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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grahaman27 - Wednesday, May 21, 2014 - link
will apple?Thermogenic - Thursday, May 22, 2014 - link
It remains to be seen how good yields are for 20mm at TMSC. My guess id "not very" since Maxwell launched at 28mm.Kevin G - Thursday, May 22, 2014 - link
The low end Maxwell parts also launched a bit earlier than expected. TSMC 20 nm wouldn't have been ready regardless of yields.The real question is if the bigger Maxwell chips will use 20 nm and when they're ready to ship.
kwrzesien - Thursday, May 22, 2014 - link
I'd really like to seem them go ahead and release the medium Maxwell on 28mm for a GTX760ti.testbug00 - Thursday, May 22, 2014 - link
3 28nm dies (GM107, GM204 and GM206). One 20nm die GM200 (210?)GM204/206 will be october at earliest, more likely later... Hopefully not 2015, but, it could end up 2015 :(
testbug00 - Thursday, May 22, 2014 - link
Maxwell was planned to (mostly) be on 28nm years back.Only Maxwell silicon not on 28nm is the one that would be to large (likely, 10-12 billion transistor chip)
name99 - Thursday, May 22, 2014 - link
OR Apple was willing to pay more than nV to secure access to the limited 20nm capacity...retrospooty - Thursday, May 22, 2014 - link
I am guessing not... These foundries all use same stuff. If 20nm isnt ready it isnt ready. There is pretty much TSMC, UMC (formerly AMD) and Samsung, and Intel that are capable of producing at Volume. Intel is obviously not part of this equation. I am not aware of any of the other 3 that are making 20nm chips at volume in 2014. They usually all 3 go in step at the same time. I am 99% sure the Apple A8 or whatever is in the next iPhone iPad will stil be 28nm.GC2:CS - Thursday, May 22, 2014 - link
But how they will make that compulsory 2 x jump then ? Not say its impossible on 28 nm but 20nm would help a lot. Also if 28 nm it will be samsung or TSMC ? Because TSMC has more matured 28 nm process than samsung even that could be possibly enough to make that 2x jump. And hell Apple got billions to spend... Why is 20 nm so much behind the shelude ? Isn't that just Apple with an secret exclusive multibillion deal sucking off the entire TSMC ?tuxfool - Friday, May 23, 2014 - link
Small Correction. UMC isn't former AMD. GF (Global Foundries) is former AMD