In the last few years, ultra-mobile System-on-Chip processors have made unprecedented strides in terms of performance and efficiency, advancing very quickly the standards for mobile performance. One form factor that particularly benefits from the exponential growth of SoC performance are tablets, since their large screens allow for the processors' abilities to be fully utilized. For the holiday season of 2014, we have the latest and greatest of mobile performance shipping inside high-end tablets. Apple has made a whole new SoC just for their iPad Air 2 tablet, which they call the A8X. Nvidia's Tegra K1 processor, which borrows Nvidia's venerable Kepler GPU architecture, has also appeared on a number of new high-end tablets. Finally, we also have the Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 processor found in a few tablets, particularly from Sony. It's a shame that no tablet so far ships with Qualcomm's latest Snapdragon 805 SoC, and given that it's already appeared on a few smartphones and phablets, it's really disappointing to see it hasn't appeared on any tablet as of yet. In any case, the Snapdragon 801 is still a monstrous processor. But which one of these three processors is the best overall? To answer that, let's dive in to the specifications and performance data on each of these processors.
| Apple A8X | Nvidia Tegra K1 | Snapdragon 801 | |
| Process Node | 20nm | 28nm HPM | 28nm HPM |
| CPU | Tri-core "Enhanced Cyclone" (64-bit) @ 1.5GHz | 32-bit: Quad-core ARM Cortex A15 @ 2.3GHz 64-bit: Dual-core Denver @ 2.5GHZ | Quad-core Krait 400 @ 2.5GHz |
| GPU | PoverVR GXA6850 @ 450MHz (230 GFLOPS) | 192-core Kepler GPU @ 852MHz (327 GFLOPS) | Adreno 330 @ 578GHz (166 GFLOPS) |
| Memory Interface | 64-bit Dual-channel LPDDR3-1600 (25.6GB/s) | 64-bit Dual-channel LPDDR3-1066 (17GB/s) | 32-bit Dual-channel LPDDR3-1866 (14.9GB/s) |
As you can see, on paper the Snapdragon 801 is the weakest SoC used in recent high-end tablets, but that's only because Qualcomm does have better SoCs available, but none of these have been used in a tablet yet. But to better compare these processors, we must turn to sinthetic benchmarks, evaluating these processors' overall performance.
Let's start with Geekbench 3.0, which evaluates the CPU both in terms of single-threaded performance and multi-threaded performance.
In single-threaded applications, Nvidia's custom Denver CPU core takes the first place, followed closely by Apple's enhanced Cyclone core on the Apple A8X. Meanwhile, the older Cortex-A15 and Krait 400 CPU cores are far behind, with the 2.2GHz A15 core in the 32-bit Tegra K1 pulling slightly ahead of the 2.3GHz Krait 400 core in the Snapdragon 801.
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In multi-threaded applications, where all of the CPU's cores can be used, the A8X, with its Triple-core configuration blows past the competition. The dual-core Denver version of the Tegra K1 gets about the same performance as the quad-core Cortex-A15 Tegra K1 variant, with the quad-core Krait 400 coming in last place. Apple's addition of one extra core to the A8X's CPU, together with the fact that Cyclone is a very powerful core, make it easily the fastest CPU in the market for multi-threaded applications. While Nvidia's 64-bit Denver CPU core has some impressive performance, thanks to its wide core architecture, it's core count works against it in the multi-threaded benchmark. It is, in fact, the only dual-core CPU being compared here. Even if it's not as fast as the A8X's CPU, Nvidia's Denver CPU is a beast. Were it in a quad-core configuration, it would absolutely blow the competition out of the water. Moving away from CPU benchmarks, we shall now analyze graphics performance, which is probably even more important than CPU performance, given that it is practically a requirement for high-end tablets to act as a decent gaming machine. First we'll look at OpenGL ES 3.0 performance with GFXBench 3.0's Manhattan test, followed by the T-Rex test, which tests OpenGL ES 2.0 performance, followed by some of GFXBench 3.0's low level tests.
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For some reason, all tests show the 32-bit Tegra K1 in the Nvidia Shield Tablet scoring a few more points than the 64-bit Tegra K1 in the Google Nexus 9. But given that the two processors have the exact same GPU, this difference in performance is probably due to software tweaks in the Shield Tablet's operating system, which would make sense, given that it is more than anything a tablet for gaming.
Thermal Efficiency and Power Consumption
In the ultra-mobile space, power consumption and thermals are the biggest limiting factors for peformance. As the three processors being compared here are all performance beasts, several measures had to be taken so that they wouldn't drain a battery too fast or heat up too much.
In order to keep power consumption and die size in check, Apple has decided to shrink the manufacturing process from 28nm to 20nm, a first in the ultra-mobile processor market. That alone gives it a huge advantage over the competition, since they can put more transistors in the same die area, and with the same power consumption. Since the A8X is, in general, the fastest SoC available, the smaller process node is important to keep the iPad Air 2's battery life good.
Nvidia's Tegra K1 should also do well in terms of power consumption and thermal efficiency in situations where the GPU isn't pushed too hard. The 28nm HPM process it's built upon is nothing particularly good, but it's still not old for a 2014 processor. While the Kepler architecture is very power efficient, straining a 192-core GPU to its maximum is still going to produce a lot of heat in any case. The Nexus 9 tablet reportedly can get very warm on the back while the tablet is running an intensive game.
Finally, the Snapdragon 801, despite being older than the two aforementioned processors, should still be the less power hungry processor because it is also a smartphone processor. Given that a 5" phone can carry this processor without heating up too much or draining the battery too fast, a tablet should certainly be able to do the same. To put things in perspective, if we put the Tegra K1 or the Apple A8X inside a smartphone, both would be too power hungry and would produce too much heat to make for a decent phone. In any case, the Snapdragon 801 is, like the Tegra K1, built on a 28nm HPM process. Given that its not as much a performance moster as the other two processors mentioned here, it must be the least power hungry of all three.
Conclusion Objectively speaking, the comparisons made here make it pretty much clear that once again Apple takes the crown for the best SoC for this generation of high-end tablet processors. Not that the competition is bad. On the contrary, Nvidia went, in just one generation, from being almost irrelevant in the SoC market (let's face it, the Tegra 4 was not an impressive processor) to being at the heels of the current king of this market (aka Apple). The Tegra K1 is an excellent SoC, and even if it can't quite match the Apple A8X, it's still quite close to it in most aspects.
Meanwhile, Qualcomm is seeing it's dominance in the tablet market start to fail. It's latest SoC, the Snapdragon 805, available even on some smartphones and phablets, isn't on any tablet yet, which is a huge disappointment, given that a tablet can utilize the processing power more usefully than a smartphone or a phablet. However, a few tablets have the Snapdragon 801 and there are even some new tablets (for instance, Samsung's Galaxy Tab S line) shipping with the even older Snapdragon 800. The fact is that this is bad for Qualcomm, as anyone looking for a tablet with cutting-edge performance will probably look elsewhere. Either way, the Snapdragon 801, and for that matter the 800, is still a very good processor. It's just far from being the fastest.
source : http://bbc.co.uk, http://kompas.com, http://tabshowdown.blogspot.com
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