Develop Bugs

Tegra 3 Overclock..?

I'm loving my yoga 11, however at times I just feel that Windows 8 RT slows down especially when multi-tasking. Since our Tegra's are clocked at 1.3Ghz and the same Chip in android devices runs at 1.5, with overclocked kernels available to run at 1.8-2.0Ghz, what are the chances we see this type of hack/development come to windows 8 RT? Im not sure the security obstacles that would present, but haven't seen much on this to even know if someone has looked into this or actively working on method to do so.
Thanks!

I have been thinking about this as well. Im sure it can be done, but by who? thats the question. Im sure we can easily squeeze some more power out of our device. Good luck to whoever spearheads this

ej_424 said:
I'm loving my yoga 11, however at times I just feel that Windows 8 RT slows down especially when multi-tasking. Since our Tegra's are clocked at 1.3Ghz and the same Chip in android devices runs at 1.5, with overclocked kernels available to run at 1.8-2.0Ghz, what are the chances we see this type of hack/development come to windows 8 RT? Im not sure the security obstacles that would present, but haven't seen much on this to even know if someone has looked into this or actively working on method to do so.
Thanks!
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Click to collapse
The tegra isnt overclocked to 1.5 in android devices. There are actually 3 models of the Tegra 3 at different clock speeds. The one used in the RT is the lowest model (1.2GHz) overclocked to 1.3GHz already. I believe the other models are 1.4 and 1.6 with a few ROMs adding about 100MHz overclock as needed. 2ghz seems extreme though.

SixSixSevenSeven said:
The tegra isnt overclocked to 1.5 in android devices. There are actually 3 models of the Tegra 3 at different clock speeds. The one used in the RT is the lowest model (1.2GHz) overclocked to 1.3GHz already. I believe the other models are 1.4 and 1.6 with a few ROMs adding about 100MHz overclock as needed. 2ghz seems extreme though.
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I've thought about this as well but have always been too scared to ask. Windows is obviously not foreign to processor scaling and power management, perhaps there's a way to make a custom power plan or something. Maybe the way to approach overlooking is not 'like' Android, but 'like' regular old windows. I have no idea and am a noob, but I thought I'd just toss that out there.

SixSixSevenSeven said:
The tegra isnt overclocked to 1.5 in android devices. There are actually 3 models of the Tegra 3 at different clock speeds. The one used in the RT is the lowest model (1.2GHz) overclocked to 1.3GHz already. I believe the other models are 1.4 and 1.6 with a few ROMs adding about 100MHz overclock as needed. 2ghz seems extreme though.
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http://www.nvidia.com/object/tegra-3-processor.html
Its support for Windows RT is still under development. It isn't overclocked on the Surface RT/Vivo Tab but underclocked to compensate for the missing support for the fifth battery saver core.
We should expect the performance and battery to get better as they iron this out :laugh:
Actually, for those who have gotten Surface RT since launch... I bet most of you have already experience better performance after each monthly firmware update

LastBattle said:
http://www.nvidia.com/object/tegra-3-processor.html
Its support for Windows RT is still under development. It isn't overclocked on the Surface RT/Vivo Tab but underclocked to compensate for the missing support for the fifth battery saver core.
We should expect the performance and battery to get better as they iron this out :laugh:
Actually, for those who have gotten Surface RT since launch... I bet most of you have already experience better performance after each monthly firmware update
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That's a very good news indeed and we should then probably be able to run the Tablet at 1.6Ghz Quad core instead of the actual 1.3Ghz quad core :good:

LastBattle said:
http://www.nvidia.com/object/tegra-3-processor.html
Its support for Windows RT is still under development. It isn't overclocked on the Surface RT/Vivo Tab but underclocked to compensate for the missing support for the fifth battery saver core.
We should expect the performance and battery to get better as they iron this out :laugh:
Actually, for those who have gotten Surface RT since launch... I bet most of you have already experience better performance after each monthly firmware update
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Click to collapse
No where in that link does it mention it being underclocked. The 1.4ghz single core/1.3 quad core is a feature of the entire tegra product line, not jsut the surface RT.
It does mention that the 5th battery saver core doesnt work on windows RT though, that will help.

Interesting: There is a "~MHz" key in regedit under local machine -> Hardware -> Description -> System -> Central processor -> 0, 1, 2, or 3. It is set to 1300, but changing it doesn't do anything and it reverts upon reboot.
Even if we can't overclock this thing, is there a way to resurrect the "High Performance" power plan that disappeared in RT? One that would set the CPU to 100% by default, all the time?

Any update or more info on this?

bigsnack said:
Any update or more info on this?
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+1

hope to see a 'high performance' feature on the pwr mgnment as well, especially when we are hooking up RT onto the power line and battery life is not so much of an issue in this case.

Rogerngks said:
hope to see a 'high performance' feature on the pwr mgnment as well, especially when we are hooking up RT onto the power line and battery life is not so much of an issue in this case.
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iirc, you can still set your cpu states through powercfg in the command line. I might be wrong though.

Is the 5th power saving core just disabled or not present on our hardware?

bigsnack said:
Is the 5th power saving core just disabled or not present on our hardware?
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According to NVidia's website, Tegra 3 for RT is "still under development." (http://www.nvidia.com/object/tegra-3-processor.html) It also lists it as only being quad-core on Windows 8 devices.
I had personally reeealy hoped that one of the highlights for RT 8.1 was going to be reworked support for the 5th core, bringing performance and battery life improvements. Alas, it was not to be.

jtg007 said:
According to NVidia's website, Tegra 3 for RT is "still under development." (http://www.nvidia.com/object/tegra-3-processor.html) It also lists it as only being quad-core on Windows 8 devices.
I had personally reeealy hoped that one of the highlights for RT 8.1 was going to be reworked support for the 5th core, bringing performance and battery life improvements. Alas, it was not to be.
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I cant see how the 5th core would bring a performance improvement. The system cannot use the 5th core as an actual 5th core, it shuts most of the other cores down to sleep when it needs the 5th which is also an incredibly low performance core, its just for power saving really, or simply hopping around the UI and checking your email, NVidia claim that android can also play video while running purely on the 5th core although this never happened on my Nexus 7 without any other apps running, it carried on running using 1 of the main cores for that.
Would definitely boost the battery life though and thats not something to be ignored. But there are few times where that 5th core really comes into its own, perhaps it just wasn't worth the time for MS to add companion core support to windows RT 8.1 when not all RT tablets use the tegra.

SixSixSevenSeven said:
I cant see how the 5th core would bring a performance improvement. The system cannot use the 5th core as an actual 5th core, it shuts most of the other cores down to sleep when it needs the 5th which is also an incredibly low performance core, its just for power saving really, or simply hopping around the UI and checking your email, NVidia claim that android can also play video while running purely on the 5th core although this never happened on my Nexus 7 without any other apps running, it carried on running using 1 of the main cores for that.
Would definitely boost the battery life though and thats not something to be ignored. But there are few times where that 5th core really comes into its own, perhaps it just wasn't worth the time for MS to add companion core support to windows RT 8.1 when not all RT tablets use the tegra.
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I always thought that the 5th core could run simultaneously with the other 4 to manage background tasks, etc, thus leaving less side work for the others. I could be wrong though. Also, I know of only one RT tab to NOT use Tegra (Dell), and it was the first to drop price and flop.
Anyways, the exciting thing about kexec/Linux prospects is that if we were to get in, there are a lot of Android and Linux versions that run on Tegra 3, which hopefully means we wouldn't have too tough of a time getting at that 5th core working then.
Sent from my SCH-I535 using xda app-developers app

Well the Samsung Ativ Tab RT is also using the S4 cpu, but that device had a limited release from what it seems like in North America. I too was under the assumption that th3 5th core could be used at the same time with the other cores, which could free up power for other things. Like the 5th core would be used for the low power task, while at the same the the other 4 cores are being used for a more process heavy task.
It would be interesting to have Android or Linux running in a dual boot situation on our RT devices, or if even possible do what Samsung is doing, and have it emulated in Windows so you can run apps side by side.

No, the 5th core is not an actual 5th core. The idea is you have 4 full blown cores at 1.2, 1.4 or 1.6ghz depending on the tegra model (and then the tegra can overclock automatically to 1.3, 1.5 or 1.7), thats quite power hungry really. But as CPU usage falls the tegra shuts a few cores off, if the system cant benefit from all 4 cores being active it will drop to 3, then 2 and then 1. Sometimes even that 1 core running at 1.2ghz is compartively power hungry, so the tegra shuts the final core down and fires up the companion core which I think runs around the 700MHz range, its slow at any rate, its also built optimised purely for power consumption over performance. Idea is you can go from a full quad core chip when you need the performance but then when the device is idling you can switch over to the companion core and shut the main 4 all off and save alot of power.
NVidia claim that the companion core combined with the hardware video acceleration of the tegra should be able to play HD videos on its own. That doesnt really seem to happen outside of the lab. But when you lock the screen on your android device it often jumps into companion core mode, you can browse around the android home screen and use a few lightweight apps on the companion core no problem, and when it does begin to struggle the tegra just has to skip over to its main core and gradually bring the other 3 main cores online as it needs them.
It never has the companion and main cores on in a state able to be used by the operating system simultaneously though.
Samsungs so called octa-core chips also do the same. They arent really octa core chips, in reality they are a quad core cortex A15 chip and a quad core lower clock speed cortex A9 chip (possibly even A7) on the same piece of silicon, when CPU load is high it runs as a quad core A15, when it doesnt need so much performance it shuts down the A15 and swaps for the A9, the 2 CPU's are near separate and at any one time the chip is only running as a single quad core processor not an octacore. Similar to the companion core design this can lead to a massive boost in battery life. In both A15 and A9 modes the processor is capable of shutting down individual cores as need be.
Tegra may well be the chip in all main tablets, but when microsoft first started working on windows RT there were meant to be qualcomm snapdragon, NVidia tegra and texas instruments OMAP devices all coming to market so of course microsoft at the time needed RT to run on all 3. The original plan was that there would be56 3rd party manufacturers manufacturing RT tablets, 2 per chip vendor except TI. Originally qualcomm partnered with HP and Samsung, NVidia with Lenovo and Asus and Toshiba with TI In the end TI dropped out and shortly after downscaled OMAP production (I think it has completely stopped with the exception of existing contracts now, or at least chips intended for tablet usage have been, they had a few industrial chips under the OMAP branding that might still be available, their ARM based microcontroller and DSP lines are still going fine), TI took Toshiba with them. Of course by the time TI dropped out there were already running builds of RT. HP dropped out and were replaced by dell. Acer were slated to be joining the program but didn't, when MS unveiled the surface that killed it for acer.
Another limitation is that Windows RT is essentially just an ARM port of windows 8, windows 8 and the NT kernel in general didnt already have support for the companion core or similar tech, it would be pointless adding it to the base NT kernel as hardly any devices use it and it would probably lead to issues introducing it only for tegra.

Surely Microsoft can see that getting the maximum out of the CPUs in their own devices is a good thing? I get that they have to support a few ARM architectures, but there's no reason why Windows RT can't be optimised with a specific update for the Surface?

bydandie said:
Surely Microsoft can see that getting the maximum out of the CPUs in their own devices is a good thing? I get that they have to support a few ARM architectures, but there's no reason why Windows RT can't be optimised with a specific update for the Surface?
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It would be a maintenance nightmare. You know the way everyone *****es and moans about the non existent android fragmentation (or at the very least hugely over exaggerated)? Now apply that to windows RT, its already a struggling platform. You don't want more ammo for the opposition, the extra effort probably isn't worth it. Under sleep mode or single core mode (non companion, RT will scale back to single core non companion happily) the battery life is good enough, companion would be nice, but non essential. Companion core would need to be supported at a kernel level. It would be a nightmare to keep one version of the kernel (if you don't know what a kernel is, consider it the chassis of a car or the foundations of a house, its the very core of the operating system) for each tablet.

[Q] Help Overclocking SM-P600 ARM A15 cores: is it possible?

Ive gotten apps that can over clock the cores, but it's only the 4 SMALL cores which clock at 1.3 GHZ and can over clock into 1.9 GHZ but I don't need that since the Exynos 5 Octa has 4 OTHER cores that clock at 1.9GHZ. The Dolphin emulator doesn't use the 1.9GHZ cores. When I over clock there 1.3GHZ to 1.9GHZ while playing Super Smash Bros Melee, it runs just as good as the Note 3 does, which is 2.3GHZ SnapDragon. If I were to use AND over clock the 1.9GHZ cores, I may be able to run that and also other graphic intense games almost perfectly. Help please.

NerroEx said:
Ive gotten apps that can over clock the cores, but it's only the 4 SMALL cores which clock at 1.3 GHZ and can over clock into 1.9 GHZ but I don't need that since the Exynos 5 Octa has 4 OTHER cores that clock at 1.9GHZ. The Dolphin emulator doesn't use the 1.9GHZ cores. When I over clock there 1.3GHZ to 1.9GHZ while playing Super Smash Bros Melee, it runs just as good as the Note 3 does, which is 2.3GHZ SnapDragon. If I were to use AND over clock the 1.9GHZ cores, I may be able to run that and also other graphic intense games almost perfectly. Help please.
Click to expand...
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Overclocking was attempted with the Bindroid Kernel but it would not stick. As for it running better on the Note 3, you are pushing a lot fewer pixels on the Note 3 (1200x1980) versus Note 2014 (2560x1600)

nrage23 said:
Overclocking was attempted with the Bindroid Kernel but it would not stick. As for it running better on the Note 3, you are pushing a lot fewer pixels on the Note 3 (1200x1980) versus Note 2014 (2560x1600)
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what's a bindroid kernel lol and well then shouldn't that mean that it should be harder to run on the tablet??? and also if I were to over clock the bigger cores and over clock the gpu, which so far the apps that over clock gpu's are only for Snapdargon, then it would run better than any device on the market.
Also, I found this: "The core switching is controlled by a firmware layer that sits in between the software and the chip itself. Operating systems can be tweaked to better support big.LITTLE's particular arrangement of cores, but any OS that supports power state switching for CPUs (any mainstream operating system from the last decade or so) can take advantage of big.LITTLE without any additional changes."
Source:http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-03/19/exynos-5-octa
Though this is for the galaxy s4, it should be the architecture as the note 10.1 2014. But is it possible to tweak that firmware or even MANUALLY activate the 4 stronger cores at will???

NerroEx said:
what's a bindroid kernel lol and well then shouldn't that mean that it should be harder to run on the tablet??? and also if I were to over clock the bigger cores and over clock the gpu, which so far the apps that over clock gpu's are only for Snapdargon, then it would run better than any device on the market.
Also, I found this: "The core switching is controlled by a firmware layer that sits in between the software and the chip itself. Operating systems can be tweaked to better support big.LITTLE's particular arrangement of cores, but any OS that supports power state switching for CPUs (any mainstream operating system from the last decade or so) can take advantage of big.LITTLE without any additional changes."
Source:http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-03/19/exynos-5-octa
Though this is for the galaxy s4, it should be the architecture as the note 10.1 2014. But is it possible to tweak that firmware or even MANUALLY activate the 4 stronger cores at will???
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You may want to do some more research before you do anything. Most aspects of the CPU or GPU are handled by the kernel. The only way you can overclock any device is with a custom kernel that has the higher frequencies in the tables. DutchDanny tried to get overclocking working but it did not work. You can however underclock most any device since it has all the lower frequencies listed. If we wanted to enable Big Little on the Note 2014 we would need Samsung to release source code enabling it. Which I am sure they will not do. Again the Big Little is kernel dependent. The Android OS is not the problem Samsung is the problem. Do a search there is a very good thread about the 8 core thing.

nrage23 said:
You may want to do some more research before you do anything. Most aspects of the CPU or GPU are handled by the kernel. The only way you can overclock any device is with a custom kernel that has the higher frequencies in the tables. DutchDanny tried to get overclocking working but it did not work. You can however underclock most any device since it has all the lower frequencies listed. If we wanted to enable Big Little on the Note 2014 we would need Samsung to release source code enabling it. Which I am sure they will not do. Again the Big Little is kernel dependent. The Android OS is not the problem Samsung is the problem. Do a search there is a very good thread about the 8 core thing.
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Wait wuuut I heard there was going to be an update for the Exynos 5 octa for Big.Little Architecture ???

NerroEx said:
Wait wuuut I heard there was going to be an update for the Exynos 5 octa for Big.Little Architecture ???
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The Exynos 5 is fully capable but Samsung has never said they would update the Note 2014 to enable it.
Sent from my HTC6600LVW using XDA Premium HD app

nrage23 said:
The Exynos 5 is fully capable but Samsung has never said they would update the Note 2014 to enable it.
Sent from my HTC6600LVW using XDA Premium HD app
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Actually I heard either in Q4 or Q3 they were going to release an update

NerroEx said:
Actually I heard either in Q4 or Q3 they were going to release an update
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I got the Note 2014 the day it came out and I check all kinds of news/forums everyday. I have seen nothing where they stated they would update any current devices with big.LITTLE. They have stated by the end of the year they would release new devices with big.LITTLE implemented. I would guess the first ones would be the 6 core midrange processor due to heat and power usage. You can get a lot more information from this thread in the main section.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2645875

Why octa-core?

The galaxy tab s products that are available to me have an octa-core processor, with the high speed cores being 1.9ghz. I can't really understand why Samsung chose to use that instead of a 2.3ghz quad-core like in the tab pro.

See Wikipedia for an explanation of the concept: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARM_...multi-processing_.28global_task_scheduling.29

Because the Exynos 5 Octa-core is the one processor that Samsung has to be able to compete with Snapdragon 800, and is cheaper to implement since it's their own processor. I don't buy the Octa-core hype, I'd be happier with the Snapdragon 800 honestly like on the Tab PRO 8.4.

The question is:
Does TAB S use the 8 cores at the same time?
It seams it does NOT, little cores are only used when low power is required..
So performance wise, this CPU is slower than SD 800

ssuper2k said:
The question is:
Does TAB S use the 8 cores at the same time?
It seams it does NOT, little cores are only used when low power is required..
So performance wise, this CPU is slower than SD 800
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And yet I am getting 35,300 on Antutu using Shaheers t800 rom which is higher than any other current tablet or phone. (Shaheer's rom should go out of beta today - don't flash until final has been posted).
The Tab Pro 8.4 Antutu is 32,806.

I CANT PLAY NOVA 3 with exynos !
AND GAMING IS NOT SO SMOOTH ! STILL A BIT LAGGY

I can see the argument that you don't always need full power, thus the four slow cores, but since all cores can't run at once, it seems a cheat to have 1.9ghz as the top speed for the faster four cores. Since, or at least I assume, cores step up and down as needed, it seems to me a snapdragon 800 or higher at 2.3ghz or higher would have been just fine. I mean, if you are going to put in 3gb of RAM, then you should put in a great cpu also and not pretend less (1.9ghz) is a better contribution to what is supposed to be a premium tablet.

And yet I don't think samsung is doing enough to utilizing this hardware capability. In theory it should run at least 4x faster and 6x more effecient then the snap dragon and apple current A8 chip. It has failed to outshine the competitors because samsung software department sucks. Samsung hardware is still great though.

sku|| said:
I CANT PLAY NOVA 3 with exynos !
AND GAMING IS NOT SO SMOOTH ! STILL A BIT LAGGY
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Blame the developer for not making it compatible. Tegra powered Htc one x is incompatible too so not sure that is exynos issue..

i wish my t805 had Full HD screen resolution :cyclops:

Funny. Was just browsing the web a bit on my i5 ultrabook and it occurred to me that the browser on my Tab S is actually faster. If gaming is your primary thing, I'd buy the Nvidia Shield, not the Tab S. This tablet is designed for eye candy media consumption (internet and video) not for gaming enthusiasts. Try running your PC video card at 2560 x 1600 on ultra and see what you get.

i had heard from a Samsung rep i actually enjoy talking to that Sammy had just figured the all cores at once and we should see updates that turn that feature on. when this will happen who knows. i also did not ask him for a link and now cant find that info on the web so when i see him again soon i will get more info.
i would assume (insert you know what that means) that when/if this happens the full power of this setup would greatly improve?
anyway i have had my Tab S running snappy for me and no complaints at this time

You cannot compare the clock speeds from two different processors. For instance, you can't compare the 1.9GHz quad-core of the Exynos to the 2.3GHz quad-core of the Snapdragon 800. This doesn't mean anything. If you compare the clock speed of two Snapdragon chips, that's ok, or if you compare the clock speed of two Exynos chips, then that's ok too. Comparing the clock speed of an Intel chip against the clock speed of an AMD chip, is the same as comparing the clock speed of an Exynos chip to the clock speed of a Snapdragon chip.
The Exynos chip in this tablet has been shown to compete very well/close with the Snapdragon on every level except GPU. The Mali GPU in this chip just doesn't match the Adreno GPU from the Snapdragon. However, the RAM is faster in the Exynos than the Snapdragon.
That said, I am a fan of the Snapdragon chip, of course. I was holding off to see if the LTE variant of this tablet would have the Snapdragon 800, but instead they shipped with an Intel LTE modem. Besides apps/games not being optimized for Exynos, I am fairly satisfied with my purchase. I'm just anxious to get CyanogenMod(or any other AOSP ROM installed on it).

fletch33 said:
i had heard from a Samsung rep i actually enjoy talking to that Sammy had just figured the all cores at once and we should see updates that turn that feature on. when this will happen who knows. i also did not ask him for a link and now cant find that info on the web so when i see him again soon i will get more info.
i would assume (insert you know what that means) that when/if this happens the full power of this setup would greatly improve?
anyway i have had my Tab S running snappy for me and no complaints at this time
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Could also mean increased battery consumption,don't know. Overall I am satisfied with this Tab including battery life.

There are 3 different performace results:
a) what Exynos 520 does achieve in practice now, measured bei some benchmarks and real world performance (<= Snapdragon 800)
b) what it could do theoretically - but will never happen due to driver and scheduler etc issues (>> Snapdragon)
c) what it will do some day in near future on an optimized ROM (somewhere in between?)
Fortunately the Exynos 5420 does support all 8 cores in parallel, see here:
http://www.notebookcheck.net/Samsung-Exynos-5420-Octa-SoC.103633.0.html

pibach said:
There are 3 different performace results:
a) what Exynos 520 does achieve in practice now, measured bei some benchmarks and real world performance (<= Snapdragon 800)
b) what it could do theoretically - but will never happen due to driver and scheduler etc issues (>> Snapdragon)
c) what it will do some day in near future on an optimized ROM (somewhere in between?)
Fortunately the Exynos 5420 does support all 8 cores in parallel, see here:
http://www.notebookcheck.net/Samsung-Exynos-5420-Octa-SoC.103633.0.html
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Wish I knew how. Probably a linux thing. ...
If it is possible to implement in today's existing source, I'm sure @AndreiLux would know about it ?

UpInTheAir said:
Wish I knew how. Probably a linux thing. ...
If it is possible to implement in today's existing source, I'm sure @AndreiLux would know about it ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's impossible.

AndreiLux said:
It's impossible.
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What and why?

pibach said:
What and why?
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http://www.androidauthority.com/sam...ta-can-use-eight-cores-simultaneously-267316/
I've found a few articles saying it should support it, then a couple Deva saying they had to goto the 5422 for a working implementation of HMP.
Here is a post from odroid
http://forum.odroid.com/viewtopic.php?f=97&t=5651

That's weird. The (newer) 5422 supports HMP but not 3gb RAM.

[Q] SM-T705 Exynos and CPU-Z question

Hi all,
I understand the Exynos Octa 5420 is supposed to have 4 cores running at 1.90GHz and 4 cores running at 1.3GHz, which it can switch between through cluster switching, however when I use CPU-Z to check out the CPU on my Tab S 8.4 LTE it tells me both clusters run at 1.90GHz? Please find attached a screenshot to see what I mean. Is this normal?

I find very few apps even detect the other 4 cores never mind display them correctly. I'd take it with a pinch of salt.

ashyx said:
I find very few apps even detect the other 4 cores never mind display them correctly. I'd take it with a pinch of salt.
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Click to collapse
Thanks, though I'd have thought an app designed to provide CPU information at least would have the right capability.

[Q] Can Samsung Galaxy Tab S SM-T700 use all 8 cores at same time?

Can Exynos 5 OCTA 5420 use all 8 cores at same time?
How is Samsung Galaxy Tab S SM-T700 performance compared to Samsung Galaxy Tab S SM-T705( with Qualcomm Snapdragon 800)?

The Exynos cpu performs admirably against my htc one m8 snapdragon cpu and ranks highly with other top performing cpu's.
Even better with Skyhigh kernel.

Worth mentioning these Exynos units suck the battery dry much faster than the Qualcomm S800 without delivering more performance.

mrcet007 said:
Can Exynos 5 OCTA 5420 use all 8 cores at same time?
How is Samsung Galaxy Tab S SM-T700 performance compared to Samsung Galaxy Tab S SM-T705( with Qualcomm Snapdragon 800)?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
According to the wikipedia article, the Linux kernel does have a scheduler mode that allows to use all cores or switch between them as needed. I don't know if the Samsung stock kernel or others actually use that mode.
One important issue is that you should not be carried away with the idea that having more cores is always better for performance. It takes a lot of work to write software that can actually load four or eight cores. Moreover, a lot of algorithms are still bottle-necked by one core and there is no way to change that. As a result, a typical PC with a quad core Intel i5 CPU is usually faster than a PC with a six or eight core AMD CPU, thanks to intel's much better individual core performance. This truth is even more relevant on tablets, which are effectively single-user machines, usually running only one big application at a time. I wouldn't lose a minute of my sleep over having only two working cores instead of four or eight.