Snapdragon S3 does not use Cortex-A9 cores. It uses dual Scorpion cores. Scorpion is more like an advanced Cortex-A8 than a Cortex-A9. It has a longer pipeline and only partial support for out-of-order execution. That's why it's often clocked higher than Cortex-A9 cores but doesn't perform any better.
Kal-els GPU is by no means vastly superior in performance it is only about twice or third times as fast as Tegra 2. So it's still slower then 543MP2. There will be plenty of quad-cores with mali around next year too.
543MP2 is not relevant here since no SoCs using Android are using it now or in the imediate future (to contradict the claim that Mali will be king for some time).As a side note some folks like to brag about how fast Apple's SoC is but they forget to mention how huge it is compared to others and what kind of costs such a huge die would imply. Plenty of quad cores next year(with any GPU)? Not so much.I can only think of Nvidia and Creative having quad cores that soon but not Qualcomm, or TI or Marvell or ST-E.
Hmm... lots to digest, and yes this might end up being a post in the future.
Hummingbird's 540 ran at ~200 MHz, and if you look at some of the data you can bear this out with the Hummingbird performing ~33% worse than the OMAP 4430 on GLbench.
Scorpion's memory I can't comment decisively on but I'll do some research on that.
For later chips, the OMAP5 will still use TI's PowerVR SGX platform, and it will in the first mobile iteration use the 544-MPx, and the x is a variable. For power reasons it will likely still be a single unit, but later iterations might be of the MP2 variety, and even still, the MP1 variety will be a pretty big bump in performance. When we have more details, you'll have more details.
Check out Anand's discussions on mobile GPUs (I love that that term used to be used for laptops not phones) in our SGSII review. He discusses a lot of the issues relevant here. Thanks for the comment.
"TI's PowerVR SGX" Surley you mean Imagination's PowerVR SGX platform. Apple have a 10% stake in the company presumably why the A5 outperforms anything else in that line up (& not just graphics) - they should just buy it. Imagination are releasing the "Rogue" products next year I'm hoping it'll be in the A6 - insane specs and, fingers crossed, Caustic's real-time ray-trace engine - games that look like Pixar movies!
Apple are so ahead of the curve in this but they'll need that graphics punch for the S3 tech Google map replacement - photo-realistic immersive 3D mapping - like Inception on my iPad.
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23 Comments
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dagamer34 - Thursday, November 3, 2011 - link
The Galaxy Tab 7.0 doesn't have a Super AMOLED+ HD display like the 7.7 has. =/zeth006 - Sunday, November 6, 2011 - link
Oh, please! Samsung probably hasn't found a way to make 7" Super AMOLED+ HD displays cheaply yet!solarein - Thursday, November 3, 2011 - link
Snapdragon S3 does not use Cortex-A9 cores. It uses dual Scorpion cores. Scorpion is more like an advanced Cortex-A8 than a Cortex-A9. It has a longer pipeline and only partial support for out-of-order execution. That's why it's often clocked higher than Cortex-A9 cores but doesn't perform any better.JasonInofuentes - Thursday, November 3, 2011 - link
Fixed.michael2k - Thursday, November 3, 2011 - link
No Android SoC uses the SGX 543MP2?warisz00r - Thursday, November 3, 2011 - link
Not yet.tipoo - Thursday, November 3, 2011 - link
Nope. I hope they come soon though. And the Adreno set to be in the next generation Snapdragons looks to be comparable on paper at least.jalexoid - Thursday, November 3, 2011 - link
Maybe Sony can get MP4 from PSVita and get it onto their next Xperia Play.jjj - Thursday, November 3, 2011 - link
"the Mali-400 will be king of the Android GPU hill for some time"Asus Transformer Prime is to be announced on nov 9 so Mali could be forced to abdicate soon.
MonkeyPaw - Thursday, November 3, 2011 - link
Not sure what you mean. Mali-400 is a GPU, and from what I gather, it's very potent.Penti - Thursday, November 3, 2011 - link
Kal-els GPU is by no means vastly superior in performance it is only about twice or third times as fast as Tegra 2. So it's still slower then 543MP2. There will be plenty of quad-cores with mali around next year too.jjj - Thursday, November 3, 2011 - link
543MP2 is not relevant here since no SoCs using Android are using it now or in the imediate future (to contradict the claim that Mali will be king for some time).As a side note some folks like to brag about how fast Apple's SoC is but they forget to mention how huge it is compared to others and what kind of costs such a huge die would imply.Plenty of quad cores next year(with any GPU)? Not so much.I can only think of Nvidia and Creative having quad cores that soon but not Qualcomm, or TI or Marvell or ST-E.
skydrome1 - Thursday, November 3, 2011 - link
Well, with the PS Vita coming soon, I'm pretty sure there'll be a modded version of Android for dual booting :)Then Android will have the fastest GPU again. Until Series 6, that is.
lmcd - Thursday, November 3, 2011 - link
I'm looking at the graphics comparison in the second-to-last paragraph, and would like some more details to help compare:What was the clock frequency of the PowerVR SGX 540 in Hummingbird? It'd be useful for comparison.
Wasn't Scorpion Single-Channel as well (in practice)?
For comparison with later chips:
What GPU is OMAP 5xxx? Everyone is citing iPad2-killing, but isn't it 544, not 544MP2? So wouldn't 543MP2 still win?
(This could basically be the source of a mobile graphics round-up, but it's important for purchasing decisions).
JasonInofuentes - Sunday, November 6, 2011 - link
Hmm... lots to digest, and yes this might end up being a post in the future.Hummingbird's 540 ran at ~200 MHz, and if you look at some of the data you can bear this out with the Hummingbird performing ~33% worse than the OMAP 4430 on GLbench.
Scorpion's memory I can't comment decisively on but I'll do some research on that.
For later chips, the OMAP5 will still use TI's PowerVR SGX platform, and it will in the first mobile iteration use the 544-MPx, and the x is a variable. For power reasons it will likely still be a single unit, but later iterations might be of the MP2 variety, and even still, the MP1 variety will be a pretty big bump in performance. When we have more details, you'll have more details.
Check out Anand's discussions on mobile GPUs (I love that that term used to be used for laptops not phones) in our SGSII review. He discusses a lot of the issues relevant here. Thanks for the comment.
McDave - Thursday, November 17, 2011 - link
"TI's PowerVR SGX"Surley you mean Imagination's PowerVR SGX platform. Apple have a 10% stake in the company presumably why the A5 outperforms anything else in that line up (& not just graphics) - they should just buy it. Imagination are releasing the "Rogue" products next year I'm hoping it'll be in the A6 - insane specs and, fingers crossed, Caustic's real-time ray-trace engine - games that look like Pixar movies!
Apple are so ahead of the curve in this but they'll need that graphics punch for the S3 tech Google map replacement - photo-realistic immersive 3D mapping - like Inception on my iPad.
summershine - Friday, November 4, 2011 - link
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McDave - Thursday, November 17, 2011 - link
Er, no. That'll be the one on the middle.