[french toast]

Am I right in thinking..that the adreno seems to excel at heavy shader workloads? According to nenamark and gl benchmark 2.5 the adreno 225 performs much much better than gl benchmark 2.1...

Where as power vr sgx 5 series seems to be a good all rounder...but doesn't seem to be as quick per execution resources...as adreno (with decent drivers) on more advanced shader oriented workloads.

So...looking at the disparity between adreno 225 scores between gl benchmark 2.1 - 2.5...could we also expect a similar trend with adreno 320...where as the performance is far better than the Egypt 720p tests?...

If so we could be in for a shock when the scores debut for 2.5...it has a good chance to overtake the A5x..despite A5x having quad memory and being a tablet chip...and adreno has no access to lpddr3 as yet and likely on immature drivers...
http://www.anandtech.com/show/6126/glbenchmark-25-performance-on-ios-and-android-devices/2

[Arun]

Originally Posted by french toast

If so we could be in for a shock when the scores debut for 2.5...it has a good chance to overtake the A5x..

I'd personally be in for a shock if the Adreno 320 wasn't at least in the same ballpark Remember that Adreno 320 is supposedly 4 TMUs@400MHz or 1600MPix/s peak while the A5X is 2000MPix/s according to GLBenchmark. At the same time, the Adreno 225 already had 2x the raw GFlops compared to SGX per TMU, and you'd expect efficiency to have improved further in Adreno 320. So 0.8x the fillrate and >1.6x the GFLOPS in a flops-heavy benchmark that does very good front-to-back sorting so TBDR helps but not as much as in typical workloads - yeah, I'd be disappointed if the Adreno 320 wasn't fairly competitive, speaking strictly for myself.

despite A5x having quad memory and being a tablet chip...

And being on 45nm versus 28nm for the Adreno 320 - today's tablets chips are tomorrow's smartphone chips...

[french toast]

Ha yea true...BUT even on 32nm hkmg I doubt iPhone 5 A5x will have the same clocks (if we get A5x at all?).

Something to consider is if Qualcomm got serious with their commitment to development and did an nvidia utilising those 4 kraits, open cl and halti api s...then games could be looking astounding...and would be on another level completely compared to iPad 3. .

[rpg.314]

Originally Posted by Ryan Smith

PowerVR's scalable core count is as much multi-GPU as a Radeon HD 7970 is a 7770 in tri-CF. Which is to say it's 1 GPU with multiple functional units, a far different beast than discrete GPUs.

Absolutely not. See Arun's answer.

[ams]

I think he was trying to say that PVR scalable core count is not the same thing as Crossfire/SLI multi-GPU, which is true, but the analogy between 7970 vs. 7770 Trifire may be a bit off.

[Lazy8s]

The issue becomes the degree of redundancy.

A Series5XT MP core by itself works as an independent GPU.

[3dcgi]

If it's on the same piece of silicon it's not the same as Crossfire or SLI.

[Ailuros]

Originally Posted by 3dcgi

If it's on the same piece of silicon it's not the same as Crossfire or SLI.

Yes and you're all right in a way. Because 5XT MPs scale entire cores (on the same piece of silicon) there's an amount of redundancy involved, being probably the primary reason why Rogue scales clusters instead of entire cores this time. The most important difference however between 5XT MPs and desktop mGPUs, is that the latter rely on AFR no added hw, while the first on SFR with hw scheduling logic (oversimplified).

[mboeller]

Originally Posted by Ailuros

.....while the first on SFR with hw scheduling logic (oversimplified).

and:
not only the fillrate increases, but also the polygon throughput.
If you look at a few of the offscreen-results from anandtech the triangle rate increases nearly 2-times between the MP2 and the MP4.

[Ailuros]

Originally Posted by mboeller

and:
not only the fillrate increases, but also the polygon throughput.
If you look at a few of the offscreen-results from anandtech the triangle rate increases nearly 2-times between the MP2 and the MP4.

IMG heavily marketed that geometry scaling for MPs is at 95%.

[Lazy8s]

I assumed the increased detail of GLBench 2.5 over 2.1 would let the new iPad's A5X stretch its legs for a more accurate representation of its performance, so I wasn't interpreting the iPad 2 A5's proportionately lower score in the new test as underperforming. Since Kishonti only had one score range (1504 frames) uploaded for the iPad 2, though, I wanted to verify that result for any variability.

With GLBenchmark 2.5 now finally approved in the App Store, I was able to give it a run on my iPad 2 with iOS 5.1.1, and I received scores in line with the previous results (1507 frames). I noticed that, as expected for a proper TBDR, increasing the precision of the depth buffer to 24-bit and also adding 4xMSAA doesn't impact performance much.

[Ailuros]

Originally Posted by Lazy8s

I noticed that, as expected for a proper TBDR, increasing the precision of the depth buffer to 24-bit and also adding 4xMSAA doesn't impact performance much.

Excuse the hairsplitting, but the MP2 due to it being 2 full cores has 32 z/stencil units. I have my doubts that you'd get a similarly low performance drop if you'd have a single core TBDR with 16 or even 8 z/stencil units.

[Mike11]

And the results are in for Qualcomm's Adreno 320 GPU:

Qualcomm's APQ8064 and GLBenchmark 2.5 - MDP/T Results
http://www.anandtech.com/show/6185/q...5-mdpt-results

Egypt HD (Offscreen 1080p):
APQ8064: 28.6
A5X: 24

Egypt Classic (Offscreen 1080p):
APQ8064: 79.2
A5X: 87

Not a generational leap but probably good enough to share the top spot with the SGX543MP4 for the next 6 months or so (APQ8064 is not yet available in a retail device, but should be in the next 1-2 months).

[french toast]

Yea very impressive numbers too be honest....power consumption should be much less (lithography/redundency?)....and it's wayy more balanced as a overall soc.

Don't forget it also has a generation ahead of api s....

[Ailuros]

Originally Posted by Mike11

And the results are in for Qualcomm's Adreno 320 GPU:

Qualcomm's APQ8064 and GLBenchmark 2.5 - MDP/T Results
http://www.anandtech.com/show/6185/q...5-mdpt-results

Egypt HD (Offscreen 1080p):
APQ8064: 28.6
A5X: 24

Egypt Classic (Offscreen 1080p):
APQ8064: 79.2
A5X: 87

Not a generational leap but probably good enough to share the top spot with the SGX543MP4 for the next 6 months or so (APQ8064 is not yet available in a retail device, but should be in the next 1-2 months).

A5X is manufactured under 45nm and the MP4 clocked at 250MHz. Go down to 28nm and clock it at a comparable frequency as Adreno 320 (=/>400MHz?) and the picture can change radically.

It doesn't of course change what you're saying, however yes it'll take some time until 8064 shows up in devices while the iPad3 launched in Q1 this year.

[ams]

Originally Posted by Mike11

And the results are in for Qualcomm's Adreno 320 GPU:

Qualcomm's APQ8064 and GLBenchmark 2.5 - MDP/T Results
http://www.anandtech.com/show/6185/q...5-mdpt-results

Egypt HD (Offscreen 1080p):
APQ8064: 28.6
A5X: 24

Egypt Classic (Offscreen 1080p):
APQ8064: 79.2
A5X: 87

Not a generational leap but probably good enough to share the top spot with the SGX543MP4 for the next 6 months or so (APQ8064 is not yet available in a retail device, but should be in the next 1-2 months).

APQ8064 is pretty impressive when you consider that it will be available in a smartphone as early as September 2012 (http://www.anandtech.com/show/6183/q...apq8064-inside , with quantity starting to ramp up at the end of 2012 for worldwide shipments of this particular quad-core LG smartphone). Power envelope is much less strict for a tablet than a smartphone. The A5X SoC is only suitable [in it's current form] for use in a tablet. It is anticipated by many that a die-shrunk version of A5X with reduced GPU clocks will reside in iphone 5. Assuming that is the case, Qualcomm will have a very strong and formidable competitor to the iphone 5 SoC. While APQ8064 will have plenty of competition from other SoC's within the next 1-6 months, it could easily be 6-12 months from now before we see an SoC that would significantly outperform APQ8064 for use in a smartphone.

[french toast]

I said something very similar at semi accurate.

A5X is monstrous tablet chip..with puny cpus...snapdragon is more powerfull at very level...and more advanced...even if it's only marginally on open gl es 2.0 performance..like you say that is in a smartphone.

The fact is apple won't be on 28nm till 2013 sometime....snapdragon s4 pro would likely crush iPhone 5 soc ...even more so if both put in an android device.

I can't see any smartphone soc that would top it in any catorgry in the next 4-6 months....a massive time period in smartphones.

[Rys]

So you're expecting Apple's next smartphone SoC to have less GPU power than the current iPad gen3? By how much?

[Ailuros]

Originally Posted by Rys

So you're expecting Apple's next smartphone SoC to have less GPU power than the current iPad gen3? By how much?

I personally either expect the same or more but I'm more like an exception in this case

[Lazy8s]

Apple could definitely top the new iPad's performance with a 32nm A5X or even A5 clocked to high enough, still-realistic levels, but I don't necessarily see the precedent for it.

As I noted this time last cycle, about two years ago, competing for the performance crown in the incremental year of Apple's two-year SoC cycle isn't a natural expectation of them. They can add more of the same cores and/or bump clocks and bus bandwidths to remain respectable, but every other year when they change processors is when they'll kill their competitors and remain at the top in performance for unmatched periods of time (around nine months or longer).

The incremental years, like this one and the one when they moved from the A3's 150 MHz SGX535 to the A4's 200 MHz SGX535, are the years when I'd expect the other PowerVR licensees to have their new solutions reach market and compete at the high end for performance. Last time around, it was Samsung with their Hummingbird SGX540 solution, and I expect to see an MP2 solution or two with 500+ MHz clock speeds this time.

As for the significance of CPU performance, it's job is to keep the system running smoothly, running the logic for the central thread, and then to get out of the way of the other, more specialized processors. Not many scenarios are worse for efficiency than a CPU that overstays or overextends its welcome on a particular workload.

[french toast]

Originally Posted by Rys

So you're expecting Apple's next smartphone SoC to have less GPU power than the current iPad gen3? By how much?

Yes of course I am...example? IPad > iPhone (all variants).
Best case example would be equal gpu and higher cpu clocks...I think apple will use the 32nm to increase battery life..and slightly performance.

On the subject of cpu power, the discussion on which is the best all around soc..which includes cpu performance....is a different discussion to how software utilises various components.

For all round goodness, I stand by saying snapdragon will rule smartphones for the next 4-6 months...exynos 5250 equipped galaxy note 2..being the only possible exception.

[Ailuros]

Why would Exynos 5250 be the only possible exception?

[french toast]

Originally Posted by Ailuros

Why would Exynos 5250 be the only possible exception?

Care to offer up some examples?

[Ailuros]

Originally Posted by french toast

Care to offer up some examples?

TI OMAP5 as just one example.

[french toast]

Originally Posted by Ailuros

TI OMAP5 as just one example.

Nope, for a start is it going to launch within 4 months? We don't know, also it has last gen graphics (although likely competitive open gl es 2.0 performance)

It would get blasted in a multi threaded scenario,(although would win single thread) and doesn't have access to on board lte baseband which alongside 4 krait cores spreading the load would give the snapdragon a power advantage.