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Users of Tegra 4 tablet complain of overheating

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What's the TDP of T4? I have N7 with T3 and I never noticed overheating but I never did anything computationally intensive on it. Does it have a higher TDP then T3?
 
Perhaps Nvidia can introduce their Boost clocking tech to the Tegra line and aim for a certain temp/tdp target rather than a certain clockspeed. I'm actually a bit disappointed Nvidia didn't push out a Tegra4 mini-itx board alongside their Shield project, decent sized aluminum mini-itx heatsink should be able to handle "hot for a fanless tablet".
 
Intel17 said:
Cortex A15 strikes again. An overly aggressive chip that completely missed the target market.

Glad to see ARM back-track with the A12.
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The heat seems worse while gaming so I think it's more a case of Nvidia's inefficient graphics tbh. Don't forget it also has the 5th A15 core which may be contributing to a higher TDP.
 
Lepton87 said:
What's the TDP of T4? I have N7 with T3 and I never noticed overheating but I never did anything computationally intensive on it. Does it have a higher TDP then T3?
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if the shield needs a fan, then i'll guess over 5W. Also going by the nexus 10, 4 cores and gpu going...maybe 8W.
 
Girlfriend has an S4 from Samsung, I'm not sure which one it is..

9353365757_decf7a87f3.jpg


I asked her if it got hot ever, she said yes. She told me that if she played games for awhile in a warm environment that it would get hot enough that she wouldn't feel comfortable holding it against her face to make/take a call.
 
Craptop substandard cooling: now in tablet flavor!

You can have low power, high performance, a small sleek form factor, and a reasonable price, but not all at the same time.
 
sm625 said:
Nvidia Shield has a fan? God what a debacle. What happened to the process of clocking a chip so it can run under full load without dying or burning people?
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If I had to guess, that's probably because it's a plastic device. Most tablets use metal bodies, which also serve as a giant heatsink. Although, even if the Shield was made of metal, heating up a small object that the user has to hold with their hands covering a good deal of the back? That would be a bad idea.
 
Tegra has always sucked. An A15@1.6 is a bit much for a tablet... Especially if the graphics are on at the same time.
 
Intel17 said:
Gee whiz, I guess ARM cores aren't magical and are subject to the same laws of process technology and physics as the rest of the CPU universe.

Whodathunkit?
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Yeah, just like the Intel chips won't magically be twice more power efficient than ARM even with an advance of two nodes, people pick the dreams they like most 😉. But you're very right: the ARM name does no magic, it's years of design rules, which Intel have finally rediscovered.

That being said I have a 2011 MBP 17" and it becomes very hot when I start gaming. Of course in that case that is the GPU that's to be blamed.
 
Nothingness said:
Yeah, just like the Intel chips won't magically be twice more power efficient than ARM even with an advance of two nodes, people pick the dreams they like most 😉. But you're very right: the ARM name does no magic, it's years of design rules, which Intel have finally rediscovered.
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Process and micro-architecture are what drive perf/watt. Intel has a process lead, and the jury's still out on Silvermont's implementation and performance.

We'll find out very shortly whether Intel's marketing slides were BS or real, so I will keep speculation here at a minimum.
 
Intel17 said:
Gee whiz, I guess ARM cores aren't magical and are subject to the same laws of process technology and physics as the rest of the CPU universe.

Whodathunkit?
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The point is that HW ULX will be a hell of a lot faster then A15 while consuming comparable amount of power. Swift/Krait seem like better designs for phones then A15 while HW ULX should be better for tablets, leaving A15 for budget tablets and power hungry phones. I'm not a big fan of A15,(snapdragon 800) Krait 400 at 2.3GHz should have comparable performance while consuming less power, I'm also curious about the next incarnation of swift. 1.4 GHz dual-core Apple Swift already has better IPC then the original Krait, I haven't seen any tests comparing it to the newest krait but its IPC should be in the ballpark, the big unknown is how fast they can clock it, but my interest in Swift is purely academical, I don't like iOS and small screens that come with it.
ps. did someone experiment with overclocking swift with custom iOS roms?
 
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SiliconWars said:
The heat seems worse while gaming so I think it's more a case of Nvidia's inefficient graphics tbh. Don't forget it also has the 5th A15 core which may be contributing to a higher TDP.
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That 5th core had better not be contributing to a higher TDP seeing as how it's never on when the other four are. The power consumption of a power gated core in this design should be close to zero.
 
Smartphones and tablets overheating is not exactly news. Even ARM fitted SmartTvs can overheat.

Its simply shortcuts by the OEM.
 
Couple more reviews have been added.

"Runs extremely hot. After 10-15 mins playing light games or watching Netflix, its crazy hot"

"I got mine yesterday and it is going back already. It does get hot on the backside"
 
I know that people like to hate on nvidia, myself included, but in the case of the Tegra 4, aren't A15s hot in general? The Nexus 10 throttles for example. Hell, the Nexus 4 throttles too. Modern CPUs are just too hot. The GS4 throttles too doesn't it?

So whats so surprising the Tegra 4 throttles? Yes its disappointing, but let's not single out nVidia if in general A15s are just throttling.
 
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