HiSilicon Kirin 950 (Huawei Mate 8)

The SoC seems great, but I wonder if the thermal "prowess" is related to the fact that the phone is huge and the metal backplate is being used to dissipate the heat.
 
The SoC seems great, but I wonder if the thermal "prowess" is related to the fact that the phone is huge and the metal backplate is being used to dissipate the heat.

Don't think so. My HTC One M7, which is fairly large as well, can get hot to the point where it becomes uncomfortable to hold (not painful) in some circumstances so if the chip would be getting very hot but didn't throttle because of the backplate then the reviewer should have noticed the thing getting pretty hot.

Seems like cpu performance is good but the gpu is a bit meh for those that care about games. The biggest downside though is poor batter performance on LTE, losing out to the competition by a couple of hours.
 
I'm pretty interested in what the P9 can bring to the table after reading this review. SoC performance looks great, the GPU is good enough for a 1080p screen and it seems very efficient even if outright performance isn't class leading. Hopefully they can improve some of the other issues a bit with firmware or hardware revisions for future devices. Unless they really screw something up, it's looking like the P9 could be my next phone. It definitely ticks most of the boxes for me.
 
The Honor line is usually better than the P line IMO. I'm more interested in Honor 8.

Don't think so. My HTC One M7, which is fairly large as well, can get hot to the point where it becomes uncomfortable to hold (not painful) in some circumstances so if the chip would be getting very hot but didn't throttle because of the backplate then the reviewer should have noticed the thing getting pretty hot.

Well the backplate of the M7 may be half the size. This is a 6" behemoth.

http://www.phonearena.com/phones/Hu...Huawei-Mate-8_id9766/size/HTC-One/phones/7678
 
Seems Mali T880 in this process tech is a good improvement over previous Mali implementations in terms of power.

The GPU power efficency tables are a great addition to this review. Interesting to note that the table suggests that the adreno implementation in the snapdragon 805 and the Rogue implementation in the Mediatek chip have pretty much similar power efficency (the chip process is identical), but the snap dragon has a much higher performance ceiling.

It seems a glaring (deliberate ?) omission that when doing the GPU power efficency tables for mobile phone socs, that show around a dozen socs from 5 manufacturers, with 3 GPU IP providers, that what is *assumed* by many to be the most power efficient GPU/CPU SOCs out there, i.e. the Apple series, is neither listed or in fact mentioned at all. What's the point in not including what is thought to be the class leader, if only to confirm/disprove that assumption, and to see how Mali etc compare to it ?

Is there no capability to do the equivalent measurement on the A9, and if there is, is there a reason for Anandtech not to do so ?
 
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Is there no capability to do the equivalent measurement on the A9, and if there is, is there a reason for Anandtech not to do so ?
I don't have an iPhone, as simple as that. Your next question is going to be as to why we don't just buy one, and the answer to that is budget related.
 
I don't have an iPhone, as simple as that.
Oh. That's a pity i was hoping for a more mysterious answer, or a more technical one that might involve not currently being able to identify a power pick-off point on the apple soc.

Your next question is going to be as to why we don't just buy one, and the answer to that is budget related.

It really wasn't. I imagine many of the android phones for which you have data, you also don't own, but you were able to get at the inards for testing purposes and reassemble without it being a problem. I guess Apples relative in-accessibility means it's not a similarly easy proposition, and not something one might want to do on a phone you just have on loan.
 
Oh. That's a pity i was hoping for a more mysterious answer, or a more technical one that might involve not currently being able to identify a power pick-off point on the apple soc.
It would be fairly easy and straightforward to measure power on an iPhone. I'd love to include figures for Apple's chipsets but until I find some sort of solution for getting a device it unfortunately won't happen :/
It really wasn't. I imagine many of the android phones for which you have data, you also don't own, but you were able to get at the inards for testing purposes and reassemble without it being a problem. I guess Apples relative in-accessibility means it's not a similarly easy proposition, and not something one might want to do on a phone you just have on loan.
Sorry for the assumption but I get this question a lot as people have a hard time understanding how the phones are sourced. Generally phone samples we get are for us to keep with only a few exceptions. All the devices I have are basically mine. The exceptions are Samsung Mobile and Apple PR samples. Generally Josh has the Apple review samples and if he were to open up one of them we'd be basically cut off in terms of receiving future devices.
 
Thanks for the clarification, great to have that power info that you do have, ready for someday when you do have the opportunity to dial in some apple soc data.
 
I don't have an iPhone, as simple as that. Your next question is going to be as to why we don't just buy one, and the answer to that is budget related.

I find it really surprising that Apple didn't supply you with at least one review sample. I mean, it's Anandtech we're talking about. Did you do something to piss them off?
 
I find it really surprising that Apple didn't supply you with at least one review sample. I mean, it's Anandtech we're talking about. Did you do something to piss them off?

It might not be totally stupid to think that Apple exactly doesn't want people doing that level of examination. Hence loan phones that you can't open.
 
I find it really surprising that Apple didn't supply you with at least one review sample. I mean, it's Anandtech we're talking about. Did you do something to piss them off?
Apple is very closed off and if they don't know you or if you're not on good terms on a personal level with them they will simply not work with you no matter the publication.
Plus anybody sniffing around their phones and disclosing anything at all is the last thing they want.
 
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Now the A72 seems to be a much better design then the a57, but that kind of drop of power draw over the 7420 given the 0.2MHz higher frequency can't be just to that. The 16nm FF+ process from TSMC is really that much better then the 14nm LPE from Samsung?
 
There must be a significant difference because even Cortex A53 in Kirin 950 have better efficiency compared to Exynos 7420... is there any graphic for the little cores power consumption of Kirin 950 ?
 
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