Mobile chips 2017: Qualcomm, Mediatek, Exynos and More

[Thala]

I would not expect x86 games to work at all if that is what you are asking. Probably more like Office and other light productivity apps (although I would have to think MS would recompile Office to ARM)

Well, it does not look too bad for games. Since many games are GPU limited they might even run faster on SD835 compared to say Atom due to the much faster GPU despite the CPU being emulated.

 

[imported_jjj]

Well, it does not look too bad for games. Since many games are GPU limited they might even run faster on SD835 compared to say Atom due to the much faster GPU despite the CPU being emulated.

Atom is 2x cheaper maybe up to 3x cheaper as SD835 is a 50-60$ SoC and then you add some more hardware for LTE. So expect quite a large premium over Atom based devices.

 

[Shivansps]

Well, it does not look too bad for games. Since many games are GPU limited they might even run faster on SD835 compared to say Atom due to the much faster GPU despite the CPU being emulated.

Again, even id the emulated CPU is enoght, the GPU does even support DX9/11/OpenGL? It claims DX12/Vulkan support.

 

[Thala]

Atom is 2x cheaper maybe up to 3x cheaper as SD835 is a 50-60$ SoC and then you add some more hardware for LTE. So expect quite a large premium over Atom based devices.

Note sure how much would be considered a "large premium" but yes, SD835 based devices will be more expensive than Atom based devices. However you get better performance in particular on the GPU side, more power efficiency and a built-in LTE modem.
In addition, the SD835 GPU is even quite bit faster then Core-M based devices. So its not only Atom based device which are outperformed on the GPU side.

Again, even id the emulated CPU is enoght, the GPU does even support DX9/11/OpenGL? It claims DX12/Vulkan support.

I am certain that the DX interfaces down to at least DX9 are supported. It is not uncommon that in a feature list you only see the highest supported version listed.

 

[imported_jjj]

Note sure how much would be considered a "large premium" but yes, SD835 based devices will be more expensive than Atom based devices. However you get better performance in particular on the GPU side, more power efficiency and a built-in LTE modem.
In addition, the SD835 GPU is even quite bit faster then Core-M based devices. So its not only Atom based device which are outperformed on the GPU side.

I am certain that the DX interfaces down to at least DX9 are supported. It is not uncommon that in a feature list you only see the highest supported version listed.

The CPU is much faster than Atom, the GPU doesn't matter at all under Windows as it's too weak to matter.
Large premium means 100$ and because of it, to hide the premium , most devices will likely be high res and north of 500$.
As for LTE, people that can afford the extra sub, are more likely to buy a higher end device.
Qualcomm is only pushing this for licensing, Microsoft is only pushing this to develop the software ecosystem on ARM for future form factors. Neither of them is making much of an effort to offer something consumers need.

 

[Thala]

The CPU is much faster than Atom, the GPU doesn't matter at all under Windows as it's too weak to matter.
Large premium means 100$ and because of it, to hide the premium , most devices will likely be high res and north of 500$.
As for LTE, people that can afford the extra sub, are more likely to buy a higher end device.
Qualcomm is only pushing this for licensing, Microsoft is only pushing this to develop the software ecosystem on ARM for future form factors. Neither of them is making much of an effort to offer something consumers need.

Regarding GPU, there are quite a few games, mostly on iOS and Android, who would greatly benefit from GPUs faster than what Intel offers. I am not talking about AAA games apparently. So GPUs do matter.
Regarding buying a higher end device i disagree as well. I for example own an Surface Pro 4. However it is much too heavy for my tastes to be used as tablet. For the tablet use-case I typically use my iPad Air 2. It easily sustains 10+ hours of usage on a small and thus light battery. So currently, despite having the money, there are currently not much options if you want to have Windows.

In between the next iPad and a Snapdragon 835 based Windows tablet, my choice is easily the Windows device. I am expecting both options to be around $500.

 

[Shivansps]

Thats still a lot, i miss the $100 to $250 Windows tablets :S

 

[dark zero]

I expect that Mediatek will sign a contract with Microsoft in order to make them debut with their chips with Windows... The problem? GPU... Maybe is time for Mediatek to buy or get a share of Power VR? Power VR is not weak after all... Their current best chip is around GT 740m levels... And Furian would put on GT 940MX if the promoted improvements are real.

 

[Shivansps]

how on earth PowerVR, or Adreno could be this good with so little compared to nvidia chips? hell i still remember when Intel tried using PowerVR IGP for its atoms.

 

[Lodix]

Thats still a lot, i miss the $100 to $250 Windows tablets :S

Intel was subsidising their atoms to gain market share.

 

[imported_jjj]

Regarding GPU, there are quite a few games, mostly on iOS and Android, who would greatly benefit from GPUs faster than what Intel offers. I am not talking about AAA games apparently. So GPUs do matter.
Regarding buying a higher end device i disagree as well. I for example own an Surface Pro 4. However it is much too heavy for my tastes to be used as tablet. For the tablet use-case I typically use my iPad Air 2. It easily sustains 10+ hours of usage on a small and thus light battery. So currently, despite having the money, there are currently not much options if you want to have Windows.

In between the next iPad and a Snapdragon 835 based Windows tablet, my choice is easily the Windows device. I am expecting both options to be around $500.

It was about Windows S PCs (notebooks) with SD835 not Android, not tablets.

 

[Thala]

It was about Windows S PCs (notebooks) with SD835 not Android, not tablets.

Now i see where the misconception was coming from. I am talking about form factors 10 inches and below in conjunction with SD835. I expect that there is the main market for SD835 based Windows devices.
When looking at Cortex A75 and beyond, ARMs will move up the device categories. We will see 20-25% IPC improvement next year with Cortex A75 and another 20% IPC improvement the year after.

 

[imported_jjj]

Now i see where the misconception was coming from. I am talking about form factors 10 inches and below in conjunction with SD835. I expect that there is the main market for SD835 based Windows devices.
When looking at Cortex A75 and beyond, ARMs will move up the device categories. We will see 20-25% IPC improvement next year with Cortex A75 and another 20% IPC improvement the year after.

They are clearly pushing it as for PCs, that's why legacy apps support is such a big deal.Likely they want education too LTE there makes even less sense.
The main issue is LTE+ high end mobile SoC , adding it leads to substantially higher costs and limits the customer base a great deal.
Most developing nations lack free wifi everywhere and that's why affordable machines with LTE might do ok but not with high end ARM chips like this one.SD660 would likely work pretty well in places like India for example.
In developed markets the perf is not ideal for the price for this chip vs x86, especially as AMD is pushing quad cores and Intel has to follow and we'll see fewer and fewer dual cores.

ARM's IPC is not an issue ofc.I would even buy a desktop SoC with 16 xA75 at 3.6GHz base clocks and 4GHz+ turbo if it was priced decently. ARM has decent IPC now, tiny core, not much cache so they could fit lots of cores in a small die. Would be nice if AMD would do such a product on AM4 and lots more cores on the server socket.
And ofc on 7nm ARM will have an even better core.
Qualcomm doesn't do no LTE and even in tabs they don't care if there is no LTE. They don't do higher clocks SKUs for it and in PC some PC I/O would be nice.
In Chromebooks other ARM vendors are active but Microsoft hasn't been working with them (or the other way around).

 

[Thala]

In developed markets the perf is not ideal for the price for this chip vs x86, especially as AMD is pushing quad cores and Intel has to follow and we'll see fewer and fewer dual cores.

I am surprised about this statement. Neither AMD nor Intel have anything remotely competitive. Atoms are crap and for likes of Core-M you pay roughly 3 times the amount of SD835 despite complete lack of connectivity, cellular and GNSS. Also both companies are far away of offering a big.LITTLE solution. Intels integrated GPUs are not competitive either - believe it or not, people like to game on their tablets and phones. Apparently i am talking about form-factors 10 inches and below.
Of course if you are aiming to run professional applications like the much cited AutoCAD or AAA gaming, the SD835 is not ideal. This holds in particular since it is safe to assume that for such applications emulation will be required for quite some time.
If it is just Office - this will perform great on SD835 in particular since it is a native ARM Win32 binary.

Maybe one more word to AMD. If AMD can push quadcore Zen + stripped down Polaris/Vega into the sub 4W TDP range while keeping competitive to ARM on the performance side has yet to be proven. I have more than a few doubts about this.

 

[Shivansps]

the x86 to arm emulator is probably the same one used to run x86 on Itanium. I found this:
14:00

It does not seems to be very promising, but the S835 should smoke that Itanium system.

 

[dark zero]

More news... 1 new chip from Samsung to be released... and another one got a change
-------------------------------------
Here we go guys with the Exynos 9610!

CPU:
- 4x Cortex-A73 @ ?.? Ghz
- 4x Cortex-A53 @ ?.? Ghz
GPU: Mali G72 - MP3 @ ??? Mhz
- Process Manufacturing: 14 nm LPP Samsung

Source: https://www.gizmochina.com/2017/06/06/exynos-9610-chip-details-leak-14nm-process-q4-2017-release/

-------------------------------------
There is a change from the GPU of the Exynos 7872
Now it will have a Mali G71 MP1 instead of Mali T830 MP2!!!

Source: https://www.gizmochina.com/2017/06/06/samsungs-exynos-7872-will-mali-g71-mp1-gpu/
-------------------------------------

Indeed... as for the Exynos 9610 was supposed to be the competitor of the Snapdragon 660, but the GPU is a big problem on this case...

On the other side... The Exynos 7872 went DOA with this change... a decent CPU configuration with a massive dissaster on GPU....

 

[Nothingness]

GB4 iPad Pro score: http://browser.geekbench.com/v4/cpu/3036382

ST: 3832
MT: 9091

Can't say if it's a fake or not 🙂

 

[Lodix]

The next iPhone A11 SOC could be faster than this being manufactured at 10nm.

 

[jpiniero]

Well there was a chance at least that the A10X would also be fabbed at TSMC 10 but it appears not.

BTW, Apple is completely eliminating 32-bit support in iOS starting with 11 to the point where apps won't even run. I wonder if they will remove everything 32-bit in A11.

 

[dark zero]

Ok... this is unexpected...
https://www.gizmochina.com/2017/06/...w-entry-level-22nm-fd-soi-cpu-low-end-phones/

Seems that Mediatek and Global Froundies will work together on planar 22nm process.

So... NostaSeronx was right after all!

The question is... where to use those chips?
Entry level mobiles? (remember that Helio line are on 16 AND 10 nm TSMC process)
Or Tablet designs?

Also seems that Mediatek and Imagination's Power VR are definately going to join forces together but this time for real. And specially since Apple is about to leave Imagination alone.

 

[dark zero]

And sad news for Samsung...
https://www.gizmochina.com/2017/06/13/qualcomm-to-work-with-tsmc-on-7nm-mobile-chips/

Seems that Qualcomm moved again to TSMC... however considering that TSMC will face the typical supply issue due Apple... I guess Qualcomm will be left behind again....

---------

Meanwhile...

http://www.gsmarena.com/oppo_r11-review-1621p3.php

Official Snapdragon 660 benchmarks!

Geekbench 4:
Single Thread: 1596
Multi Thread: 5777

Antutu 6: 118677


Ok... seems that Snapdragon 820 was defeated CPU wise, but still has life GPU wise... also...
GPU levels of Snapdragon 660 is near on par of Adreno 430 found on the SD 810.

 

[SarahKerrigan]

the x86 to arm emulator is probably the same one used to run x86 on Itanium. I found this:
14:00

It does not seems to be very promising, but the S835 should smoke that Itanium system.

Why do you keep repeating this? I assume the Win/ARM JIT engine is a joint Qualcomm/Microsoft project, whereas the Win/IPF one was provided by Intel and integrated by Microsoft (and was actually quite good in reality - could get performance similar to a low-end Pentium4, even on less-than-IPF-friendly code streams.)

 

[dark zero]

Also... Seems that ARM has better performance now than Itanium... Their A53 cores performs as mid end Pentium 4 chips, A57 cores are Pentium D levels while the A73 are on Conroe levels.

 

[SarahKerrigan]

Also... Seems that ARM has better performance now than Itanium... Their A53 cores performs as mid end Pentium 4 chips, A57 cores are Pentium D levels while the A73 are on Conroe levels.

Itanium2 with IA-32 EL could run emulated x86 code at Pentium 4 levels. Native code perf was higher. On a reasonably friendly workload, a late model Itanium2 (Montecito/Montvale, or Tukwila) was Core2-comparable at integer at similar clocks, and higher at FP.

 

[Shivansps]

Why do you keep repeating this? I assume the Win/ARM JIT engine is a joint Qualcomm/Microsoft project, whereas the Win/IPF one was provided by Intel and integrated by Microsoft (and was actually quite good in reality - could get performance similar to a low-end Pentium4, even on less-than-IPF-friendly code streams.)

Because is the same system with a different cpu emulator.