Qualcomm Snapdragon 805 Performance Preview
by Anand Lal Shimpi on May 21, 2014 8:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Tablets
- Snapdragon
- Qualcomm
- Mobile
- SoCs
- Snapdragon 805
Final Words
Qualcomm tends to stagger the introduction of new CPU and GPU IP. Snapdragon 805 ultimately serves as Qualcomm's introduction vehicle for its Adreno 420 GPU. The performance gains there over Adreno 330/Snapdragon 801 can be substantial, particularly at high resolutions and/or higher quality settings. Excluding 3DMark, we saw a 20 - 50% increase in GPU performance compared to Snapdragon 801. Adreno 420 is a must have if you want to drive a higher resolution display at the same performance as an Adreno 330/1080p display combination. With OEMs contemplating moving to higher-than-1080p resolution screens in the near term, leveraging Snapdragon 805 may make sense there.
The gains on the CPU side are far more subtle. At best we noted a 6% increase in performance compared to a 2.5GHz Snapdragon 801, but depending on thermal/chassis limitations of shipping devices you may see even less of a difference.
Qualcomm tells us that some of its customers will choose to stay on Snapdragon 801 until the 810 arrives next year, while some will choose to release products based on 805 in the interim. Based on our results here, if an OEM is looking to specifically target the gaming market I can see Snapdragon 805 making a lot of sense. For most of those OEMs that just launched Snapdragon 801 based designs however, I don't know that there's a huge reason to release a refresh in the interim.
I am curious to evaluate the impact of ISP changes as well as dive deeper into 4K capture and H.265 decode, but that will have to wait until we see shipping designs. The other big question is just how power efficient Adreno 420 is compared to Adreno 330. Qualcomm's internal numbers are promising, citing a 20% reduction in power consumption at effectively the same performance in GFXBench's T-Rex HD onscreen test.
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testbug00 - Thursday, May 22, 2014 - link
Yeah, it supports DX11.2.... no other mobile GPU supports... Wait. Qualcomm does... And I wonder how long until ARM "stock" GPU does... And Imagine Tech's...Nvidia is not displacing Qualcomm most likely. It could happen, but, given OEM relationships, it is unlikely. Even if NVidia has a better product (note: I think they have one that is on best even with Qualcomm (for Phones)) the OEM relations mean a lot. ATI managed to make quite a bit of money despite NVidia having far better products due to OEM relationships.
kron123456789 - Thursday, May 22, 2014 - link
"Yeah, it supports DX11.2.... no other mobile GPU supports... Wait. Qualcomm does... And I wonder how long until ARM "stock" GPU does... And Imagine Tech's..." — Only Tegra K1 supports OpenGL 4.4. DirectX support matters ONLY on Windows. And Tegra K1 supports DirectX 12(because of that: http://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2014/03/20/directx-12... ).tuxRoller - Friday, May 23, 2014 - link
Why does opengl 4.4 matter? Who would consume it?http://richg42.blogspot.com/2014/05/the-truth-on-o...
fivefeet8 - Friday, May 23, 2014 - link
Unfortunately, OpenGL 4.x will mean little to Android devices until Qualcomm starts actually caring about the API in their drivers. If the K1 actually competes in tablets and superphones, it may actually have the effect of forcing them to through competition.https://dolphin-emu.org/blog/2013/09/26/dolphin-em...
tuxRoller - Friday, May 23, 2014 - link
Look, you don't need to keep linking to that old post. I'm don't need to argue about adreno blob quality. Nvidia, however, lives and breathes on it software, which seems to be not quite as flawless as some would believe.Again, why does gl matter to android? It doesn't even support it. The point of having the embedded profile is to expose enough of gl to create a good balance between high performance/graphics quality and efficiency. Going full blown gl destroys that last advantage (tesselation alone is terrible for battery life).
kron123456789 - Friday, May 23, 2014 - link
Serious Sam 3 for Tegra K1 is using OpenGL 4(and Croteam have Android build that supports OpenGL 4).tuxRoller - Friday, May 23, 2014 - link
Great, but you aren't going to see Google including gl in their builds. The reason? Gles is the best of what can be supported while maintaining decent battery.fivefeet8 - Thursday, May 22, 2014 - link
Hardware level support for API's mean diddly squat if their drivers are crap. My Galaxy S4 with the Snapdragon 600 supports OpenGLes3, but it sucks at it. Nvidia actually has a history of nominal OpenGL support in drivers at least.ams23 - Thursday, May 22, 2014 - link
Who said anything about NVIDIA "displacing" Qualcomm? That is pure silliness. NVIDIA offers a "differentiated" product. Any OEM who wants to offer differentiated high end products may consider using Tegra K1. K1 is also a very versatile product, so it will be used in a wide variety of different products.ams23 - Thursday, May 22, 2014 - link
Companies like Xiaomi that are looking for differentiated products would absolutely consider using Tegra K1 in a high end smartphone. Considering the performance and perf. per watt advantages for Tegra K1, there are clearly compelling reasons to use it. But again, like I said above, the lions share of phones outside of Apple and Samsung will go to Qualcomm (bundled modem) and Mediatek (lowest cost).