ARM Shares Updated Cortex A53/A57 Performance Expectations
by Anand Lal Shimpi on May 6, 2014 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- SoCs
- CPUs
- Arm
- Cortex A53
- Cortex A57
With the first Cortex A53 based SoCs due to ship in the coming months, and Cortex A57 based designs to follow early next year, ARM gave us a quick update on performance expectations for both cores. Given the timing of both designs we'll see a combination of solutions built on presently available manufacturing processes (e.g. 28nm) as well as next gen offerings (20/16FF). The graph above gives us an updated look at performance expectations (in web browsing workloads) for both ARM 64-bit cores.
If we compare across the same process nodes (28nm in both cases), the Cortex A53 should give us nearly a 50% increase in performance compared to ARM's Cortex A7. The Cortex A57 should offer roughly the same increase in performance compared to Cortex A15 as well. Although the A57 will do so at higher power, power efficiency may be better depending on the workload thanks to the added performance. Thankfully we won't see many A57 designs built on 28nm in mobile (AMD's first Cortex A57 design will be aimed at servers and is built on a 28nm process).
If you combine architectural improvements with a new process node, the gains are substantial. Move to 20nm or 16FF for these designs and the improvement over their 32-bit predecessors easily exceeds 50%.
ARM also provided some Geekbench 3 performance data comparing the Cortex A57 to A15, both in 32-bit and 64-bit mode. We already know Geekbench 3 is particularly sensitive to the new instructions that come along with AArch64, but even in 32-bit mode there's still a 15 - 30% increase in performance over the Cortex A15 at the same clocks.
Qualcomm has already announced its Snapdragon 410, 610 and 615 will use ARM's Cortex A53, while its 808 and 810 will use a combination of Cortex A53s and A57s.
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Wilco1 - Tuesday, May 6, 2014 - link
According to the Geekbench graph above, A53 in 64-bit mode has 75% of the IPC of A15. Of course it runs at lower frequencies, so you'd probably get about half of the performance of today's high-end A15.extide - Tuesday, May 6, 2014 - link
Look at the pictures in the article, this exact scenario is displayed.darkich - Tuesday, May 6, 2014 - link
As far as I know, A57 can be clocked over 3GHz.So chips with, say, quad 3GHz A57 CPU and Maxwell Tegra GPU configuration could be one helluva prospect for tablets and serious chromebooks
bigstrudel - Tuesday, May 6, 2014 - link
Stock Arm cores for all new models for Qualcomm? Lazy. Custom cores are much more interesting.TheJian - Tuesday, May 6, 2014 - link
Nvidia has already announced IN HOUSE Denver cores which 810 is NOT. I don't understand your Qcom qualifier here as if it's special or in a great position (their move to 64bit is a mistake they have to fix, not a well executed plan). It's the exact opposite as they missed the 64bit boat and had to choose off the shelf IP for the cpu's until 6-12 months later than usual when they can get their own cores out he door. I can't see off the shelf IP beating NV's custom cores in battery and we already know the gpu is top notch with kepler which will further add to the quality of their games (tegrazone has a huge lead in optimized games that look better than other hardware). In a tablet it will be tough to argue for Qcom this year at xmas and a good portion of next year probably too. If google really is re-tooling their 10in tablet as a gaming tablet with T4/K1 NV will start to catch on at just the right time for gpus to take over modems in the food chain. Now that they i500 certified NV's follow ups to T4i should be impressive on all fronts. Modems are becoming moot points (2GB caps make faster speeds pointless, that isn't even a single 720p movie) and Qcom isn't in house like krait/swift now for their next chips so their battery life won't look like krait/swift as before. There is a reason Krait/Swift have great battery/perf combo.Qcom's two main advantages are gone with 810 and will take another gen to catch back up. A software modem may actually end up being better than hardware based also, but we'll have to wait and see how that plays out. More importantly NV's gpu's will be hard to beat from here out as every desktop chip gets plopped into a soc a year later with all game devs knowing full well how to use them inside & out. What qcom did to the mobile industry with modems NV is about to do to it with gpus. Soul Craft, Heroes Call, Blood Sword: Sword of Ruin, Raven Sword, Bounty Arms, King's Bounty Legions, etc etc show you where mobile is heading (straight into console's worlds, they are way deeper/better than angry birds these days). They already are moving over games like Mount & Blade Warband (a 2010 PC game), GTA San Andreas (the whole 70hr game) etc showing many won't have a need for console this year or next as their mobile device is capable of playing a few hundred gamepad games already (330+ as of april, surely will head on up with shield rev2 coming next month or july). Cut down or not effects wise these will be drawing lots of users and the experience is best on NV hands down and I can't wait to see what K1 games bring. It doesn't have to be new content to win gamers who have never seen the old stuff on xbox360/ps3/pc.
The coming crop of games will make an xbox360/ps3 not necessary for most and the die shrink after 20nm will make consoles moot for a majority of the rest especially the ones with pc's already. I don't see all these lost console gamers moving to qcom mobile chips without some major work on Qcom's part (where are qcom optimized games?). You can already see the quality starting to come from Tegrazone games. Next gen sales will be ruled by the best gpu's/games. With 70% of our time on mobile being spent on gaming it's easy to see why devs massively went mobile (sheer units force you to pay attention, 1.2B per year already) and why the GPU will rule vs. modem going forward.
People see Tegra as a failure but don't understand the first 4 were just about making noise and getting noticed until the real war began with K1/desktop gpus and a modem that is good enough to get into phones (leveling the playing field, time to compete in NV's wheelhouse: GAMING). AMD needs to hurry up, as there is plenty of room for both NV/AMD in eating Qcom's $6B+ profit pie for a while, not to mention the share mobile will steal from notebooks/desktops soon in x86 world (already getting 21% of notebooks, so Intel pie can be had to some extent also as shown by chromebooks). AMD makes nearly nothing and NV is only pocketing ~$600mil/year right now. Merely getting 10% of Qcom's market gets tegra to double NV's income (never mind how much this would help AMD). It only takes a few good design wins to garner a good chunk of sales. NV can bleed Intel's lawsuit payments until this happens (which is what they've been doing, Intel's payments cover tegra losses/R&D) as their top gpus move into socs. I don't see anyone else even on the gaming map yet, even apple doesn't seem to get it so far. If gaming isn't your #1 priority on mobile you're going to lose the next war as gaming moves from consoles to mobile and the rest back to PC (as GDC 2013/2014 shows). PC is now #1 with devs with mobile just a decimal behind (console FAR behind both)! The 808/810 are nothing special. I have no need for faster modems these days (well at home maybe, but that is unlimited, pointless on phones however) but I can always use better gaming. NV's software modem might be upgradable to 300 anyway (already did once to 150). You've already said the modem IP isn't the winner in that 808/810 article already so not sure how you think they win a gpu game with NV way out in front no matter how you slice it. Qcom is now behind with no custom A57's until 2h2015. That means someone else will be the top choice for at least tablets and maybe phones if NV can get a modem into a K1 chip soon enough to take real advantage of Qcom's 64bit mess up. The tablets should start to be a no-brainer soon.
I hope you guys are planning on covering NV's quarterly report like you did AMD's (still waiting for the NV portal to show up...LOL). Leaks show NV had a great quarter yet again (166mil income) and this is still with them eating tegra losses that should stop as soon as K1 kicks in. Net profit nearly double last year's quarter and margins up again.
wintermute000 - Wednesday, May 7, 2014 - link
too bad all the T2/T3 misses burnt all their bridges with all the OEMs. None of the big players trust Nvidia now. Thats a bigger problem than anything technical.darkich - Wednesday, May 7, 2014 - link
Awesome post.A bit away from the point about gaming imo - mobile games aren't going to be replaced with pc ports, and we are not going to start using smartphones and tablets as consoles. The fact is mobile games are a new, strongly established entity and will only continue to grow and develop in the taken direction instead of trying to copy other platforms - but again, awesome post.
phoenix_rizzen - Wednesday, May 7, 2014 - link
We'll see.Fool me once (T1), shame on me.
Fool me twice (T2), shame on you.
Fool me thrice (T3), why are we still talking?
Fool me a fourth time (T4), is anyone even paying attention?
Fool me a fifth time (K1) ... oh, wait, we all gave up a long time ago; there won't be a fifth time.
nVidia may have the greatest SoC since sliced bread, but who is going to go to bat for them a fifth time?
tuxRoller - Wednesday, May 7, 2014 - link
I guess we all have our dreams.sonicmerlin - Wednesday, May 7, 2014 - link
So how does the A57 compare to a Core 2 Duo?