The Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 Performance Preview: Meet Kryo
by Ryan Smith & Andrei Frumusanu on December 10, 2015 11:00 AM EST- Posted in
- SoCs
- Snapdragon
- Qualcomm
- Snapdragon 820
Closing Thoughts
Wrapping things up, after Qualcomm’s experiences with the Snapdragon 810 (and to a lesser extent the 808), the company has a lot to do if they wish to recapture their grip on the high-end SoC market, and less time than they’d like to do it. What has happened with the 810 is now in the past, but to recover Qualcomm needs to show they can correct their mistakes and produce a new generation of chips as well designed as the 800/801. And they need to do so at a particularly sensitive time when customer/competitor/supplier Samsung has fully ramped up their own SoC CPU design team, which presents yet more of a challenge to Qualcomm.
As is always the case with these MDP previews, it’s critical to note that we’re looking at an early device with unoptimized software. And at the same time that we’re looking at a device and scenario where Qualcomm is looking to show off their new SoC in the best light possible. Which is to say that between now and retail devices there’s room for performance to grow and performance to shrink depending on what happens with software, thermal management, and more. However at least in the case of the Snapdragon 820 MDP/S preview, I am hopeful that our experiences here will more closely mirror retail devices since we’re looking at a phablet form factor device and not a full-size tablet has was the case in the past couple of generations.
To that end, then, Snapdragon 820 looks like Qualcomm has regained their orientation. Performance is improved over 810 – usually greatly so – at both the CPU and GPU level. And for what it’s worth, while we don’t have extensive temperature/clockspeed logs from the MDP/S, at no point did the device get hot to the touch or leave us with the impression that it was heavily throttling to avoid getting hot to the touch. Power consumption and especially efficiency (Performance/W) is clearly going to be important consideration on 820 after everyone’s experiences with 810, and while we’ll have to see what the retail devices are like, after what Samsung was able to do in their own transition from 20nm to 14nm FinFET, I feel it bodes well for Qualcomm as well.
Meanwhile more broadly speaking, our initial data doesn’t paint Snapdragon 820 as the SoC that is going to dethrone Apple’s commanding lead in ARM CPU performance. Even if retail devices improve performance, Apple A9/Twister’s performance lead in CPU-bound scenarios is extensive (particularly in lightly-threaded scenarios), more so than I’d expect any kind of software refinements to close. What seems to be rather concerning is the performance of existing software that isn't yet optimized for the new architecture, well have to see how targeted compilers for Kryo will be able to improve scores in that regard. The Adreno 530 on the other hand looks to to perform very well for a smartphone SoC, besting Apple's latest, and I think there’s a good chance for retail devices to hold their edge here.
Otherwise within the Android SoC space, the big wildcards right now are ARM’s Cortex-A72 and Samsung’s forthcoming M1 CPU. Initial performance estimates of the A72 don't put it very far from Kryo, and given that we'll be seeing some very high clocked SoCs such as the Kirin 950 at 2.3GHz or MediaTek's X20 at 2.5GHz, Qualcomm will seem to have some competition in terms of CPU performance. With the former ARM is striving for performance gains rather similar to what we’ve seen with Snapdragon 820, and Samsung's CPU is still a complete mystery at the moment. Even with their significant gains over the Snapdragon 810, if Kryo is to beat A72 and M1, then I don’t expect it will be an easy win for Qualcomm.
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V900 - Friday, December 11, 2015 - link
In quite a few examples also coming in behind the A8, which is two years older than this SOC will be when it hits the street, don't forget about that!In all fairness, Qualcomm's development devices, like the mdp820, are rarely tuned for performance, and many of the drivers may still have some rough edges around them.
But they're also nowhere near as demanding in terms of battery size and thickness as the production models that vendors will release sometime next year.
The MDP820 is 11 mm thick, and has a battery with over 3000mah, which means that It's hard NOT to provide ample cooling and plenty of battery life.
That may prove to be a lot harder in a cellphone with a sub 9mm case and a 2500 mah battery.
And let's not forget, that when Anandtech tested the 810MDP, there wasn't a trace of overheating to be found.
http://slatedroid.info/2015/02/anandtech’s-snapdragon-810-preview-no-overheating-issues-spotted/
StrangerGuy - Thursday, December 10, 2015 - link
If you ask me Qualcomm's main problem is not the chip but rather Android software is overwhelming built to run on lowest common denominator hardware.tuxRoller - Friday, December 11, 2015 - link
You do realize that what you're saying is that android has been built to be svelte? This is actually somewhat true given their android one initiative. In practice it would mean that far from being bloated (a really common criticism that folks like to throw at...pretty much any software they are having issues with), it is very carefully built to be used with low hardware requirements. IOW, it would be extraordinarily fast on high-end hardware.All of this is to say that you're mostly wrong.
V900 - Friday, December 11, 2015 - link
Ehm, no. Actually it would be you who is wrong.Being built to run on lowest common denominator hardware isn't necessarily the same as doing it well.
Just look at how fast and smooth WP 7/8/8.1 or iOS runs on phones with just 512 or even 256mb RAM, and compare it with the asthmatic performance you'd usually see from an Android handset with twice as much RAM.
Android has always been bloated and slow compared to its competition (aside from Symbian and BBOS), and part of the explanation is probably that it's developed with the lowest common denominator in mind, with the focus placed on delivering acceptable performance on a handful of SOCs instead of delivering outstanding performance on one or two SOCs.
tuxRoller - Friday, December 11, 2015 - link
You haven't explained why I'm wrong except to say I'm wrong.Aiming for acceptable performance in low end devices implies much better performance on much better hardware (all else being equal
.. which is the case here).
Also, keep in mind that i didn't agree with the premise that Android is built with the lcd in mind.
UtilityMax - Saturday, December 12, 2015 - link
iOS runs like crap on those devices with 256-521MB of RAM. I used used my iPhone 4 recently.UtilityMax - Saturday, December 12, 2015 - link
Your argument makes sense whatsoever. If Android is designed for low end "least common demonstrator" hardware, then it should run circles around the high end hardware?Anyways, I have heard your argument before, and I heard it many times when the apple fan boys explain why Apple gives you so little memory in its flagship phones. Well guess what, Android doesn't need much memory either. You can do just fine with 1 or 2GB of memory. But in this time, memory is getting dirty cheap so Android phone vendors often throw in a bit of memory as a bonus. On the other hand, Apple has always been an expert at charging the most money for the least hardware. Hence, the "apology" from apple and the apply fan boys that apple gives you so little memory because Apple can run just fine with only 1GB but android cannot. This argument is utterly and stupidly wrong.
Mondozai - Saturday, December 12, 2015 - link
Calling people fanboys on mobile tech discussions is our equivalent of Godwin's law. You are just showing the limits of your intellect.Fact is, Android is more bloated because it has far more targets to hit than iOS. But it's still miles ahead of where it used to be.
Constructor - Saturday, December 12, 2015 - link
Actually, Android devices need a lot more RAM to keep the permanent stuttering from garbage collection halfway under control (but still can't eliminate it because it is fundamentally inherent).iOS apps only need to push out other unusued apps initially (which can be noticeable but which is required on Android as well) but after they've gained enough RAM they can run completely stutter-free indefinitely since iOS uses deterministic memory management without garbage collection.
As a consequence iOS devices can deliver completely smooth gaming performance, for instance, even with a lot less RAM and without the associated battery power draw, something which Android is fundamentally incapable of due to the choice of garbage collection.
TheinsanegamerN - Sunday, December 13, 2015 - link
I have a lumia 635 with 512MB of ram. runs like @$$. Slow, laggy, slow loading times, crashing programs. Moto g with 1GB runs flawlessly by comparison.