The year 2013 started big. Tegra 4, Exynos 5 Octa, Snapdragon 800 … Last week Nvidia, Samsung and Qualcomm made big announcements in Las Vegas where International CES 2013 took place. Much has been said about these processors that will be the driving force. top of the line smartphones this year. However, do you really need so much power? Take advantage of this comparison between Tegra 4, Exynos 5 Octa and Snapdragon 800 processors and draw your own conclusions.
Firstly, we have to understand the method behind these powerful chipsets, one of which is the fact that the more cores, the better the performance of the device due to the fact that it consumes less power.
Multi-core principle
In the past, the concept was used that the more Gigahertz a CPU offered, the more powerful it was. However, these same processors packing 4GHz in just one core – or core – generate a lot of heat, which directly interferes with the device's performance and performance. Even with attempts to refine these processes like MMX and Hyper-threading, there has been no solution to the fact that the processor has heat buildup … until now!
But why does the fact that a processor offers more cores instead of gigahertz make it more efficient? In the case of Tegra 4, Exynos 5 Octa and Snapdragon 800 CPUs, due to the distribution of work in several cores, besides adding more power, makes the processors able to perform more tasks at the same time. Now, you see, a quad-core CPU doesn't have four times the performance of a mono-core CPU, the difference that reduces heat, making the processor and the entire system work more relieved.
Two 500 MHz cores consume less power (and thus consume less load) than a 1 GHz single-core CPU.
Multiple cores provide better load distribution and thus low power.
From this multi-core principle, it is possible to perform a larger number of tasks on a smartphone or tablet, giving the device the famous multitasking feature. Below are some of the actions optimized by multi-core processors:
- 3D games
- Surf the Internet
- Access email
- Update social networks
- Image Upload
- Prevents freezing and minor lockups
- Transfer images to a higher resolution TV
- Using Full HD, Ultra HD and 4K displays
- Use of mobile networks like 3G and 4G
- Wireless miracast for 1080p HD video streaming
- multichannel HD audio with DTS-HD
- Dolby Digital Plus Technology
- Dual Image Signal Processors (ISP) Camera
According to Qualcomm, Snapdragon 800 quad-core delivers 75% more performance than Snapdragon S4 Pro, the company's current flagship. What a little thing! The Snadragon 800 also places Qualcomm in the high performance 28nm (nanometer) technology for mobile phones (also called High Performance for mobile – HPm) which will make you calculate a lot of information using low power, thus saving energy.
Companion Core Principle
If we compare the three Tegra 4, Exynos 5 Octa, and Sanpdragon 800 quad-core processors, the big difference is what was called the Core Companion – or companion Core. Both Nvidia's Tegra 4 and Samsung's Exynos 5 Octa use this feature, but in a curiously different way.
Before continuing, imagine that the Tegra 4 has 4 main cores and an accompanying core. And the Exynos 5 Octa has 4 core and four companion cores – from where we can conclude Octa in the name of the CPU. Thus, in Tegra 4 there is only one Companion Core, while Exynos 5 Octa uses four. These four Exynos 5 companion cores are possible due to ARM's new big.LITTLE architecture.
Behind this concept is the Cortex A15, one of today's most powerful processors. Both core and escort share the work.
Tegra 4 is the first chipset that controls HDR calculations in real time.
In this way, the basic principles are the same for both Samsung and Nvidia. In short, this Companion Core has lower throughput and overclocking than the four main cores. And they are used for standard daily tasks and processes that require no effort in data calculation. This saves energy and reduces the work of the four cores.
Qualcomm uses a similar concept, but without the Core Companion. Instead, it is based on the principle of asynchronous pulse, that is, if a nucleus is using less energy to perform its functions, lowering its pulses independent of the remaining nuclei. In Snapdragon 800, each core is only used when you need it and the entire system is built to save energy whenever possible, while you have data processing spikes taking place.
The Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 processor is designed to pack premium mobile phones and computing devices.
According to experts, Qualcomm's architecture offers no advantage as operating systems are not designed for asynchronous pulses. However, it is still very difficult to draw such conclusions, since none of the three processors has been put to the test, nor do we want to have benchmark examples for comparing power consumption.
Tegra 4, Exynos 5 Octa, Snapdragon 800 – Do You Need Them?
The answer to this question is only you can give. Surely this technology will have a very high price, so you have to think about the function of a smartphone in your daily life. If you use dozens of applications every day, if you use your mobile devices for multimedia content, if you really need a high-end Full HD, Ultra HD or 4K screen …? Anyway, don't fall for the high-tech consumer bullshit unnecessarily, because if you don't use the latest generation features the same as you don't have them.
Sure, smartphones and tablets will process more data in less time and more efficiently, but do you really need it?
Images: Nvidia, Qualcomm, NH / AndroidPIT
(tagsToTranslate) comparison tegra 4 vs exynos 5 octa vs snapdragon 800 (t) smatphones
