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| Nowadays with small chips comes great power! |
I came upon making this guide by searching and finding none in return myself on the internet. A few bits here and there, but not the whole package anywhere. Hence read on if you are interested in the topic like me and dont happen to find much substance over the net!
One can arguably say that we are connected through our smartphones more than any other gadget around nowadays. Newer smartphones with newer and more breathtaking specs are released almost every month now. All this has led to creation of a hype around their insides. A smartphone's performance is a blend of the individual performances of all the different components it has. The RAM speed and amount, Processor speed and architecture, GPU performance and speed, Mass Storage amount, speed are among a myriad of factors that together contribute to making how the phone performs in your hands.
Hence keeping all that in mind, today we're gonna take a look at what are the factors to keep in mind when you buy a smartphone based on its processor.
Before we even start, I'd like to get you clear with one thing. The CPU and GPU on a phone are not separately located. They come as a "System-on-Chip" or SOC as we call it.
For example the nVidia ULP GPU comes on the same die as its A15 cores. The combination of them TOGETHER forms the nVidia Tegra 4.
Similarly on a Snapdragon Processor, the Adreno GPU and the Krait cores would be together on the same die. THIS is together known to you as Snapdragon 800.
So about what we talk here are SOCs by differentiated by architectures and manufacturers. Also we'd have a look on what the future holds for us.
Hence lets get started.
Q1) WHY DOES THE PROCESSOR MATTER?
A processor—is the brain of a smartphone. It performs many calculations inside our smartphones, ultimately allowing you to complete tasks as trivial as composing an e-mail to tasks as intensive as gaming. Though the processor is just one of the many physical components that comprise the insides of our smartphones, it is arguably the most central to determining their overall "usefulness" into the future as software requirements become increasingly demanding. This implies that as applications become more sophisticated and processor/ graphics intensive, our smartphone's ability to handle them will be directly affected by our THIS purchase decision made all that time ago when we purchased our smartphone.
This choice may mean the difference between a phone that is useful for another year or two versus one that is not.
A final consideration in choosing a CPU is the suggested or minimum requirements of the important software to be used by you. If you're into gaming, only the best processors will lure you enough for today's nitty-bitty and as well keep your device well-prepared for an year or two in the future. If you're a person who uses phones like they were meant to 5 years ago, anything of today's standards will be amazing for you.
Q2) Even my laptop also has a processor. And well its "mobile" too. What makes these processors different from the one in my laptop?
The ARM Architecture!
So now throughout the years ARM has brought out several processor designs to fit into the various needs. Hence let us just take a brief look over the different processor architectures that ARM produces.
Since the architectures ARM develops can be licensed, companies can either obtain an architectural licence to design their own, customized CPU or simply choose from one of ARM’s custom processing core designs. The core designs that ARM manufactures for smartphones, tablets and such are namely Cortex-A5, Cortex-A7, Cortex-A9, Cortex-A15, Cortex-A17 and the most recent, Cortex-A53 and Cortex-A57. Companies like nVidia (with Tegra series processors), Samsung (with Exynos series processors) and Apple (with their Ax series processors) simply choose one of these designs and package them along with a GPU and other components (like radios) into their own branded SoC. However, SoC manufacturers like Qualcomm prefer to design their own custom CPUs. ‘Krait’ is the latest CPU, designed by Qualcomm and is used in their new Snapdragon 805 SoC.
For a snappy comparison between the different models discussed above, I guess this table would give you enough idea of comparison between their relative performances.
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Q3) I just want to know what numbers matter. Can you tell me?
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| The different parts of an SOC. You can see the CPU, GPU, Radios, Memory and everything coupled up in the nVidia Tegra 4i SOC, just like every SOC. |
- Clock speed: refers to the number of tasks which can be completed per second, known as a ‘cycle'. A higher clock speed means the processor can process more tasks per second, which makes it the measure of processing speed.
- Number of Cores: quite literally refer to the number of cores (logic units) the processor contains. Nowadays, only very few smartphones come in a dual-core package. Most of the smartphones/ tablets you'd see today come with quad(4) core chipsets. Originally, when the fabrication technology wasn't as advanced as it is now, adding up more cores on a processor was a simple way to add up on processing power. And hence the race to have more and more enhanced multicore designs came into being. Frankly speaking the number of cores you should have in your device depend upon the purpose you will use your phone for. If you are mostly a lightweight user, don't run a lot of widgets in the background, hence keep the background processes to a minimum, don't do much multitasking, a dual core solution can be optimal for you and may even get you a smartphone in a much cheaper price. But then if you are everything opposite to what I said above, it'd be more practical for you to get a quad core. The difference comes in the general way of functioning. Elaborate multi-core setups will give faster performance because for things like multitasking some cores can handle background tasks while others can run at full capacity on your current active task. It's essentially a case of ‘many hands make light work'.
- Type of Cores: The chart we talked about in the section above refers here. The type of architecture plays a vital role in the performance you'll get out of your processor. A lower clocked A15 core can still slaughter an A9 core. And going by the chart, slaughter it more like 6 times over.
Q4) My Phone Specifications say it has got a Snap.. something processor. There wasn't any such processor in the table we saw above. What is it?
Yeah, that is a Qualcomm Snapdragon processor sweetheart! :D
Lets finally move on to see the SOCs we discussed at the beginning of the post. Enough looking at the cores, lets now look at the complete package! The SOC! And the big players in the field!
Qualcomm Snapdragon
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| Image Courtesy: cdn.gsmarena.com/ |
Qualcomm rules the roost in this industry.
It gained prominence with its tremendously popular S4 Pro chipset. Later Snapdragon 600 and 800 came along, again giving tremendous performances across all the various form factors with the latest offering from Qualcomm being Snapdragon 805.
The quad-core Snapdragon 600 resides in both mid and high-end smartphones and tablets of now, can run at speeds of up to 1.9GHz and is equipped with an Adreno 320 graphics chip.
The Snapdragon 800 included Ultra HD (4K) resolution video recording and streaming to Ultra HD external displays, cameras with up to 55 megapixels and a clock speed of 2.3GHz, global 3G and 4G support, plus the latest Adreno 330 graphics chip coming in the last generation of flagships like Nexus 5.
The newest Snapdragon 805 comes with clockspeeds upto 2.7 GHz per core, 4K UHD Video playback capabilities and Adreno 420 GPU coming in the best products this year.
Apart from that, Snapdragon 200 and 400 cores power the lower budget devices like Moto G. Snapdragon takes care of its graphics requirements via the Adreno 305 that comes with it.
Apart from that, Snapdragon 200 and 400 cores power the lower budget devices like Moto G. Snapdragon takes care of its graphics requirements via the Adreno 305 that comes with it.
nVidia Tegra
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| Image Courtesy: images.anandtech.com/ |
The Tegra K1 introduced in the second half of this year IS the world's fastest ARM processor, with benchmarks claiming it to be of the performance standards of many lower-end netbook capabilities and its graphic prowess leaving everything produced by Snapdragon in shambles. Frankly speaking, Snapdragon has been so potent in this market because because of Krait's ability to deliver amazing performance at significantly less battery costs. However, Tegra K1 is a completel performance marvel.
The Tegra 4 which came last year, more prominently in nVidia handheld Shield, modifies the last year's top of the line ARM Cortex A15 cores to produce speeds of up to 1.9GHz. Like the Tegra 3, the Tegra 4 also has a companion core to take care of the light background tasks resulting in longer battery standby times. It’s capable of supporting Ultra HD (4K) video through the HDMI port, 4GB of RAM, and a screen resolution up to 3200 x 2000 pixels.
A level down, nVidia offers another Tegra chip, the Tegra 4i, which is based on the now a couple years old ARM Cortex A9 architecture, but still offers amazing midrange specs such as 2GB of RAM, 1080p resolution and a 2.3GHz maximum speed. It also has Nvidia’s new Icera i500 4G LTE modem built-in.
Quite contrary to expectations thoug, nVidia’s processors have fared better in tablets than smartphones. However we would to see this change.
Intel Atom
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| Image Courtesy: img1.wikia.nocookie.net/ |
The latest and greatest from Intel currently is their Moorefield class Atom chips. But this has only been seen in Nokia N1. What it has more than those of its previous generations is that its smaller, hence it allows itself to be fitted into smaller devices and also runs cooler. Moreover it has LTE, delivering hence lightning fast connectivity speeds.The one in Nokia N1 has specifications like Intel Atom Z3580 model with a quad core 2.3 GHz processor and a PowerVR G6430 GPU.
The previous generations Clover Trail+ is a dual-core processor and it can run at speeds up to 2.0GHz. It also has enhanced PowerVR graphics, tripling the 3D ability of the Medfield.
The only thing though Intel doesn’t have right now is support from manufacturers. Maybe something we can see changing in the future, seeing the level of commitment right now that the people at Intel we can see are putting.
Samsung Exynos
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| Image Courtesy: www.samsung.com/
With Exynos 7 Octa already out, I believe many of you might already know about the Exynos series of mobile processors from Samsung. You might even remember Exynos 5 Octa, which powered the i9500 version of the Galaxy S4 and the N9500 Galaxy Note 3.
While it’s called an eight-core chip, the Exynos Octa chips are effectively two quad-core chips nailed together using ARM’S BIG little concept. For example on the Exynos 7, during heavy loads, the 1.9 GHz Cortex A57 cores become active, while when the processor demand is low, the 1.3 GHz Cortex A53 cores take the control. Hence BIG A57 cores and little A53 cores.
As ARM itself puts it:
"The performance and energy efficiency of ARM Cortex-A series processors is enhanced by ARM big.LITTLE technology. By pairing a high-performance processor with an energy-efficient processor, tasks are instantaneously migrated between them, ensuring that the right processor is selected for the right job. Current big.LITTLE configurations pair the Cortex-A7 with either the Cortex-A15 or Cortex-A17 processors, and the Cortex-A53 with the Cortex-A57 processor."
The benefits are similar to the little companion core that all recent Tegra series SOCs come with, as it results in lower energy consumption when the phone is performing basic tasks.
Overall, they are good processing solutions, but due to low production generally, they have still not become mainstream.
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Apple Ax Series
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| Apple A7 SoC. Image Courtesy: media.idownloadblog.com
Powering both the new iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus is Apple’s
new A8 SoC. which according to Apple, is about 25% faster in CPU department and
50% faster on the GPU department than its predecessor. These are some big
performance gains that are made even more impressive by the fact that the A8 is
reportedly 50% more power efficient than the A7 — and, despite almost doubling
the transistor count, the die size is somehow 13% smaller.
Similarly with the Apple iPhone 5S, Apple gave the world the A7, world’s
first 64-bit processor designed for mobile use. It came out as twice as fast as its predecessor, the A6.Even the GPU was beefed up and delivered twice the performance of A6. The 1.3GHz dual-core processor
is produced by Samsung to Apple’s design.
While its introduction demanded attention, many were of the opinion that 64 bit is nothing but a marketing gimmick. Only time
will tell who is right, but in the end, the benchmarks show it that Apple’s
hardware has always been potent.
Motorola X8 Mobile Computing System
Image Courtesy: http://phandroid.s3.amazonaws.com/
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Motorola's approach to an SoC is maybe the best one I've ever seen. It couples great fucntionality with great performance. Motorola may not have changed the industry with its X8 chipset but it was an insight into how the race for bigger and better "numbers" should stop right now and instead more effort should be taken onto how to make our devices our perfect partners.
The X8 that came with Moto X allows it to do a lot of cool things, like receive voice commands when its asleep and always detect motion. This is because it’s split up into eight different cores. There are four graphics processor cores, 2 processors to run apps, and 2 low-power cores, one for detecting motion and one for processing speech.
The X8 does has Snapdragon S4 Pro chipset inside it.
Q5) Seeing all this rapidly advancing technology, what can you say about the future?
Well the ones we talked about, first of all, arent the only players of the game. Chipset manufacturers like HiSilicon, MediaTek, Broadcom and others have been gaining significant market share in emerging markets.
Also, two major technologies emerging are 64 bit chips in smartphone devices along with more and more successful 8 core designs flooding the market. ARM’s A53 and A57 cores give the necessary base for the future 64 bit processing solutions. On the other hand Chip manufacturers like Samsung, Huawei and Mediatek have gained worldwide recognition for their 8 core SoCs.
Even though the technology always manages to numb us, we should always practise consideration. After all..
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| Image Courtesy: http://1.bp.blogspot.com/ |
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