NVIDIA Shield Review: At the Crossroads of PC and Mobile Gaming
by Brian Klug on July 31, 2013 12:14 AM ESTGPU Performance - 3DMark
The GPU performance story is finally a competitive one for NVIDIA. Although Tegra 4 lacks full OpenGL ES 3.0 compliance, it does finally dedicate enough SoC die area to GPU performance to compete with the likes of Apple and the iPad with Retina Display. We'll start with 3DMark, which is Android and Windows only at this point.
3DMark for Android features the Ice Storm benchmark and uses OpenGL ES 2.0. Ice Storm is divided into two graphics tests and a physics test. The first graphics test is geometry heavy while the second test is more pixel shader intensive. The physics test, as you might guess, is CPU bound and multithreaded. The overall score takes into account both graphics and physics tests. The benchmark is rendered to an offscreen buffer at 720p/1080p and then scaled up to the native resolution of the device being tested. This is a very similar approach we've seen by game developers to avoid rendering at native resolution on some of the ultra high resolution tablets. The beauty of 3DMark's approach here is the fact that all results are comparable, regardless of a device's native resolution. The downside is we don't get a good idea of how some of the ultra high resolution tablets would behave with these workloads running at their native (> 1080p) resolutions.
Here we see Tegra 4 in Shield outperforming all of the shipping players on Android, and virtually tying with Adreno 330 in Qualcomm's upcoming MSM8974 (Snapdragon 800 platform). Tegra 4's GPU performance is still no where near even Intel's HD 4000, but we're seeing massive improvements in raw FP throughput in ultra mobile GPUs. I'm very eager to see what's possible once Kepler makes its way into NVIDIA's mobile SoCs next year with Logan.
The 3DMark Physics test is also worth looking at as it shows a 36% increase in performance over four Krait 300 cores running at 1.5GHz. There are faster Krait 300s out there, but another 13% isn't enough to make up this gap. The Krait 400 comparison is much closer, but the Krait 400s have to be clocked at 2.3GHz to equal the performance of the 1.9GHz Cortex A15s. It remains to be seen which combination is ultimately lower power.
Basemark X
Basemark X is a new addition to our mobile GPU benchmark suite. There are no low level tests here, just some game simulation tests run at both onscreen (device resolution) and offscreen (1080p, no vsync) settings. The scene complexity is far closer to GLBenchmark 2.7 than the new 3DMark Ice Storm benchmark, so frame rates are pretty low.
In both tests, NVIDIA posts big gains over anything presently shipping from the Android camp. Adreno 330 pulls ahead on a level playing field, holding a 24% performance advantage over Tegra 4.
I would've loved to have seen this sort of competition from NVIDIA back when the iPad 4 launched, but it's at least good to see NVIDIA move from being a value player with Tegra 3 to a high performance contender with Tegra 4.
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ervinshiznit - Wednesday, July 31, 2013 - link
Is it possible to run a battery life test with a H.264 encoded video being played back AND streamed over Wifi somehow? I feel like that would be a better simulation of the battery life under PC game streaming without having to sit there and play the game outright until the battery dies (although I'm sure that would be a lot of fun =))Crono - Wednesday, July 31, 2013 - link
The problem with this kind of gaming device is that it's guaranteed to be selling well only in a niche market.It's too big to be portable, not powerful enough to be a console or desktop killer, and not versatile enough or the right form factor to be competitive against tablets. And then there's the obvious fact that mobile gaming is being dominated right now by smartphones and smaller tablets and more traditional handhelds.
The comparison picture tells a lot: larger than an Xbox 360 controller is too large.
darkich - Wednesday, July 31, 2013 - link
Desktop killer??Did you even read about this device at all??
This is a desktop EXTENSION in the best way possible
PNN - Wednesday, July 31, 2013 - link
How is it not versatile enough to compete against 7 inch tablets? If you can spare those 2 inches, you get:- It's probably going to have more power than any 7-inch tablet released in the next year.
- Excelente battery life.
- Kickstand/gamepad
- Great speakers (except from the BB Playbook, I haven't seen a 7-inch tablet with decent audio).
Weight is the only major disadvantage over a 7-inch tablet.
geniekid - Wednesday, July 31, 2013 - link
Crono's point is that this device is a mobile gaming device. It won't replace a tablet, a smartphone, a laptop, or anything with a virtual/physical keyboard. It's most direct competition is the DS/Vita, which have much higher quality game libraries.So who's going to buy this thing? Enthusiast gamers with a need for mobile gaming that aren't satisfied with their DS/Vita. That's a pretty small market these days.
PNN - Wednesday, July 31, 2013 - link
It obviously won't replace a smartphone or a laptop, not even 9/10/11 inch tablets, but I can imagine people buying one of these instead of an iPod Touch, iPad Mini or a 7 inch Android tablet. It offers similar functionality for a similar price. Again, only if the weight is not too much of an issue.Jumangi - Wednesday, July 31, 2013 - link
It doesn't offer anywhere near the functionality when you take into consideration the form factors with something like the Nexus 7. And saying it will sell over an Ipad mini/ Wow the bizarre reality some people live in to justify weird tech.PNN - Wednesday, July 31, 2013 - link
You're not getting my point. Bye.Spunjji - Thursday, August 1, 2013 - link
Form factor is a huge consideration too. You will not fit this in a jacket pocket or small bag as easily as any of the devices you mentioned, and you're certainly not going to use it comfortably with one hand. I'm not saying your point is entirely invalid, but you're arguing this thing will fit into niches where it's not an ideal match.darkich - Wednesday, July 31, 2013 - link
"much higher quality game libraries" ..oh man what a load of horse s!it.You are obviously completely ignorant about iTunes and Google Play games.
There's still so much prejudice going on about that among you pc dinosaurs.
Let me break it down:
The vast majority of Games on google Play cost up to 7$