Snapdragon 805 Benchmarked, NVIDIA Holds A Commanding Lead

Qualcomm's upcoming flagship SoC, the Snapdragon 805 has been benchmarked by Anandtech.

Snapdragon 805 introduces a new Krait 450 CPU core, a large memory bandwidth (25.6 GB/s), and a new GPU architecture in the form of the Adreno 420 (enables DX11.2 support, GLES3.1, tessellation, etc.).

Despite the improvement over Snapdragon 801, when it comes down to the performance, it would appear (for once) that NVIDIA has a substantial lead.

NVIDIA's Tegra K1 was their first serious attempt at bringing their desktop architecture to mobile, and it appears to be paying off.

GFXBench 3.0 Manhattan (Offscreen 1080p)

1. Xiaomi MiPad (Tegra K1) - 29.5 Fps
2. Qualcomm MPD/T (Snapdragon 805) - 17.7 Fps
3. Apple iPad Air (Apple A7) - 13 Fps

GFXBench 3.0 T-Rex HD (Offscreen 1080p)

1. Xiaomi MiPad (Tegra K1) - 59.1 Fps
2. Qualcomm MPD/T (Snapdragon 805) - 40.7 Fps
3. Apple iPad Air (Apple A7) - 26.2 Fps

It is important to note that these benchmarks are based off of OpenGL ES 3.0 and 2.0. The capabilities of both Snapdragon 805, and especially Tegra K1 go beyond what these benchmarks test.

In early 2015 Qualcomm will have their Snapdragon 810 on the market with a brand new architecture and an Adreno 430 GPU. However, NVIDIA will not be backing off. Their 'Tegra M1' (featuring a 20 nm process and Maxwell architecture) will be right around the corner.

NVIDIA's next challenger will be Apple backed by Imagination's PowerVR 6XT series GPU, and they don't usually disappoint.

LOL mobile gaming.

So tegra k1 comes out on top by a good margin. Seems like a great chip.

The funny thing is cell phones are faster than ps3/360/wii. By 2015 cell phones should be at wii u level. On pc the wii u is already being emulated and should be stable by 2015 I hope. So all the old consoles will be useless dust bunnies.

I lumped the wii u in with the ps3/360 as it's about 50 percent stronger. I can already run wii games at 1080p on my 800/330 cell phones. Basically the vita and 3ds have become obsolete. You can download emulators and roms to your cell phone for free. Then just buy a controller with the extra battery and you have hours of 1080p gaming. You get home and you mirror your phone to your hdtv.

At the pace cell phones are moving they will be xflop level in a couple years. IMO handhelds are dead.

The Tegra K1 (32-bit) inside of the Xiaomi MiPad is running slightly underclocked (2.2GHz) and with only 2 GB of RAM. The Tegra K1 reference tablet was running at 2.3GHz and using 4 GB of RAM. So I would expect higher performance from a 'Shield 2' device.

There will also be a 64-bit version of Tegra K1 out before the end of this year. It will be using two of NVIDIA's in-house Denver (ARMv8) cores, and they're quite large.

So as a consumer, what can I get out of this?

You've made it clear previously that you have no intention of actually contributing to these threads or even bother reading them. I'll ask again that you stop posting in these threads if you have nothing to contribute. Inflammatory posting is in bad manner and against the rules of this board.

Wow, unexpected. I was expecting Nvidia to hype hype hype again then end up losing. That is good, but Nvidia's problem is still trying to get their chips into devices and actually stay in devices.

Compared to the entire industry, very few mobile devices use Nvidia chips and a lot of the ones who do, don't end up staying with Nvidia for long. A couple of more generations like this and Nvidia will have a bigger money funnel with Tegra (no matter how good the chip is).

If gaming is a priority, a Tegra K1 device will be better suited than a Snapdragon 805 device, not only due to a performance jump, but API support. Snapdragon 805 would likely perform close to, or possibly beneath, a PS3/360, while Tegra K1 would be on top.

We've already seen direct PC ports on Tegra K1 (Serious Sam 3 and Trine 2), and older ports on last year's Tegra 4 (Portal and Half Life 2). Tegra K1 made it easy for developers to directly port PC titles (as long as they can run on Linux/Steambox).

Hmm, I see. And could I get this sort of performance in my phone? I'm currently rocking the first year of my Galaxy Note 3 and its SD 800, but I'm excited to see what two years down the line can bring.

You must be new here.

how many Mr Terry Flops? adreno 420 ... up to 40% higher performance than snapdragon 800 which had 115.2 to 148 giggy flops.

so about xbox 360 level graphics then? that was a quarter of a terry flop if I'm not mistaken.

You get mobile gaming at 1080p

nes/snes/n64/gc/wii also genesis/saturn/dreamcast also psp/ps1/ps2 also ds and gameboy that is what the 800/300 gives you. In addition to the usual smart phone features.

Not sure, but GFlops don't paint the entire picture.

When Qualcomm says "Snapdragon 800", they're likely referencing the later overclocked variants (ie. AB and AC), also known as Snapdragon 801.

For reference, the Nexus 5 in the OpenGL ES 3.0 test scored about half of the Snapdragon 805's score.

GFXBench 3.0 Manhattan (Offscreen 1080p)

1. Qualcomm MPD/T (Snapdragon 805) - 17.7 Fps
2. LG Nexus 5 (Snapdragon 800) - 8.7 Fps

Which one performs better in non graphic related benchmarks/tasks (physics benchmarks, web browsing, etc.)?

Yes, similar performance can be expected from a phone.

So far they favour Tegra K1.

On paper the K1 is stronger but the snapdragon has everything made for it. IMO until the K1 catches on I am going with what I know works. In 2015 I may go nvidia who knows??

But what about size and power consumption? It's no use Nvidia being 40%+ faster they there use 40%+ more power.

Also what about the camera

We don't have full details on power consumption just yet, but you shouldn't expect anything drastic. NVIDIA had performance and efficiency in mind when building this SoC.

The Tegra K1 device shown in the benchmarks, the Xiaomi MiPad, is using a chassis which is almost identical to the iPad Mini Retina.

Its 6700 mAh battery means its good for up to 1300 hours of standby time, 86 hours of music playback, or 11 hours of video streaming.

Credit NVIDIA Blog

MiPad specifications:

• 7.9" 2048 x 1536 display (made by Sharp / AUO)
• NVIDIA Tegra K1 (32-bit) @ 2.2GHz
• MIUI Android
• 2 GB LPDDR3 RAM
• 16 GB or 64 GB eMMC 5.0
• microSD up to 128 GB
• Front 5 MP camera
• Rear 8 MP camera
• WiFi 802.11ac 5.0GHz/ BT 4.0
• 6,700 mAh battery
• Rear stereo speakers
• 360 g
• 202.1 x 135.4 x 8.5 mm

I haven't looked into camera performance/capabilities for either SoC, so I can't comment on that.

Is the k1 going to be in a cell phone ??

The power usage seems kinda high.

That should be interesting. Qualcomm's next architecture is supposed to be 64-bit 8 core processors. It's already due early next year in the first android silver device, successor to the nexus line. Their stuff reminds me a little bit of AMD though. Even though they have the cores and the clock speeds, they still lose in performance or are very comparable to apple. They still have a headlock on mobile though I wonder if any phone OEM will take a chance with nvidia

The only Tegra 4 phone that I'm aware of is the Xiaomi Mi-3 smartphone (there was also a Snapdragon 800 AB variant), I could see them using NVIDIA again.

The Mi-3 offered ~94% of the performance of the Tegra Note 7.

This time around NVIDIA has their i500 4G LTE modem ready (currently being used in the Tegra Note 7 LTE and Surface 2 LTE), so that could be paired with Tegra K1 inside of a smartphone.

I love "LOL mobile gaming" posts, hehe. It's like watching someone 'lol' at the idea that the earth is round.

It's gunna happen, whether you see the roadmap or not, it's gunna happen. It's already happened...

The only thing we do know is that multi platform games on Tegra K1 are said to run at the same or higher settings than the xbox 360.

Croteam discussing Serious Sam 3 on Tegra K1 (link):

Yes. We were even more amazed than you are. That's the first version of SS3 for Android. And it would not have been possible without this Tegra miracle. :) This chip looks like something that will knock everyone's socks off. We couldn't believe how good it is. It supports full OpenGL4, and we practically directly ported the entire PC game to it, along with PC content. It was not cut down like e.g. for Xbox 360.

As an additional point, when we compiled the code without errors and ironed the glitches in initialization code, as soon as it started the graphics correctly for the first time, it went right through the intro sequence, and into the game. Without any noticeable visual errors. I think I can safely say this is the first time ever. Normally, we'd have a few weeks of unexplainable black screens, inverted colors, garbage in textures, broken shaders, etc, until it looks ok visually. With K1, this just worked.

This is the breaking point where we can finally start shipping same games on both PC and in the "mobile space" (including microconsoles, future TVs, etc).

Credit AlenL Developer

XBox360 = low

K1 = medium or low (depends on perf of final silicon and our optimizations)

Shield = lowest

HTH

Credit DEN [CT] Developer

You'd be surprised. It is more like Medium. Though we are still improving the performance, so it might even better in the end. This is really a good piece of hardware. Hard to believe it's a mobile platform.

Credit AlenL Developer

@NVIDIATI: @scottpsfan14: thanks gents.

and wow, that's quite the endorsement from croteam.

UPDATE: According to Xiaomi, the MiPad offers 5 hours of battery life when gaming, and 11 hours when watching videos (link). These numbers are similar to the iPad Mini Retina.

There are two chargers for the MiPad, the 5V 2A charger takes 4.5 hours to charge the device, and the 9V 1.2A charger takes 3.5 hours.

There has been some recent news that states the rumoured Nexus 8 will be using NVIDIA's Tegra K1, and not a Qualcomm SoC (link).

Due to the missing modem integration in the Snapdragon 805, a number of companies have already decided to keep using the Snapdragon 801 for their smartphones and hold off until Snapdragon 810 (or other SoCs).

I wouldn't call it a waste of time, but I doubt we'll be seeing nearly as many design wins as the Snapdragon 800/801. The Snapdragon 410/610 (ARMv8-64) will likely have a larger impact for Qualcomm in the low to mid range smartphone market, and they're launching in Q3.

We have yet to see a manufacturer announce Tegra K1 in a phone, but it wouldn't be a stretch for Xiaomi's next flagship phone will make use of it.

Lol what? In your dreams maybe.

People are still having large difficulties running dolphin and PCSX2, and your're expecting the Wii U to be "stable" by 2015?

That is a very powerful mobile chip, but how many of those will be in consumer devices? That's a big question left to be answered. I would like to see this chip on the Surface 3 (Non-pro) and be pushed in the next Samsung Galaxy tab, then maybe Nvidia will finally get a crack in the ARM pie. However, I still see some OEM's not taking the chip into their device as Nvidia is still notorious over charging its value. I could be wrong now, but I really want to see Nvidia try to get Apple's support.

I don't know how many mainstream devices will use Tegra K1. NVIDIA has stated that automotive and gaming are going to be key growth factors for Tegra K1. They're treating it as a premium SoC that is not likely to appear in anything but top of the line (Xiaomi Mi Pad) or gaming oriented devices (NVIDIA Shield 2?).

If a Surface 3 exists and is ARM based, I'm sure Microsoft will keep using Tegra SoCs.

Samsung prefers to use their in-house Exynos SoCs whenever possible, the Snapdragon SoCs have modem integration that their Exynos SoCs cannot offer. For that reason I doubt Samsung would make a Tegra K1 device.

I doubt Apple would ever use NVIDIA for their Ax SoC's. Imagination has close ties with Apple and will likely remain Apple's GPU supplier until they decide to go for an in-house approach (if they ever reach that point).

@NVIDIATI:

Meh.

I have found nothing yet that the Snapdragon 800 in my LG G2 cannot handle. No reason for me to upgrade yet. Glad to see things still progressing though.

Just as a second follow-up to this post. ASUS' Computex 2014 press event has just ended and not a single device using an ARM SoC was announced. Everything is using x86-64 Intel chips, from their phones, to phablets, to tablets, to hybrids, to laptops.

Works fine for me and everything from the wii on back works fine on my cell phone.

I have a smartphone (galaxy s3), A fire Tv, and an ouya. The problem with all of that power is there are few to 0 games around that actually use the power. There are just a few android games out there that are good looking

You can create all the powerful mobile chips you want, if the only thing that is currently doing well in the mobile market is Candy Crush then all that power is moot.

Only? What the hell are you talking about tons of mobile games are doing well

Candy Crush is hardly a graphical powerhouse.

I use the power for emulators. Turns your cell phone into a a gaming powerhouse.

No it doesn't, you are lying if you say that stuff is working fine on your phone. Dolphin for mobile didn't come out too long ago, and it runs poorly for pretty much everyone at this point. Its still in very early alpha state and its mainly for testing, not playing.

The jump from Wii to Wii U is an entire generation. The only people who are actually making the most of PCSX2 and Dolphin are people with high end overclocked CPUs. Even then, a lot of games won't work well, even if you throw better hardware at it.

Are you just throwing out random statements? That has nothing to do with what i said or what you previously said

Its late here so I may not be making sense. What I'm getting at is, the mobile gaming market is dominated by these quick and simple games that are accessible for many users on a varitiy of phones and tablets. I don't see the hype in these all powerful tablets and phones loaded with tech actually making people jump on board. Of course you will grab the attention of those gadget lovers who must have the latest and greatest but for the average Joe who spends most of the mobile gaming time playing the likes of Candy Crush and The Simpsons Taped Out these fancy graphics chips aren't going to make them swoon.