The NVIDIA SHIELD Tablet Review
by Joshua Ho on July 29, 2014 9:00 AM ESTCPU Performance
As the first Tegra K1 device the Shield tablet is especially interesting. For those unfamiliar with the Tegra K1, NVIDIA integrated four ARM Cortex A15r3 variant cores along with a fifth companion A15r3. While on the surface it seems the CPU configuration it’s largely similar to the Tegra 4, there are some substantial differences. On the process tech side, the move to 28HPm adds SiGe source and drains for PMOS transistors, which dramatically improves drive current and makes it possible to bump clocks up to 2.2GHz for the CPU cores. The new revision of Cortex A15 also means that there’s better power management which should help with power efficiency (and thus battery life). The result is that peak CPU voltage drops from 1.4 volts in Tegra 4 to 1.2V in Tegra K1, and peak clocks are higher in the K1 as well.
Of course, the truly interesting aspect are benchmarks, as those will really show the differences between Tegra 4 and Tegra K1. It will also help to establish how Tegra K1 fares against the competition.
Despite the largely similar clock speeds compared to the Snapdragon 800 we see that the Tegra K1 is generally a step above in performance. Outside of Apple’s A7 SoC and x86 SoCs, NVIDIA is generally solidly ahead of the competition. Of course, as a gaming tablet there’s a strong need for GPU performance, so we'll look at that next.
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Knowname - Wednesday, July 30, 2014 - link
you make a good point, and one I actually considered when I looked for a new toy half a month ago. The Nexus7 (2013) would be just fine for my needs. THAN I saw this out of the corner of my eye and yes, I'll admit I WAS wooed somewhat by the false fantasy that is the 'latest and greatest'. The Nexus 7 is just fine and half the price! In the end though I succumbed to consumerism and though I like to think I'm very frugal I think I made a good deal.Bottom line, it's more than just a little snappier, it's THREE TIMES as snappy! The speakers are an upgrade, the connectivity is an upgrade, SD card compatible and best of all a great selfie camera!! xD ok I kid. Anyway forget the gamestreaming stuff (though... a definite plus if you leave your computer on 24x7) it's still very future proof I won't need to upgrade my tablet for at least a couple years with this!
Unfortunately I bought a GT630 along with this hoping it'd do the trick for gamestreaming but... I don't think it will by what I hear... why just the energy hog GTX cards?? Like I'm gonna leave a GTX based computer on 24x7 just so I can use it more on a remote basis? *ahem* not likely... hopefully they come out with some extremely low power GTX cards in the future.
fivefeet8 - Thursday, July 31, 2014 - link
Gamestream works with the recent Maxwell GTX 750 Ti. Probably one of the best if not the best performance per watt card out now. Plus most video cards use much lower power during idle.Knowname - Thursday, July 31, 2014 - link
but when your playing it it won't be idle. The GTX750ti may be my best bet, once I can get one for like 80 bucks I'll jump on it!phoenix_rizzen - Tuesday, July 29, 2014 - link
Small correction: First line of second paragraph:"NVIDIA is becoming the first tablet to launch a serious gaming tablet"
Guessing that "first tablet to launch" should be "first OEM to launch" or maybe "first hardware manufacturer to launch".
phoenix_rizzen - Tuesday, July 29, 2014 - link
Page 2, Console Mode paragraph:"Finally, there’s the aspect of GameStream and GRID, which make it possible for games to be played on the tablet that would otherwise wouldn’t work due to the compute requirements."
There's one to many "would" in that line. Guessing it's supposed to be "that wouldn't otherwise work".
Death666Angel - Tuesday, July 29, 2014 - link
Second paragraph:"today NVIDIA is becoming the first tablet to launch a serious gaming tablet running Android. "
Probably supposed to mean "first manufacturer" or something along those lines. :D
JoshHo - Tuesday, July 29, 2014 - link
Well, that's embarrassing. Typo corrected.SleepyItes - Tuesday, July 29, 2014 - link
Tegra K1 should support OpenGL ES 3.0, right? So, I wonder if it would be able to run the Dolphin (GameCube and Wii) emulator? The regular shield is awesome for running everything from NES to PSP (and even some NDS games), but being able to play GC/Wii games would be amazing. At the very least it would be cool if it could run NDS (e.g. DraStic) a little faster.lmcd - Tuesday, July 29, 2014 - link
ES 3 is a subset of OpenGL 4. There's no "wondering" about it.As long as the CPU translation is efficient on ARM, it should be feasible.
Read before you post.
fivefeet8 - Tuesday, July 29, 2014 - link
It supports OpenGL ES 3.1 and above. Portal and HL2 are running in Full OpenGL 4x mode on it. I doubt Dolphin couldn't run the same as it already did with the TK1 Dev board.