LOL_Wut_Axel
Diamond Member
- Mar 26, 2011
- 4,310
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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:
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:
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.