (aka the Tegra 4) before we start predicting their failure in the ARM market.

I was under the assumption that this secret other side that nVidia created has been largely debunked by running some Chainfire app?
I haven't kept up with the issues since I don't game that much but I remember a lot of people being able to play Tegra exclusive games at excellent (if not even better) performance.

Okay, I was responding to your post paragraph by paragraph like I always do for all posts and see that you mentioned Chainfire 3D. If it does what both you and I have claimed it does in allowing other SoC's to run "Tegra" exclusive games, then how is this other side a benefit for nVidia again?

They have figured a way so far. I wonder how long that will last before some script kiddie on XDA discovers the secret?
Also, what developer would want to do that though? That's like a developer making an app for WP7 and not choosing to make one for iOS which is where the money is. Whatever nVidia is paying these developers, that most be some serious cash. But the difference though is Microsoft can afford to pay that kind of cash without batting an eyelid. Can nVidia?

Tegra 3 SoC is only shipping in one smartphone device(the European HTC One X) so far, with the LG Optimus 4x and Fujitsu(No one buys Fujitsu phones outside of Japan, so consider them to be the Moto equivalent in USA) phones being planned. How much sales are these 3 devices going to get compared to Krait and other SoC's including the ones from last year that are already on the market? I hope this Tegra3+ LTE "refresh" is coming soon because Verizon no longer allows(or subsidizes rather) new non-LTE phones on their network and AT&T may have adopted the same philosophy or will do so soon. The last non-LTE phone released on Verizon was the Droid 3 in July and LG Spectrum in August last year. That looks like a lot of revenues those developers are forgoing...But I was a developer too and nVidia was paying me cash to do that, I'm sure I'd take it.
Back to the Tegra exclusive game content thing that you mentioned since I got off track. When you mention that "they are locked to the actual hardware", what do you mean? So those games run on Tegra 3 only and all Tegra 2 devices are also automatically locked out also? Or have they figured out a way to allow both Tegra 3 and Tegra 2 while blocking all other devices?

You made an excellent point in comparing GPU of Tegra 3 to Krait.
Qualcomm always overperforms in their Mobile Development Platform(MDM) and under-delivers. They are no different from nVidia in their deceptive benchmarking. See last years Snapdragon MDM for reference and compare it to their shipping products.
Tegra 3 will still be ahead of Krait in the GPU wars until Adreno 3xx.
 

lothar

Diamond Member
Jan 5, 2000
6,674
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Tegra 3 was available nearly 6 months before S4. I'd expect the S4 to outperform a product that came out several months prior. Would be an incredible fail on Qualcomm's part if it didn't. Should also be noted that Qualcomm will stick with the S4 design for a long time, and after a year on the market, it'll be extremely dated compared to OMAP5/PVR6 and Tegra 4.

Gaming on a Tegra 3 running device isn't exactly going to be a slouch, even if it doesn't boast the raw transistor processing power of the SGX543MP2.

I'm glad you're not running the tech development show . . . by your logic, dual core in a phone is a stupid idea. Who'd need more than 1 core?

I 100% agree with your assessment.
Since Qualcomm does everything from top to bottom in creating their "custom" cores, I don't expect a major revision from them for at least a year and a half or so. All they will be left with is improving the GPU and doing die-shrinks while increasing clock speeds.
They might not be able to compete with Samsung and nVidia on that with their product cycle strategy of them being overly obsessed in creating "custom" cores.
 

poofyhairguy

Lifer
Nov 20, 2005
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Sounds all like excuses to me. The S4's CPU trounces the Tegra 3's, and that's the end of the story.

Ok, since you won't accept a nuanced argument, I will make a simple one:

NEON = been part of ARM architecture for a long time

THEREFORE

Benchmarks account for NEON support.

BUT

Quad Core = didn't exit on Android until Dec. 2011 (in a hard to get tablet)

THEREFORE

Benchmarks don't account for quad-core support.

And again, the benchmarks we have that don't involve NEON (such as Sunspider or Browsermark) show the Tegra 3 to be faster per core.

But if you want to believe that having better video playback support (aka NEON) is the "the end of the story" way to determine which SoC CPU is better be my guest. I will take the two extra cores in a device I have today (and have had since Jan).

Also, I find your claims about gaming on a Tegra 3 tablet against the iPad dubious. The iPad 2, now more than a year old, has a PowerVR SGX543MP2 and that's a GPU that absolutely decimates Tegra 3, no question.

It is not about the raw power. It is about the fact that Nvidia pays developers to use parts of the Tegra 3 (mostly shaders) that PowerVR technology lacks which leads to effects on Tegra 3 versions of apps that the iPad version doesn't have.

The example that comes to my mind is that when you play Shinerunner on my Prime it has a "splash effect" when you jump that isn't there on my wife's iPad. But don't take me for my word- Prime reviews talk about how it has some superior versions of games.
 
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stormkroe

Golden Member
May 28, 2011
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Can't tell if LoL Wut is trolling or not... S4 doesn't really 'trounce' T3's, they more or less trade blows. Core for core you could say krait might trounce tegra 3, but not considering the total SoC. Tegra will gain some benchmark points when things start to get more threaded, and Adreno 225 will always be a bit behind t3 in gpu performance. In fact, with it looking more and more like Exy 4412 is going to be an overclocked Mali 400 @ 400mhz, I'd say Tegra 3 might stay a top dog until 5250 or adreno 320. If you ignore the incredibly broken Mali scores in glbenchmark, it looks like tegra 3 will still beat exynos 4412 gpu-wise. Samsung might have nV over a barrel with battery life though...
We'll know soon enough.
 

poofyhairguy

Lifer
Nov 20, 2005
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I wonder how long that will last before some script kiddie on XDA discovers the secret?

It is not a secret. For Tegra 3 games, or for games that have souped up Tegra 3 versions, they utilize the extra Tegra 3 shaders and extra cores for the effects. When I use my System Tuner app to turn off two cores the framerates in Tegra 3-only games drop. That means that no matter what developers do, dual-core SoCs like the S4 are screwed when it comes to running Tegra 3 apps.

Maybe the quad-core Exynos can do it, that remains to be seen.

Also, what developer would want to do that though?

Nvidia guarantees developers a stable platform that is also guaranteed a fairly high minimum amount of power (dual-core for 1Ghz Tegra 2) for game development. On top of that Nvidia has invested money in their store to make it a true high-end game marketplace in a time when Google can't be bothered to have a real tablet section in their market.

They provide the closest thing to iOS on Android, and developers have responded positively to that.

How much sales are these 3 devices going to get compared to Krait and other SoC's including the ones from last year that are already on the market?

One argument I won't make is the sales game because who knows how well Tegra 3 will do. If it really is in the Google tablet it will do fine though.

Sales figures don't say how good an SoC is. Last year Snapdragons were crap and they ended up in a ton of phones because of LTE support. I prefer to judge by the merits of what is offered technology-wise.

So those games run on Tegra 3 only and all Tegra 2 devices are also automatically locked out also? Or have they figured out a way to allow both Tegra 3 and Tegra 2 while blocking all other devices?

I have some games that are Tegra 3 only. Nothing else can play them.

Most Tegra games though can play on both Tegra 2 and 3 platforms, but when played on Tegra 3 there are extra effects or a higher number of polygons that Tegra 2 users (or anyone else) don't get.

The best apps for the Tegra 3 are ones that are not games, like the best remote desktop app for a tablet (Splashtop THD) on the planet.
 

lothar

Diamond Member
Jan 5, 2000
6,674
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Can't tell if LoL Wut is trolling or not... S4 doesn't really 'trounce' T3's, they more or less trade blows. Core for core you could say krait might trounce tegra 3, but not considering the total SoC. Tegra will gain some benchmark points when things start to get more threaded, and Adreno 225 will always be a bit behind t3 in gpu performance. In fact, with it looking more and more like Exy 4412 is going to be an overclocked Mali 400 @ 400mhz, I'd say Tegra 3 might stay a top dog until 5250 or adreno 320. If you ignore the incredibly broken Mali scores in glbenchmark, it looks like tegra 3 will still beat exynos 4412 gpu-wise. Samsung might have nV over a barrel with battery life though...
We'll know soon enough.

Which scores are you referring to(I haven't seen any benchmarks lately on Samsung products)? And has it been determined that they are broken by the GLBenchmark developer or is that simply just a hunch on your part?
 

Bateluer

Lifer
Jun 23, 2001
27,730
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We're going to having the same conversation in 6 months, when OMAP5 is out and Tegra 4 numbers being to filter out. :p
 

poofyhairguy

Lifer
Nov 20, 2005
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Which scores are you referring to(I haven't seen any benchmarks lately on Samsung products)?

The Mali GPU, while very powerful compared to much of its competition, lacks features that many other mobile GPUs have like certain types of texture compression.

I ran into this problem headfirst trying to get Tegra 2 games to play on my SGS2. Many games on the market had to be almost redone to support the SGS2 (Dungeon Defenders comes to mind).
 

lothar

Diamond Member
Jan 5, 2000
6,674
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It is not a secret. For Tegra 3 games, or for games that have souped up Tegra 3 versions, they utilize the extra Tegra 3 shaders and extra cores for the effects. When I use my System Tuner app to turn off two cores the framerates in Tegra 3-only games drop. That means that no matter what developers do, dual-core SoCs like the S4 are screwed when it comes to running Tegra 3 apps.

Maybe the quad-core Exynos can do it, that remains to be seen.



Nvidia guarantees developers a stable platform that is also guaranteed a fairly high minimum amount of power (dual-core for 1Ghz Tegra 2) for game development. On top of that Nvidia has invested money in their store to make it a true high-end game marketplace in a time when Google can't be bothered to have a real tablet section in their market.

They provide the closest thing to iOS on Android, and developers have responded positively to that.

One argument I won't make is the sales game because who knows how well Tegra 3 will do. If it really is in the Google tablet it will do fine though.
Sales figures don't say how good an SoC is. Last year Snapdragons were crap and they ended up in a ton of phones because of LTE support. I prefer to judge by the merits of what is offered technology-wise.


I have some games that are Tegra 3 only. Nothing else can play them.

Most Tegra games though can play on both Tegra 2 and 3 platforms, but when played on Tegra 3 there are extra effects or a higher number of polygons that Tegra 2 users (or anyone else) don't get.

The best apps for the Tegra 3 are ones that are not games, like the best remote desktop app for a tablet (Splashtop THD) on the planet.

I was talking in terms of app developers limiting to apps on a specific SoC, not phone sales revenue. AKA app revenue for the developer that went Tegra exclusive is what I'm talking about.

But I think I have answered my own question. These developers don't just release on Tegra exclusively. They also release on other platforms, it's just that the Tegra version may have special effects. I don't know why I was under the impression that they were "completely" exclusive as in that game won't appear elsewhere on any SoC in any format, period. For example you may see an app called HDT-Poofhairyguy on Tegra listed as an exclusive and see an app called Poofhairyguy for all other SoCs by the same developer.
 

s44

Diamond Member
Oct 13, 2006
9,427
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The S4's CPU trounces the Tegra 3's, and that's the end of the story.
lolwut is right

Shocker: Qualcomm chip beats non-Qualcomm competitor in Qualcomm benchmark. It means nothing -- and it's been QC that's been lagging sadly over the last few years. If it weren't for their baseband integration they'd already be irrelevant.
 

stormkroe

Golden Member
May 28, 2011
1,550
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Which scores are you referring to(I haven't seen any benchmarks lately on Samsung products)? And has it been determined that they are broken by the GLBenchmark developer or is that simply just a hunch on your part?

I originally brought this up here
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?p=33044186&highlight=#post33044186
I'm surprised that this didn't get figured out, but you can see how ignoring these inconsistancies would falsely paint Mali 400 as being more powerful than it actually is (which is what I feel has happened). As far as I know, exynos hasn't been benchmarked in a device with a native resolution of 720p or higher to see how the actual performance compares to other SoC's.
In another thread, around the same time period, a poster said that this is a known issue, but he never answered my question for a source.
So, it's not just a hunch on my part but rather some bench scores, straight from anandtech, that don't make sense.
Maybe someone else can shed some light on this.
 

dagamer34

Platinum Member
Aug 15, 2005
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Until we see the MDM9615 shipping in large quantities, I don't expect any phone to ship in the US with Tegra 3. By the time that does happen, we will all be talking about Tegra 4.
 

ITHURTSWHENIP

Senior member
Nov 30, 2011
310
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Can't tell if LoL Wut is trolling or not... S4 doesn't really 'trounce' T3's, they more or less trade blows. Core for core you could say krait might trounce tegra 3, but not considering the total SoC. Tegra will gain some benchmark points when things start to get more threaded, and Adreno 225 will always be a bit behind t3 in gpu performance. In fact, with it looking more and more like Exy 4412 is going to be an overclocked Mali 400 @ 400mhz, I'd say Tegra 3 might stay a top dog until 5250 or adreno 320. If you ignore the incredibly broken Mali scores in glbenchmark, it looks like tegra 3 will still beat exynos 4412 gpu-wise. Samsung might have nV over a barrel with battery life though...
We'll know soon enough.

Cant explain Anands benchmarks. But i just ran gl on my stock 4.0.3 S2 and native resolution is v-sync limited.
 

LOL_Wut_Axel

Diamond Member
Mar 26, 2011
4,310
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Tegra 3 was available nearly 6 months before S4. I'd expect the S4 to outperform a product that came out several months prior. Would be an incredible fail on Qualcomm's part if it didn't. Should also be noted that Qualcomm will stick with the S4 design for a long time, and after a year on the market, it'll be extremely dated compared to OMAP5/PVR6 and Tegra 4.

Gaming on a Tegra 3 running device isn't exactly going to be a slouch, even if it doesn't boast the raw transistor processing power of the SGX543MP2.

I'm glad you're not running the tech development show . . . by your logic, dual core in a phone is a stupid idea. Who'd need more than 1 core?

Doesn't matter. The only thing Tegra 3 had to show for was a single tablet; nothing else. It was theoretically on the market some time before, but it hasn't made it to a good number of devices until now, which is also incidentally when Qualcomm is putting its Snapdragon S4 into devices. That's the thing with NVIDIA in this market: promises and more promises, yet no execution until a few months later when they've already gotten their ass handed to them.

Yes, but it's not superior like some people here would say, and that's the point. NVIDIA make "meh" SoCs and boast specs with marketing yet when it's time to pull the benchmarks out they get beaten whether it's by Apple, Qualcomm, TI, and sometimes Samsung.

You clearly haven't read through what I've written. The difference is that having two cores, especially two fast cores, helps when on a smartphone or a tablet when it comes to comes to multi-tasking, responsiveness, getting tasks done, etc. If you have four slow cores you'll be good for multi-tasking and... not much else because smartphone operating systems are mainly biased towards single-threading and by a much, much larger margin than laptop/desktop operating systems like Windows 7 and Mac OS X. As has been shown by Intel for quite a good number of years, having an efficient and fast architecture that's good in all tasks is much better than having a slow and inefficient one that can only excel in parallel tasks (as seen by AMD and Bulldozer). For these types of mobile devices, especially if you want very good performance and battery life, a fast dual-core is the sweet spot. If you want good all-around performance in a desktop and low power consumption, a fast quad-core is the sweet spot. Seems relatively simple.
 

dguy6789

Diamond Member
Dec 9, 2002
8,558
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Android is actually a very heavily multi-threaded OS.. Make no mistake that each core in a Snapdragon S4 is somewhat faster than each core in a Tegra 3, however 4 Tegra 3 cores fully loaded is significantly more processing power than two S4 cores; S4 isn't even in the same league of performance when that happens. The issue is that a single app isn't likely to fully load those 4 cores anytime soon(which is precisely why S4 benchmarks higher than Tegra 3). The real benefit of Tegra 3 is that you can do even more on the phone at once(multiple running apps, more widgets, live wallpaper, etc..) before it starts to bog down than you could with an S4. S4 will just be giving you slightly more performance out of the individual app if you're only doing one or two things at a time at most.
 
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LOL_Wut_Axel

Diamond Member
Mar 26, 2011
4,310
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Android is actually a very heavily multi-threaded OS.. Make no mistake that each core in a Snapdragon S4 is somewhat faster than each core in a Tegra 3, however 4 Tegra 3 cores fully loaded is significantly more processing power than two S4 cores; S4 isn't even in the same league of performance when that happens. The issue is that a single app isn't likely to fully load those 4 cores anytime soon(which is precisely why S4 benchmarks higher than Tegra 3). The real benefit of Tegra 3 is that you can do even more on the phone at once(multiple running apps, more widgets, live wallpaper, etc..) before it starts to bog down than you could with an S4. S4 will just be giving you slightly more performance out of the individual app if you're only doing one or two things at a time at most.

Wrong on multiple accounts. (1) Each core on Snapdragon S4 is significantly faster than the one's on Tegra 3; (2) Four Tegra 3 cores working in parallel are slower than two S4 cores in parallel, as has been shown numerous times in benchmarks. (3) The benchmarks themselves are able to execute on all cores, which is why Tegra 3 is faster than previous CPUs with dual-core Cortex A9s.

The problem is that even if the benchmarks peg all the cores, most apps won't. That, and the S4's architecture is much, much faster, which is why you have a humongous gap in single-threaded and still a big gap in multi-threaded. Tegra 3 is slower than Snapdragon S4, whether all four of its cores are being utilized or not. That's why IO was talking earlier about there being a lot of room in ARM to improve performance--because it's so behind x86 in that metric.
 

alent1234

Diamond Member
Dec 15, 2002
3,915
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from a design and business perspective most android phone/tablet makers have no reason to use tegra SoC's
 

dguy6789

Diamond Member
Dec 9, 2002
8,558
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Wrong on multiple accounts. (1) Each core on Snapdragon S4 is significantly faster than the one's on Tegra 3; (2) Four Tegra 3 cores working in parallel are slower than two S4 cores in parallel, as has been shown numerous times in benchmarks. (3) The benchmarks themselves are able to execute on all cores, which is why Tegra 3 is faster than previous CPUs with dual-core Cortex A9s.

wow lol I can't believe you seriously think the S4 is more than 100% faster clock for clock than A9. Tegra 3 is faster than Cortex A9s because it is running at 1.5Ghz and not 1 or 1.2 like all other A9s on the market.
 

LOL_Wut_Axel

Diamond Member
Mar 26, 2011
4,310
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wow lol I can't believe you seriously think the S4 is more than 100% faster clock for clock than A9. Tegra 3 is faster than Cortex A9s because it is running at 1.5Ghz and not 1 or 1.2 like all other A9s on the market.

It's still faster than other Cortex A9 CPUs running at 1.5GHz. :rolleyes: The benchmarks are made specifically to exploit all threads.

But hey, we can all keep making excuses for lazy engineering from NVIDIA when it comes to Tegra.
 

sontin

Diamond Member
Sep 12, 2011
3,273
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Wrong on multiple accounts. (1) Each core on Snapdragon S4 is significantly faster than the one's on Tegra 3; (2) Four Tegra 3 cores working in parallel are slower than two S4 cores in parallel, as has been shown numerous times in benchmarks. (3) The benchmarks themselves are able to execute on all cores, which is why Tegra 3 is faster than previous CPUs with dual-core Cortex A9s.

The problem is that even if the benchmarks peg all the cores, most apps won't. That, and the S4's architecture is much, much faster, which is why you have a humongous gap in single-threaded and still a big gap in multi-threaded. Tegra 3 is slower than Snapdragon S4, whether all four of its cores are being utilized or not. That's why IO was talking earlier about there being a lot of room in ARM to improve performance--because it's so behind x86 in that metric.

Okay, explain this:
grouptests.jpg

http://www.technobuffalo.com/comparisons/benchmarked-nvidia-tegra-3-vs-qualcomm-snapdragon-s4/
 
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sontin

Diamond Member
Sep 12, 2011
3,273
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Linpack? Then i think you don't know this:
This test is more a reflection of the state of the Android Dalvik Virtual Machine than of the floating point performance of the underlying processor. Software written for an Android device is written using Java code that the Dalvik VM interprets at run time.

Does having faster speed improve the android phones or what?
Yes, it should. The Dalvik VM has a huge impact on the Linpack number. A better number on the same device would indicate that a new version update has improved performance. Or it could show that something has gone terribly wrong if the number goes down.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.greenecomputing.linpackpro&hl=de