Develop Bugs

Quad core phones to be the standard?

I felt like once phones hit the 1 ghz mark the cpu race kicked into over drive....the dual core phase was short lived and just about old news with quad core phones hitting shelves. Is there anything left after quad core phones? Will this be standard for awhile? I just hope its not a gimmick. Like the whole 4g deal....especially LTE....i still dont feel like the benefit of the slight boost in data transfer is worth the crappy battery life. Hspa+ seems to be a good sweet spot for data transfer.... and instead of improving networks and creating quality broadband services companies waste millions on trying to be the company with the latest inadequate tech. Most people dont even understand what they have or what they are using....if only i had a dollar for everytime i heard....."i love my iphone 4g"
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda premium

I don't know, but as I can't see how there would enough multi-tasking to make more than four cores worth sacrificing features, I would love to see improvements in battery life instead.
Doesn't Moore's law apply to more than just processing speed? Like, we could see improvements in cost, speed, or energy efficiency, but we just keep going for speed? Because I'd really love to have double the battery life.

I doubt that they will be the standard for a while. Look at how amazing the HTC ONE S is performing compared to the ONE X and the transformer prime.
I think that the dual core still has a lot of life in it. Quad core phones may be in all the flagship phones pretty soon, but I don't think that they will be "standard" for quite some time.
Sent from my PG86100 using XDA

I hope so.....id rather have a high performance dual core than quad.....unless quad core phones will start flying planes
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda premium

Don't worry about core counts. Just worry about overall performance.
Quad core is a meaningless number of cores.

Quad-Cores will remain flagship for at least another year. I predict the 2014 standard for lower-end phones will be quad-core. Dual-Core won't die out, however, because of low-power consumption and prices. Most changes we will likely see in the coming years:
1. Size (Probably a move to smaller 10nm chipsets, thinner screens and phones, Larger displays)
2. Optimization of Current Technologies (Software improvements, thinner AMOLEDS, power consumption)
3. BATTERY IMPROVEMENTS (It's needed the MOST)

Quad-Core phones will be short lived. Right now quad core chips are based on Cortex A9, Cortex A16 is around the corner. The A16 dual-core chips perform faster than current quad core chips and will use much less power than Cortex A9 dual cores we have now. Due to the initial expensive production costs of the A16 it will be a while before we see A16 quads hit the market.
Edit: Of course cheap phones may use the old cheaper Quad Core Cortex A9 in their phones but by no means will it be the flagship thing to have in a phone, just standard like the 1 GHz processors have become.

theherodrownd said:
Quad-Core phones will be short lived. Right now quad core chips are based on Cortex A9, Cortex A16 is around the corner. The A16 dual-core chips perform faster than current quad core batteries and will use much less power than Cortex A9 dual cores we have now. Due to the initial expensive production costs of the A16 it will be a while before we see A16 quads hit the market.
Edit: Of course cheap phones may use the old cheaper Quad Core Cortex A9 in their phones but by no means will it be the flagship thing to have in a phone, just standard like the 1 GHz processors have become.
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Tegra 3 has 2 A15's bro.

Smokeey said:
Tegra 3 has 2 A15's bro.
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Tegra 3 has 1.4 GHz Quad-Core ARM Cortex-A9s.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARM_Cortex-A9_MPCore

Smokeey said:
Tegra 3 has 2 A15's bro.
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You sure? I looked a few places to check and saw it is still based on A9. Seems to be stamped on the same 40nm dye as the Tegra2. Its ghost core seems to have a different architecture however.
Edit: Valynor posted one of the links I was reading, thanks!

Valynor said:
Tegra 3 has 1.4 GHz Quad-Core ARM Cortex-A9s.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARM_Cortex-A9_MPCore
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The next generation (Wayne) has 2 A9 and 2 A15 (est. Q4-Q1 13 release).

More efficient cores seems to be what people really want vs more cores. Along those lines, battery life is more a concern than just raw computing power.
I'm waiting to see what next gen processors bring rather than focusing on if it is quad core or not.

systemf said:
More efficient cores seems to be what people really want vs more cores. Along those lines, battery life is more a concern than just raw computing power.
I'm waiting to see what next gen processors bring rather than focusing on if it is quad core or not.
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Absolutely, definitely too early. I mean it's cool and all but QUAD CORE on a phone right now really? If we keep going this fast we will have 16 cores by 2014. But in all seriousness google and oems should just focus on battery life improvements, software, skins like sense and touchwiz refinements and user experience. Once those things are perfected you can bring new crazy features that would require a quad core powerhouse but for now it really is not needed. Just upgrade the current dual core architecture to A15 based SoC.

Someday:thumbup:
Sent from my i9250 [GSM) Galaxy Nexus

[Q] Tegra 3 VS Mali-400 ?

Hi
Which is better? Tegra3 or Mali 400

I don't know mate, this is what my phone after the update is capable of now.
Sent from my HTC One X using xda premium

Well it will be a race for sure

Mali might be faster (or maybe not), but Tegra 3 definitely better. Because it has better, enhanced games. Developers develop for Tegra. They don't develop for Mali or Adreno.
One guy complained that Shadowgun looks better on my phone than on his iPad3 - I had to explain that I'm running THD version, that we have those Tegra enhanced games. That makes a difference.
Tegra 3 will run all games. Adreno/Mali will require Chainfire3D with plugins to run Tegra games.
Thats my view on that.

The Mali 400 is old now, it`s not what the sg3 is getting surely.
John.

Even if SGS3 will get Mali T-604, I will stick with Tegra 3 for now. Unless I see games dedicated for T-604, and more than just one.

more...

http://www.engadget.com/2012/04/20/galaxy-s-iii-leak/
according to this it will have the 400

antipesto93 said:
http://www.engadget.com/2012/04/20/galaxy-s-iii-leak/
according to this it will have the 400
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Didn't notice it mention 400. But if true people would find it disappointing, even that 400 is still serious piece of hardware. Given 720p screen, performance would be worse compared to SGS2.

The Mali's performance is the same as the Tegra 3's in graphics benchmarks I've done on my Note Vs my Prime and my One X (just goes to show how average the Tegra 3 GPU really is I think, no better than something at least 6 months older). Disappointing it's not the upgraded GPU if that is accurate, but doesn't differentiate the products at all.

Tinderbox (UK) said:
The Mali 400 is old now
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Technically, so is Teg3. S4 uses 28nm and the 4212 uses 32nm. Teg3 is two 45nm A9 chips glommed together because Nvidia wanted to be first to market with a next-gen chip. It's the least advanced of any of the three SoCs. From a GPU perspective none of the three really move the ball forward and are just evolutionary vs. revolutionary. If I had to guess best overall performance I’d say 4212, Teg3, and S4 in that order. Because S4 and the 4212 are on smaller dies they’ll be more efficient and handily beat Teg3 at battery life (except maybe at idle).

delete post.

BarryH_GEG said:
Technically, so is Teg3. S4 uses 28nm and the 4212 uses 32nm. Teg3 is two 45nm A9 chips glommed together because Nvidia wanted to be first to market with a next-gen chip. It's the least advanced of any of the three SoCs. From a GPU perspective none of the three really move the ball forward and are just evolutionary vs. revolutionary. If I had to guess best overall performance I’d say 4212, Teg3, and S4 in that order. Because S4 and the 4212 are on smaller dies they’ll be more efficient and handily beat Teg3 at battery life (except maybe at idle).
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tegra3 is actually made on the 40nm. nvidia still has tsmc's 40nm process and is migrating towards 28nm with desktop GPUs and will eventually migrate to 28nm with the tegra3+.

i hate how people always say that its a bad thing that apple didn`t upgrade the gpu but fust added more cores or samsung didn`t change the mali 400 gpu. the fact is that the mali and sgx543mp2 were ahead when they were released. now there is actual competition like the adreno 320 and tegra 3/4. a simple overclocked sgx or mali chip is enough to keep up with the competition.

NZtechfreak said:
The Mali's performance is the same as the Tegra 3's in graphics benchmarks I've done on my Note Vs my Prime and my One X (just goes to show how average the Tegra 3 GPU really is I think, no better than something at least 6 months older). Disappointing it's not the upgraded GPU if that is accurate, but doesn't differentiate the products at all.
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Mali 400/450 is a 2nd generation GPU like tegra 2, only 44 millions polygons/sec, My Adreno 205 is 41 millions & The Tegra 3 is 129 millions.
Gameloft games in the end of 2012 will need 100 millions...
The Mali 3rd generation is Mali T-604/640 & Mali say that's it is 500% the performances of previous Mali GPU's :
http://www.arm.com/products/multimedia/mali-graphics-hardware/mali-t604.php
500% is using quad-core optimised applis (only tegra 3 will have it in less than 2 years) but it's 250% in dual-core...
As Tegra 3 is equal to T-604, Mali 400 is pawned...
-1st gen (Adreno 200, mali 200/300, SGX Power VR 520/530 & tegra 1)
-2nd gen (Adreno 205, Mali 400MP/450MP, SGX Power VR 540/554 & tegra 2)
-3rd gen (Adreno 220/225/320, Mali T604/640, SGX Power VR G 6200/6430 & Tegra 3)

Sekhen said:
Mali 400/450 is a 2nd generation GPU like tegra 2, only 44 millions polygons/sec, My Adreno 205 is 41 millions & The Tegra 3 is 129 millions.
Gameloft games in the end of 2012 will need 100 millions...
The Mali 3rd generation is Mali T-604/640 & Mali say that's it is 500% the performances of previous Mali GPU's :
http://www.arm.com/products/multimedia/mali-graphics-hardware/mali-t604.php
500% is using quad-core optimised applis (only tegra 3 will have it in less than 2 years) but it's 250% in dual-core...
As Tegra 3 is equal to T-604, Mali 400 is pawned...
-1st gen (Adreno 200, mali 200/300, SGX Power VR 520/530 & tegra 1)
-2nd gen (Adreno 205, Mali 400MP/450MP, SGX Power VR 540/554 & tegra 2)
-3rd gen (Adreno 220/225/320, Mali T604/640, SGX Power VR G 6200/6430 & Tegra 3)
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link to your numbers about Tegra 3?

I have not used any device with Mali 400. Sorry mate~~

I think that tegra 3 is better but we have to attend the 3.x kernel to solve the battery problem properly.
Sent from my HTC One X using xda app-developers app

Mali-400 is good and strong and Tegra 3 might not be the fastest one there is, but it's the only one that gets best looking games. On top of that, Tegra 3 Plus is coming soon and then next year another one with direct x and supposed console-like performance. See what Nvidia does for desktops and just hope they keep the pace with mobile GPU and we will get there too. I don't really consider non-tegra device unless it amazes me with noticeably better power efficiency or optimized games start coming out for it.
Would you buy non-nvidia and non-ati graphics card for your pc?

schriss said:
Mali-400 is good and strong and Tegra 3 might not be the fastest one there is, but it's the only one that gets best looking games. On top of that, Tegra 3 Plus is coming soon and then next year another one with direct x and supposed console-like performance. See what Nvidia does for desktops and just hope they keep the pace with mobile GPU and we will get there too. I don't really consider non-tegra device unless it amazes me with noticeably better power efficiency or optimized games start coming out for it.
Would you buy non-nvidia and non-ati graphics card for your pc?
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Exactly!
Given the choice, I would buy a Tegra device over anything else.

[Q] Is the Gnex faster than a quad core cortex a7?

Gnex has 1.2ghz dual core cortex a9 ti omap 1gb ram Powervrsgx540, 720p hd display
is the specs of the Gnex better than 1.2ghz quad core cortex a7 mediatek 1gb ram powervrsgx544,720p display

From the benchmark perspective, no it's not. Dual A9's usually equal to quad A7's in CPU power, while SGX544MP1 is obviously superior to SGX540. However, the bloatware those small manufacturers tend to put in those MTK devices will obviously slow the phone down. Words around the internet also say that although MT6589 is a quad A7 CPU, only 2 cores are used per normal task.
I suppose you're gonna buy a device - don't buy MTKs, there's usually no development for them, they may never get future Android upgrades even via flashing (because there's no custom ROM at all), meaning that your phone could be dead on arrival. Personal opinion so feel free to oppose.
Sent from Google Nexus 4 @ CM10.2

8-core 3X is cheaper than P6?

The earlier period, P6 is sold frequently in Chinese market.
4.7 inch screen CPU with a metal shell, this kind of an apparence is exhilarating. Inside the machine, quad core, 2GB RAM is reasonable for you to purchase.
HUAWEI 3X, a monster with a bigger 5.5 inch screen, but the armor is softer, plastic. Octa-core, which is rarely in China smartphones. RAM is also 2GB.
That’s a surprising point. 8-core is just that unworthy?? Oh I almost forgot, the back camera of 3X turns up to 13MP. On the other side, P6’s is just 8MP.
I don’t understand it absolutely.
Unless you say, the metal is becoming precious as time goes by.

yandexrhino said:
The earlier period, P6 is sold frequently in Chinese market.
4.7 inch screen CPU with a metal shell, this kind of an apparence is exhilarating. Inside the machine, quad core, 2GB RAM is reasonable for you to purchase.
HUAWEI 3X, a monster with a bigger 5.5 inch screen, but the armor is softer, plastic. Octa-core, which is rarely in China smartphones. RAM is also 2GB.
That’s a surprising point. 8-core is just that unworthy?? Oh I almost forgot, the back camera of 3X turns up to 13MP. On the other side, P6’s is just 8MP.
I don’t understand it absolutely.
Unless you say, the metal is becoming precious as time goes by.
http://tinyurl.com/kljfyfy
http://tinyurl.com/ntu9grm
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K3V2 chipset costs alot. MTK chipsets are very cheap.
The 8-core MTK chipset is comparable to the snapdragon 800 chipset(!). Yes, it is more optimized than K3V2 and yes it is way more powerful than the K3V2 used in the P6.
A simple demonstration would be an antutu test: K3V2 phones score 13k-17k with 15k average, 8core MTK chipset and 4core snapdragon 800 scores 25k to 35k and ~30k for average, snapdragon 801 scores ~33k

tauio111 said:
K3V2 chipset costs alot. MTK chipsets are very cheap.
The 8-core MTK chipset is comparable to the snapdragon 800 chipset(!). Yes, it is more optimized than K3V2 and yes it is way more powerful than the K3V2 used in the P6.
A simple demonstration would be an antutu test: K3V2 phones score 13k-17k with 15k average, 8core MTK chipset and 4core snapdragon 800 scores 25k to 35k and ~30k for average, snapdragon 801 scores ~33k
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Why on earth the KRV2 chipset are expensive when the otherone is better. I don.t understend this phone it is driving me crazy. It is like Huawei dose not want this phone to perform equally to it.s hardwere. It is insane.
Maybe we can make a petition to hawei to force them to release the KK kernel source for the developers. If they can't do it let others that can.

savudragosh2 said:
Why on earth the KRV2 chipset are expensive when the otherone is better. I don.t understend this phone it is driving me crazy. It is like Huawei dose not want this phone to perform equally to it.s hardwere. It is insane.
Maybe we can make a petition to hawei to force them to release the KK kernel source for the developers. If they can't do it let others that can.
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i wouldn't say better!!!:good:

tauio111 said:
K3V2 chipset costs alot. MTK chipsets are very cheap.
The 8-core MTK chipset is comparable to the snapdragon 800 chipset(!). Yes, it is more optimized than K3V2 and yes it is way more powerful than the K3V2 used in the P6.
A simple demonstration would be an antutu test: K3V2 phones score 13k-17k with 15k average, 8core MTK chipset and 4core snapdragon 800 scores 25k to 35k and ~30k for average, snapdragon 801 scores ~33k
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What a perfectly accurate estimation. The question is Octa-core smartphone market is not going hotter. Generally speaking, it's reasonable to have a considerable selling. Anyway, to choose 8-core, most of them are insiders?!

Nvidia Tegra X1 CPU

I have been using the tools i could find that would give a close look at the X1 as it is implemented in the Pixel C. Best I can tell google decided to use a revision that is reported by AIDA64 as r1p1. The most interesting, and most disappointing to me, aspect of this implementation is that it appears the 4 A53 cores are turned off.?? Can anyone clarify what is happening?

Yeah it looks like it's only a quad core that's why the cpu is weaker but gpu looks the same it has to be to control the heat.

i have been reading early this morning that in some reports it is listed as a quad core with the A53 cores as shadow cores so in reality it is only a quad core instead of eight core. Nvidia documentation is confusing to say the least. http://www.nvidia.com/object/tegra-x1-processor.html
states 8 cores. the TX1 developer kit board states 4 cores, https://developer.nvidia.com/embedded/buy/jetson-tx1-devkit

dkryder said:
I have been using the tools i could find that would give a close look at the X1 as it is implemented in the Pixel C. Best I can tell google decided to use a revision that is reported by AIDA64 as r1p1. The most interesting, and most disappointing to me, aspect of this implementation is that it appears the 4 A53 cores are turned off.?? Can anyone clarify what is happening?
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The Tegra X1 is based on ARM big.LITTLE Architecture which has Quad A57 cores for performance and Quad A53 cores for power efficiency. The Tegra implementation uses CPU Migration managed at kernel level. When a process is running that doesn't need much raw power, it will run on one of the A53 cores. If the process requires more CPU power (such as when a game changes from menu to gameplay), it can migrate to the A57 core.
I think the info AIDA receives is probably coming from /proc/cpuinfo which generally shows big.LITTLE devices configured with the CPU Migration kernel as Quad core as the kernel scheduler only sees one virtual core for each A53/A57 pair.
The revisions such as r0p0, r1p1, r2p0 etc are targeted at the individual cores, not the whole SoC
Some of Samsung's Exynos devices that implement the ARM big.LITTLE Architecture used an implementation called Heterogeneous multi-processing, which allows all 8 cores to be used at once. I seem to recall this being done as a firmware/kernel revision update (might have been on the Note 3). Not sure we can expect this to happen for the PixelC

skally said:
The Tegra X1 is based on ARM big.LITTLE Architecture which has Quad A57 cores for performance and Quad A53 cores for power efficiency. The Tegra implementation uses CPU Migration managed at kernel level. When a process is running that doesn't need much raw power, it will run on one of the A53 cores. If the process requires more CPU power (such as when a game changes from menu to gameplay), it can migrate to the A57 core.
I think the info AIDA receives is probably coming from /proc/cpuinfo which generally shows big.LITTLE devices configured with the CPU Migration kernel as Quad core as the kernel scheduler only sees one virtual core for each A53/A57 pair.
The revisions such as r0p0, r1p1, r2p0 etc are targeted at the individual cores, not the whole SoC
Some of Samsung's Exynos devices that implement the ARM big.LITTLE Architecture used an implementation called Heterogeneous multi-processing, which allows all 8 cores to be used at once. I seem to recall this being done as a firmware/kernel revision update (might have been on the Note 3). Not sure we can expect this to happen for the PixelC
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skally,
ok. my previous experience with an octa core, if the X1 is an octa core, is the qualcomm 810 as in the oneplus two. AIDA64 reports 8 A53 cores. So there is no big.LITTLE configuration with the 810. Ran across this from a Nvidia dev forum, seems the A53 are invisible, not turned off as i said above.
https://devtalk.nvidia.com/default/topic/904289/does-anyone-get-8-cpus-listed-/

dkryder said:
skally,
ok. my previous experience with an octa core, if the X1 is an octa core, is the qualcomm 810 as in the oneplus two. AIDA64 reports 8 A53 cores. So there is no big.LITTLE configuration with the 810. Ran across this from a Nvidia dev forum, seems the A53 are invisible, not turned off as i said above.
https://devtalk.nvidia.com/default/topic/904289/does-anyone-get-8-cpus-listed-/
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The CPU is still big.LITTLE Architecture in both the Tegra X1 and the SD810. Both Nvidia and Qualcomm license and use unmodified ARM cores in their SoC designs. The kernel task scheduler is where the difference lies, the Tegra uses Symmetric Multi Processing/CPU Migration, while the SD810 uses Heterogeneous Multi Processing/global task scheduling
I have no idea why Nvidia don't enable HMP on the Tegra, it is supposed to be even more power efficient.

skally said:
The CPU is still big.LITTLE Architecture in both the Tegra X1 and the SD810. Both Nvidia and Qualcomm license and use unmodified ARM cores in their SoC designs. The kernel task scheduler is where the difference lies, the Tegra uses Symmetric Multi Processing/CPU Migration, while the SD810 uses Heterogeneous Multi Processing/global task scheduling
I have no idea why Nvidia don't enable HMP on the Tegra, it is supposed to be even more power efficient.
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ok. thanks for the information.