NVIDIA Tegra Architecture

[liolio]

Atom CPU performance is just meh.

Doesn't seem like that to me, definitely good enough, as benefit power consumption would have been lower more importantly so would have been thermal dissipation.
It ticked all the boxes to me: 64bit supports, more than enough CPU or GPU performances, power consumption and thermal dissipation was also good.
The relevant metric is that that SOC literally fries the SOC powering the Nexus 7 2013, yep that Nexus that still get recommended as the best 7 inch tablets almost all over the place /web.

The whole thing is that the Nexus 9 is not a good design and raw power can't save it. There are other options for those pursuing raw power, that includes Nvidia own product /but that is another topic.

 

[Laurent06]

Google was not looking for "good enough" performance whatever that means.

 

[liolio]

Google was not looking for "good enough" performance whatever that means.

It is unclear what Google was looking for with that Nexus release, it tries to be an iPad and it fails at it:
It is heavier.
It is thicker.
It gets warm.
Pixel density went actually down from previous release and also other competing devices.
Built quality ain't that great.
It has great performances but it ain't significantly better than the Shield tablet or the Mipad for example.
What Google wanted undisputably was 64bit CPU.

"Good enough" means that it has enough power to run nowadays apps (which is a different matter than benchmarks), the nexus 7 2013 is still good enough for lots of websites, not obscure ones, to recommand it as the best 7 inch tablet.

 

[swaaye]

Why would they want 64bit so bad? It's not like it ships with 6GB RAM. My feeling is Google / HTC were sold on NV performance promises and probably pricing. I'm sure NV wanted the deal very badly. Maybe past history working with them too.

I was going to buy Nexus 9 because of the touted CPU performance and 4:3 screen. But not so sure about it now, with the heat and performance quirks. Maybe if the price drops. It doesn't sound like a high quality design.

I'm looking forward to seeing 14nm Atom. I really like my Venue 8 Pro. Windows 8 is extremely useful.

 

[Ailuros]

Why would ANY manufacturer want a 64bit CPU badly these days?

[captain obvious mode]Marketing.[/captain obvious mode]

"Good enough" means that it has enough power to run nowadays apps (which is a different matter than benchmarks), the nexus 7 2013 is still good enough for lots of websites, not obscure ones, to recommand it as the best 7 inch tablet.

If I don't want to get locked in Apple's iOS world, but want a high end Android tablet today can you think of a better solution than the Nexus9?

 

[trinibwoy]

I would take a Galaxy S 8.4 over the Nexus 9 if I was buying today. Even though I don't like their Touchwiz UI.

 

[liolio]

I would take a Galaxy S 8.4 over the Nexus 9 if I was buying today. Even though I don't like their Touchwiz UI.

Me too, I would consider:
The Galaxy tab 8.4 S
The Sony Xperia tablet Z3 compact
The Nvidia Shield Tablet
The Mi Pad from Xiaomi
The lenovo yoga tab 2 "

I would wait a little to have choices between products coming with Lollipop, LG has not release a high end tablet in a while and I suspect that Samsung will produce an iPad air replica within its galaxy tab S line that will attract quite some attention.

May be some devices in the list are not "high end enough" but nowadays there are tablets under 200$ that offers pretty fantastic performances and user experiences. I guess for some people good enough is more a matter of how much you pay and the social prestige.

 

[Ailuros]

Me too, I would consider:

May be some devices in the list are not "high end enough" but nowadays there are tablets under 200$ that offers pretty fantastic performances and user experiences. I guess for some people good enough is more a matter of how much you pay and the social prestige.

If I am to buy a Xiaomi, I can also buy any other Onda, Rockchip etc. tablet at an even lower price. Descriptions like high end, mainstream, low end aren't just freely invented and no you just can't throw them all into the same pot. The Nexus9 launch isn't up to snuff and the blame goes to Google only, but then again are all the forementioned alternative solutions all that much better in the end? With a chinese tablet you'd have to pray that even the basics work as expected in the beginning and it gets quite a bit better after a handful of firmware updates. Others stuff their devices full with nonsensical bloatware or the hw scores nice in public benchmarks only while it throttles like hell in real time and the list goes on. Long story short: there is no perfection anywhere.

Point being in the given case if I as a consumer would want an iPad Air2 contender from the Android world in my mind right now the only other option is the Nexus9. In any other case I could fetch an Onda V989 at way less than the Air2 but I'd also will have to live with 1/5th the GPU performance in the end.

 

[liolio]

I think perception slowly start to shift, Chinese products used to be considered nothing less more than cheap crap, it is no longer true anymore.
A brand like Xiaomi has ambition, a lot, the Mipad is a quality product, few reviews gave it the credit it deserves (DF review was unbiased a couple others too), for most big mainstream sites it was a good cheap Chinese toy, I'm not sure about how to read that: lack of marketing money from Xiaomi, marketing money from other manufacturers, prejudices if not xenophonic sentiment? It is not my point.

The Mi Pad is high end, replace Xiaomi by Google, slap Kitkat on it, and the press would have gladly sang its merits to the world as the Nexus 8.
Good retina display, great SOC, 2GB of RAM, SD card, good camera, etc. Imo it is every bit as high as the Nexus 9, no matter the big Google marketing push. It is an iPad mini 2 "killer" whatever that means.

Truth be told, I think that "real" Android high end is impersonate through the Galaxy Tab 10.5 S. It is almost too high end, performances are great (no longer the best), the screen is awesome, actually its "high end"ness hurts it as resolution so high that you are likely to watched at upscaled content.
I also see the "high end"ness in Sony tablets (or Apple on the other side).

Notwithstanding Google impressive marketing push, the Nexus 9 is in no way "the" Android tablet.

EDIT
It is in your mind and in quite a few others, marketing push as been strong (months of Nexus and Android L, again MONTHS ), it is also interesting to see how that device is reviewed, it is more than often pit against Apple products, it fails here harder than reviewers make it sounds imo and I'm pretty adverse to Apple environment but that is not my point, the thing is it also fails against quite a few devices in the Android realms.
The halo surrounding given products is marketing/brand related, king are not born but made nowadays. It would take a lot more than specs and software to take on Apple prestige, Google understood that pretty well.

 

[Ailuros]

I think perception slowly start to shift, Chinese products used to be considered nothing less more than cheap crap, it is no longer true anymore.
A brand like Xiaomi has ambition, a lot, the Mipad is a quality product, few reviews gave it the credit it deserves (DF review was unbiased a couple others too), for most big mainstream sites it was a good cheap Chinese toy, I'm not sure about how to read that: lack of marketing money from Xiaomi, marketing money from other manufacturers, prejudices if not xenophonic sentiment? It is not my point.

I never said, implied or meant any of the kind. I actually buy more products from them than the average consumer, but that has nothing to do with the topic at hand. If I am to go for a Xiaomi I'll have to tolerate their custom UI and will have to install a number of applications and it's likelier that I'll never get an update to a newer OS version then to get one. The MiPad might turn out to be an exeption, but it's a general trend either way for those kind of devices and they're not comparable with a Google Android reference device either way one would want to twist it.

The Mi Pad is high end, replace Xiaomi by Google, slap Kitkat on it, and the press would have gladly sang its merits to the world as the Nexus 8.
Good retina display, great SOC, 2GB of RAM, SD card, good camera, etc. Imo it is every bit as high as the Nexus 9, no matter the big Google marketing push. It is an iPad mini 2 "killer" whatever that means.

The MiPad is a 7.9" tablet and the N9 a 8.9" tablet. It can be seen in relative terms as an "iPadmini2" and 3 killer but definitely not in sales volumes. Either all chinese online retailers are stating wrong "best selling" rankings on their sites because the MiPad doesn't even appear in the first 20 tablets for that.

Albeit just an indirect indication NV's latest financial results show much better Tegra sales, but there weren't any unusual "fireworks" to be seen either.

Notwithstanding Google impressive marketing push, the Nexus 9 is in no way "the" Android tablet.

Nexus6 doesn't seem to be "the" Android smartphone either. Considering that I just read Anandtech's review about it, it's battery life for browsing sounds awefully poor for my taste and the GPU throttles around like there's no tomorrow under heavy 3D.

 

[liolio]

The Mi Pad suffered both from both Android (or the surrounding ecosystem /apps) iffy support of 4:3 screen ratio and from the fact that Xiaomi is still mostly focused on the Chinese market. I guess the later is a lot more relevant and on that market it might not be perceived as affordable.
Anyway my point is that now that support is coming the Mi Pad could prove to be a an unknown jem for those in the known,.

As we are in the Tegra thread I think it is safe to say that actually Nvidia SOC save the day for the Nexus 9. I hope Denver proves itself in the long run, we (customers) need proper competition.

 

[Helmore]

Considering that I just read Anandtech's review about it, it's battery life for browsing sounds awefully poor for my taste and the GPU throttles around like there's no tomorrow under heavy 3D.

Almost sounds like a familiar problem. Weren't there similar stories about the previous Nexii? (Is that the right plural form of Nexus?) IIRC, the Nexus 4 and 5 were also criticised for throttling more than other similar phones.

 

[Ailuros]

Almost sounds like a familiar problem. Weren't there similar stories about the previous Nexii? (Is that the right plural form of Nexus?) IIRC, the Nexus 4 and 5 were also criticised for throttling more than other similar phones.

Point being that there nothing is ever really perfect in the end.

 

[Ailuros]

The Mi Pad suffered both from both Android (or the surrounding ecosystem /apps) iffy support of 4:3 screen ratio and from the fact that Xiaomi is still mostly focused on the Chinese market. I guess the later is a lot more relevant and on that market it might not be perceived as affordable.
Anyway my point is that now that support is coming the Mi Pad could prove to be a an unknown jem for those in the known,.

I honestly hope that the MiPad will get as frequent updates as a Google reference device, I just don't believe it until I see it.

As we are in the Tegra thread I think it is safe to say that actually Nvidia SOC save the day for the Nexus 9. I hope Denver proves itself in the long run, we (customers) need proper competition.

K1 is a fine SoC but mostly due to its outstanding GPU. I know I'm going to get lynched again for that, but IMHO NV should have still addressed the lower end/higher volume ULP market years ago...

 

[Alexko]

Almost sounds like a familiar problem. Weren't there similar stories about the previous Nexii? (Is that the right plural form of Nexus?) IIRC, the Nexus 4 and 5 were also criticised for throttling more than other similar phones.

Well the Nexus 5 finishes the endurance test with higher performance than the Nexus 6 ( http://www.anandtech.com/show/8687/the-nexus-6-review/2 ) so this model at least is not prone to excessive throttling.

P.S.: It's nexuses in English, nexi in the original Latin (in the nominative case).

 

[Ailuros]

Nexii sounds sexier though

 

[liolio]

I honestly hope that the MiPad will get as frequent updates as a Google reference device, I just don't believe it until I see it.

No need for hoping it won't happen Though it applies to most devices not Nexus.

K1 is a fine SoC but mostly due to its outstanding GPU. I know I'm going to get lynched again for that, but IMHO NV should have still addressed the lower end/higher volume ULP market years ago...

From what I gathered from reviews, it is a bit of a push over (both heat and power consumption), Nvidia absolutely want PR wins and the chip seems meant to operate at lower clock speeds. It is the same for the tegra 4 (I don't know for the tegra 4i).
Nvidia has hunt for PR wins more than design wins, or it's been more a matter of brand management while they were getting "up to speed". Lets hope they do better now that they have CPU core, their main gpu line on SOC and that they won't face again production delays and that they can fight with the best.
There was surely mistake but Nvidia managed to exist on a sector where most likely its competitors have access to way higher budgets.

 

[Picao84]

K1 is a fine SoC but mostly due to its outstanding GPU. I know I'm going to get lynched again for that, but IMHO NV should have still addressed the lower end/higher volume ULP market years ago...

Yes, if my past experience serves for anything, you will be lynched. I said that several times and was. Truth to be told, nVIDIA would have to change a bit to do that. There aren't higher margins in the low end ULP SoC space and nVIDIA business model is based around high margin markets. I think that is the main reason why they didn't do it. Unfortunately it might bite them in the ass in the future. Just like smartphones has comoditised, automotive will too. In fact nVIDIA margins there are already falling as we speak..

 

[Ailuros]

Yes, if my past experience serves for anything, you will be lynched. I said that several times and was. Truth to be told, nVIDIA would have to change a bit to do that. There aren't higher margins in the low end ULP SoC space and nVIDIA business model is based around high margin markets. I think that is the main reason why they didn't do it. Unfortunately it might bite them in the ass in the future. Just like smartphones has comoditised, automotive will too. In fact nVIDIA margins there are already falling as we speak..

I don't look good in feathers Jokes aside their current strategy isn't taking them anywhere and it is disappointing to me as they could had evolved in the past years into one of the sizeable players in the ULP market.

As for the automotive I have my own share of layman's insight, but I'll keep it to myself for now otherwise folks here will stay out of feathers *snicker*

 

[liolio]

You can add laptop too the list of commodities, Windows 10 will face some hard competition, 149$ Chromebook are coming from Asus and Lenovo (11.6" screens according to the rumors). Rockchip processor RK3188.

Back to NV, an issue they face is that one of their main advantage, software, doesn't do much for them on those markets. Simply put most of task are not that demanding and the entry bar for good enough is easier and easier to reach.
More demanding games could help but at the most moment the market makes sure that any increase in GPU performance is eaten away through resolution increase.