What is the point of an 8 core SoC?

[Shephard]

You know it's impressive when a tiny little Smartphone can do 1080p when an old computer would choke or not even be capable. Something like the Captivate (first Samsung Galaxy).

That phone is only a single core processor. Now the Galaxy S4 comes in 8 or 4 core versions.

Why?

What apps are taking advantage of this? My phone is a dual core and I don't know if it takes advantage of this. The phone chokes often and it's probably because of 512mb ram, not the cpu.

You put a more powerful processor and the battery life goes down the drain. The goal of SoC is to have great performance and battery life. Who is taking advantage of this 8 core? No one. So your battery life goes to crap.

Doesn't make sense.

 

[Vesku]

The idea is that the 4 less powerful but more efficient cores would handle tasks until you need something really intensive done and then the 4 powerful cores kick in.

There is a bit of a rumor that these first versions aren't working as well as envisioned due to the 4 powerful cores not being completely power gated.

 

[Yuriman]

The idea is that the 4 less powerful but more efficient cores would handle tasks until you need something really intensive done and then the 4 powerful cores kick in.

There is a bit of a rumor that these first versions aren't working as well as envisioned due to the 4 powerful cores not being completely power gated.

As he said, you don't have 8 usable cores. It's either the 4 efficient cores, or the 4 fast cores. If I remember correctly they share instruction sets and cache so the switch is transparent.

 

[-Slacker-]

I actually remember a slide that showed both the big cores and the small cores running simultaneously.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Right now the octocore in the Galaxy is essentially nothing but marketing. More must be better attitude. In reality its working as a quadcore.

http://www.sammobile.com/2013/05/02/samsungs-octa-core-not-as-energy-efficient-as-we-thought/

Might also be why Samsung says this:
http://www.talkandroid.com/159457-quad-core-or-octa-core-it-doesnt-matter-says-samsungs-j-k-shin/

 

[Shephard]

Ok but how many of these apps are taking advantage of a quad core CPU?

I think ram is more important when your constantly switching between apps.

Also to mention, it seems like the performance of SoC's degrade over time.

My phone was great when it came out. Now it's rubbish.

Another example I look at is the Nexus 7. There are many complaints from people about performance drops after owning it for only a few months. That's a quad core CPU as well.

 

[ShintaiDK]

How many apps uses a quadcore on a phone? Close to zero

The only point is to run multiple apps.

Performance might be due to the cycle of apps. Reinstall for the fix.

 

[Lepton87]

CPU does not degrade over time, what you described is probably due to bloatware that some non-technical users accumulate over time, all you need to do is wipe clean the device.
What does degrade is battery, I have a netbook that does not even power on on battery, it needs to be connected to power outlet all the time as if it didn't have a battery at all. There's only so much recharge cycles a lithium ion battery can take or any other battery chemistry currently in use.

 

[boxleitnerb]

How will phonemakers market their devices when we have reached the "good enough" stage? On a computer/server you really work with, you always need more computing power. But on a phone with a small screen and limited input capabilities, what more can you do (that makes sense!) than what is possible now?

 

[escrow4]

How will phonemakers market their devices when we have reached the "good enough" stage? On a computer/server you really work with, you always need more computing power. But on a phone with a small screen and limited input capabilities, what more can you do (that makes sense!) than what is possible now?

Make it more durable for starters. I'd pay extra for a waterproof smartphone you can chuck around that can stop a 300gr .44 slug.

 

[T_Yamamoto]

 

[Shephard]

CPU does not degrade over time, what you described is probably due to bloatware that some non-technical users accumulate over time, all you need to do is wipe clean the device.
What does degrade is battery, I have a netbook that does not even power on on battery, it needs to be connected to power outlet all the time as if it didn't have a battery at all. There's only so much recharge cycles a lithium ion battery can take or any other battery chemistry currently in use.

I don't know about that, look up Nexus 7 complaints.

Speaking on my own behalf, I don't install billions of apps.

I replaced the stock browser, the music player, and added maybe 5 other random apps. Still got tons of room.

I wiped the device clean once and then I decided to flash ICS because fail LG refused to give us O3D users an update. It helped a bit, but there are times when I press something and it takes forever to load. Sometimes it's a blank white screen, sometimes it just stalls. Hell, even the KEYBOARD lags often which can screw up texts. I turned off vibrations to see if that would help but not really. Ended up getting one of those keyboards where you can just hold your finger down and connect letters. That helped.

It's my first smartphone and my only other comparison is an iPhone 4 which uses a different OS.

 

[zerogear]

Its not 8 core. It's two quad core. They don't run at the same time. big.LITTLE processing

 

[GTRagnarok]

Are phones still CPU-limited in certain applications like web browsing? Is that why my PC still load pages much faster than my phone (Galaxy S4)?

 

[Yuriman]

I don't know about that, look up Nexus 7 complaints.

Speaking on my own behalf, I don't install billions of apps.

I replaced the stock browser, the music player, and added maybe 5 other random apps. Still got tons of room.

I wiped the device clean once and then I decided to flash ICS because fail LG refused to give us O3D users an update. It helped a bit, but there are times when I press something and it takes forever to load. Sometimes it's a blank white screen, sometimes it just stalls. Hell, even the KEYBOARD lags often which can screw up texts. I turned off vibrations to see if that would help but not really. Ended up getting one of those keyboards where you can just hold your finger down and connect letters. That helped.

It's my first smartphone and my only other comparison is an iPhone 4 which uses a different OS.

SoC's don't degrade, at least not in the way you describe. Any CPU will perform exactly the same as it does today if you booted it up 20 years from now, or (assuming it's still functioning) even if you ran it for the next 20 years. A transistor either works or it doesn't - there's no in-between.

You're experiencing software problems.

 

[Shephard]

SoC's don't degrade, at least not in the way you describe. Any CPU will perform exactly the same as it does today if you booted it up 20 years from now, or (assuming it's still functioning) even if you ran it for the next 20 years. A transistor either works or it doesn't - there's no in-between.

You're experiencing software problems.

When it comes to CPU's I agree with you. My old computers that I had never failed and then I sold em.

This phone is a bit strange though and I see all these complaints about the Nexus 7...

I think it is a hardware problem. Especially when I have done the correct steps to clean it up.

 

[Yuriman]

When it comes to CPU's I agree with you. My old computers that I had never failed and then I sold em.

This phone is a bit strange though and I see all these complaints about the Nexus 7...

I think it is a hardware problem. Especially when I have done the correct steps to clean it up.

There's a lot of belief in XDA that a ROM will not run equally on all phones, and that it has sometime to do with the hardware. That, somehow, two Galaxy S4's roll off of the assembly line with an identical SoC and memory and somehow one will run a ROM cooked by a developer properly and the other won't. In reality the only difference between these two phones is the software that a user loads onto the phone, be it a bootloader, custom kernel, ROM, or app.

The only real degradation you may experience (and is possible) is instability. At some point your apps may begin to crash, you'll get data corruption and possibly it won't boot. "Slowing down" isn't hardware related.

 

[Shephard]

There's a lot of belief in XDA that a ROM will not run equally on all phones, and that it has sometime to do with the hardware. That, somehow, two Galaxy S4's roll off of the assembly line with an identical SoC and memory and somehow one will run a ROM cooked by a developer properly and the other won't. In reality the only difference between these two phones is the software that a user loads onto the phone, be it a bootloader, custom kernel, ROM, or app.

The only real degradation you may experience (and is possible) is instability. At some point your apps may begin to crash, you'll get data corruption and possibly it won't boot. "Slowing down" isn't hardware related.

I was told to install this ROM and that would increase performance. I would think every new version of Android would help make the phone smoother.

My phone is a dual core. So back to this again? Clearly the processor doesn't mean crap. So it's about the ram.

The ROM is actually some unofficial leak from AT&T. I disabled all bloatware and it still has hangups that I had on STOCK Gingerbread and Froyo.