Truly a stunning device, though personally Motorola is one of the few manufacturers who's still a bit of a wildcard when it comes to updates and roadmaps so I'd probably stay clear even if I were in need of a phone.
It's interesting to see how badly both Qualcomm, Samsung and now TI trounces Nvidia when it comes to SoC performance. You sure can tell they've been in the game longer.
Keep in mind that Tegra 2 is 1.5 years old. It was announced at CES 2010 and is just now shipping in devices. Kal-El (quad-core Tegra) is rumored to be released (not just announced) in August/September. So really Qualcomm, Samsung, and TI are behind them in terms of performance.
Why does nvidia Tegra need to catch up judging by the benchmarks in this post it's in top 5 in both benchmarks. It's on par with chips that are being released in today's market. It's not about catch up when you are even par or am I missing some other factors.
It's top five because those phones are running at 800x480. Most of the other top phones are running at a higher qHD resolution and still manage the same or higher speed.
Also, if you look at the iPad 2 benchmark listed above, it is easily twice as fast as any of these devices while running an even higher resolution
How long ago do you think the OMAP4 has been released? Right same time as the Tegra. Please dont blindly write stuff without looking up what you do not know..
Additionally the graphs do not include the SGS2, which is by the way a lot faster than the Tegra and uses an Exynos + Mali GPU.
If you think Samsung finished the Exynos 2 month ago and released it like that you're sticking your finger in your eye.
They're ALL working on the next generation CPU and they were already working on it a year ago (in fact theyre all in testing phase). Additionally they're ALL working on the next-next generation as well. Nvidia too !
Those were benched with old prototype device. Based on the Nenamark2 results alone (most benchmarks hit the manufacturer imposed limitation of 60 fps), Exynos/Mali combination gets around 2x the score of sensation running Qualcom Dual/Adreno 220 combination (even if you factor in the screen resolution, performance gap is too big to make up for it)
No, OMAP 4 appeared the earliest on the Playbook in May. Tegra 2 has been on the market since at least November, if not even earlier if you consider the Toshiba AC100 smartbook. It's just they for whatever reasons (Honeycomb delay, manufacturer's delays) it didn't show up in "popular" devices until this February. But Tegra 2 has been on the market at least 6 months before OMAP 4.
And TI tends to pre-announce their chips much earlier than Nvidia so maybe that's why you think they were announced in the same time. For example they announced the OMAP 5 at MWC this year, and it's coming late 2012, while in the same time Nvidia *demo-ed* Tegra 3 that is coming out this year. If they followed the same tactic as TI, they should've also announced Tegra 4 for late 2012, but they didn't.
So TI made it look as if OMAP 5 would compete with Tegra 3 - dual core 2.5 Ghz Cortex A15 vs quad core 1.5 Ghz Cortex A9 - when in fact it will compete with Tegra 4, of which we don't know the specs yet (knowing Nvidia it's probably a *quad core* 2.5 Ghz Cortex A15).
I don't disagree that Nvidia is prone to tooting their horn before they have a product on the shelves but that's not a very compelling argument.
The other manufacturers likely have even longer development cycles, due to their more extensive hardware customization and optimization.
Anyway, the LG Optimus 2X were available in March with the Samsung Galaxy S2 in May and the HTC Sensation being available now. Waiting 2-3 months for superior hardware makes sense even in the short life-span of smartphone generations.
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It was kinda expected for Droid 3 to use OMAP and not a big deal since Moto is using TI and Nvidia in the high end (it's better to have more than 1 supplier and now OMAP is actually available).A surprise would be if they dump Nvidia and replace it with someone else. The updated Bionic might be using OMAP too, if this is in any way accurate (nothing new since it's some 6 weeks old info) http://nena.se/nenamark/view?version=1&device_...
While I understand the chipset supports *up to* 1 GB RAM, are you actually reporting that it will "likely" have that much (and if so, why?). Most of the reports out there are speculating 512 MB, and that's what the Milestone equivalent recently released overseas got. If it's going to have 1 GB of RAM, I'm sending this phone back now and pre-ordering my Droid 3 -- need to know.
I'd definitely be disappointed if it came with 512 MB of RAM. It's a tiny bit of speculation, and the GLBenchmark results don't show the total amount of memory, but I've seen 1 GB of RAM pop up for the XT883 in a couple of other places.
I'll note that in the article though - possibly 1 GB of RAM.
I still can't understand why you guys are in a rush to post numbers from unreleased device and still not willing to pay 700 $ to buy a Galaxy S II to torture!
The plan right now is to work through this backlog of devices I've got, then go out and buy an SGS2 if Samsung USA still doesn't have any they're willing to sample us with.
It's tempting though, I want one to carry around honestly. ;)
Darn -- I was really hoping I'd see something that may give doubt to the half-gigabyte spec. we've been seeing. Although at the higher frequency (333/233 vs. 133 of Tegra 2), it may still be worthwhile to send back my current unit (a Droid X2) in favor of a Droid 3. I miss the physical keyboard I had on my OG Droid something fierce.
Thanks for keeping us updated. If you do hear anything about hard specs. on this phone, I and others would love to know.
It's curious to see the comparison against the EVO 3D. The pro version clearly benches far above the Droid 3 yet the regular version benches under it. Very odd.
Different sets of instructions are supported by different chipsets. Tegra, for example, notable has no support for NEON instructions, which hinders it's performance significantly in certain applications/benchmarks.
The flipside is that certain games aren't able to run on Galaxy S II devices because of lack of support for specific sets of instructions. This will have to be remedied by the dev, because for Samsung would need to implement a hardware change.
It's sad, really, to see the type of hardware fragmentation that we're seeing happen in terms of Android SoC's and what they can/can't do.
Hardware fragmentation is good, more competition in the GPU space. Also if you have a rooted device you can always install Chainfire 3D for maximum compatibility :).
Why do manufacturers need to implement changes when game devs are not utilizing standard OpenGL? Whole tegra optimized comes from utilizing Nvidia specific texture compression method. Also devs like chainfire have remedied this as much as possible by creating an app to act as an intermediate driver and translate nvidia specific instructions to standard OpenGL
The two benchmarks use different scenes. GPU's, like CPU's are a lot more complex than a simple number can represent. Different scenes or game engines will hit different strengths and weaknesses of a GPU. If the scene is texture-heavy (outdoor scenes with a lot of sky, etc), then GPU's with a high pixel shader/texture pipeline will do better. Whereas if a scene is fragment or object-heavy, then GPU's with a lot of vertex performance will win out.
GLBenchmark's Egypt also uses a lot of advanced OpenGL features that Pro doesn't. So for any given GPU design/driver, it may hit certain weaknesses in OpenGL command interpreting that doesn't perform well.
I understand that it may not be so important but i think it's interesting to see the 4 ULP Geforce cores of the Tegra2 getting beat down by a year old GPU...
Of course i don't know the detail about the implementation done by TI on this particular SoC... i know it runs at a higher clock than on the Galaxy S, but is it still one core? If so, how would it compare to the SGX542MP used on the iPad2(possibly iPhone5)?
Well, GLBenchmark on the iPad 2 has been tested by this very site and the results were at least 2-3x the performance of any of these phones at the iPad 2's resolution (1024x768). So the SGX543MP2 (I assume that's what you meant) is a beast.
Of course, looking at the size of the A5 chip, it very well should be.
Don't confuse the PowerVR SGX 540 in OMAP 4 for the PowerVR SGX 540 in Hummingbird. It's been overclocked and improved, and has about 50% higher performance than before. Just look what kind of FPS Galaxy S and Nexus S are getting vs Evo 3D and Droid 3.
does anyone know if this is going to be pentile for sure? i read a couple of reports that said it probably would, but i was still hoping that the US version would stick with the IPS screen on the droid 2 which i liked way better.
i have used the atrix a lot, and i really don't like the screen, i find it washed out, blurry, and difficult to read text on. really, really hoping the droid 3 doesn't have that same screen.
Yes, it will for-sure have the PenTile screen. I'm using it right now on my recent Droid X2 upgrade (which I may send back for the Droid 3) -- I hated it quite a bit when I first got it last week, but I've grown used to it, and going from a 4.3" DX2 screen to a 4.0" D3 screen may make it all the less noticeable. Odd to say: but it's far less of an issue for me now.
How come you left out the benchmark of the Galaxy S2. One of the fastest out of the bunch I would think and they do have it available in Korea and later here.
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Exodite - Monday, June 20, 2011 - link
Truly a stunning device, though personally Motorola is one of the few manufacturers who's still a bit of a wildcard when it comes to updates and roadmaps so I'd probably stay clear even if I were in need of a phone.It's interesting to see how badly both Qualcomm, Samsung and now TI trounces Nvidia when it comes to SoC performance. You sure can tell they've been in the game longer.
iamlilysdad - Monday, June 20, 2011 - link
Keep in mind that Tegra 2 is 1.5 years old. It was announced at CES 2010 and is just now shipping in devices. Kal-El (quad-core Tegra) is rumored to be released (not just announced) in August/September. So really Qualcomm, Samsung, and TI are behind them in terms of performance.michael2k - Monday, June 20, 2011 - link
Especially considering the autumn release of the next iPhone likely to be powered by the A5/PowerVR 543:http://www.anandtech.com/show/4216/apple-ipad-2-gp...
Tegra 3 better catch up!
NurFACE1 - Monday, June 20, 2011 - link
Why does nvidia Tegra need to catch up judging by the benchmarks in this post it's in top 5 in both benchmarks. It's on par with chips that are being released in today's market. It's not about catch up when you are even par or am I missing some other factors.metafor - Tuesday, June 21, 2011 - link
It's top five because those phones are running at 800x480. Most of the other top phones are running at a higher qHD resolution and still manage the same or higher speed.Also, if you look at the iPad 2 benchmark listed above, it is easily twice as fast as any of these devices while running an even higher resolution
qnqdq - Tuesday, June 21, 2011 - link
How long ago do you think the OMAP4 has been released? Right same time as the Tegra.Please dont blindly write stuff without looking up what you do not know..
Additionally the graphs do not include the SGS2, which is by the way a lot faster than the Tegra and uses an Exynos + Mali GPU.
If you think Samsung finished the Exynos 2 month ago and released it like that you're sticking your finger in your eye.
They're ALL working on the next generation CPU and they were already working on it a year ago (in fact theyre all in testing phase). Additionally they're ALL working on the next-next generation as well. Nvidia too !
Assimilator87 - Tuesday, June 21, 2011 - link
Actually, the Exynos SoC is on par with Tegra 2 in some benchmarks and significantly slower in others: http://www.anandtech.com/show/4177/samsungs-galaxy...ph00ny - Tuesday, June 21, 2011 - link
Those were benched with old prototype device. Based on the Nenamark2 results alone (most benchmarks hit the manufacturer imposed limitation of 60 fps), Exynos/Mali combination gets around 2x the score of sensation running Qualcom Dual/Adreno 220 combination (even if you factor in the screen resolution, performance gap is too big to make up for it)ebilcake - Tuesday, June 21, 2011 - link
Old results, it actually scores allot higher, I know I've got one.Eqypt - 43 fps
Pro - 59.9 fps
Quite a bit faster than Tegra 2 actually.
ph00ny - Wednesday, June 22, 2011 - link
59.9fps will usually mean it's hitting the 60fps maxLucian Armasu - Tuesday, June 21, 2011 - link
No, OMAP 4 appeared the earliest on the Playbook in May. Tegra 2 has been on the market since at least November, if not even earlier if you consider the Toshiba AC100 smartbook. It's just they for whatever reasons (Honeycomb delay, manufacturer's delays) it didn't show up in "popular" devices until this February. But Tegra 2 has been on the market at least 6 months before OMAP 4.And TI tends to pre-announce their chips much earlier than Nvidia so maybe that's why you think they were announced in the same time. For example they announced the OMAP 5 at MWC this year, and it's coming late 2012, while in the same time Nvidia *demo-ed* Tegra 3 that is coming out this year. If they followed the same tactic as TI, they should've also announced Tegra 4 for late 2012, but they didn't.
So TI made it look as if OMAP 5 would compete with Tegra 3 - dual core 2.5 Ghz Cortex A15 vs quad core 1.5 Ghz Cortex A9 - when in fact it will compete with Tegra 4, of which we don't know the specs yet (knowing Nvidia it's probably a *quad core* 2.5 Ghz Cortex A15).
Exodite - Tuesday, June 21, 2011 - link
I don't disagree that Nvidia is prone to tooting their horn before they have a product on the shelves but that's not a very compelling argument.The other manufacturers likely have even longer development cycles, due to their more extensive hardware customization and optimization.
Anyway, the LG Optimus 2X were available in March with the Samsung Galaxy S2 in May and the HTC Sensation being available now. Waiting 2-3 months for superior hardware makes sense even in the short life-span of smartphone generations.
ebilcake - Tuesday, June 21, 2011 - link
It's about on par with the SGX540 in the Galaxy S/Nexus S which was out long before Tegra 2.So it would more accurate to say nvidia have never actually been ahead.
aldiswilson - Saturday, June 25, 2011 - link
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www styl eown com
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1) More pictures available on our website --
3) Perfect quality, small order accepted .
4) 100% safe door to door delivery, within 5 - 7 days air express for small orders .
5) We have lots of jerseys in stock
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
www style own com
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
6) Letters and number are sewn on b2cshop body, 100% embroidery
7) Size: .48, 50, 52, 54, 56, 60
8) Delivery by UPS, DHL, EMS door to door
9) Delivery in 5 - 7 days
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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jjj - Monday, June 20, 2011 - link
It was kinda expected for Droid 3 to use OMAP and not a big deal since Moto is using TI and Nvidia in the high end (it's better to have more than 1 supplier and now OMAP is actually available).A surprise would be if they dump Nvidia and replace it with someone else.The updated Bionic might be using OMAP too, if this is in any way accurate (nothing new since it's some 6 weeks old info) http://nena.se/nenamark/view?version=1&device_...
Pete_ - Monday, June 20, 2011 - link
While I understand the chipset supports *up to* 1 GB RAM, are you actually reporting that it will "likely" have that much (and if so, why?). Most of the reports out there are speculating 512 MB, and that's what the Milestone equivalent recently released overseas got. If it's going to have 1 GB of RAM, I'm sending this phone back now and pre-ordering my Droid 3 -- need to know.Brian Klug - Monday, June 20, 2011 - link
I'd definitely be disappointed if it came with 512 MB of RAM. It's a tiny bit of speculation, and the GLBenchmark results don't show the total amount of memory, but I've seen 1 GB of RAM pop up for the XT883 in a couple of other places.I'll note that in the article though - possibly 1 GB of RAM.
-Brian
macs - Monday, June 20, 2011 - link
I still can't understand why you guys are in a rush to post numbers from unreleased device and still not willing to pay 700 $ to buy a Galaxy S II to torture!Brian Klug - Monday, June 20, 2011 - link
The plan right now is to work through this backlog of devices I've got, then go out and buy an SGS2 if Samsung USA still doesn't have any they're willing to sample us with.It's tempting though, I want one to carry around honestly. ;)
-Brian
GuniGuGu - Monday, June 20, 2011 - link
+1 would love to see the S II benchmarked....ph00ny - Wednesday, June 22, 2011 - link
Send me a list of benchmark scores you would like to see and i will run it on my stock unrooted sgs iiPete_ - Monday, June 20, 2011 - link
Darn -- I was really hoping I'd see something that may give doubt to the half-gigabyte spec. we've been seeing. Although at the higher frequency (333/233 vs. 133 of Tegra 2), it may still be worthwhile to send back my current unit (a Droid X2) in favor of a Droid 3. I miss the physical keyboard I had on my OG Droid something fierce.Thanks for keeping us updated. If you do hear anything about hard specs. on this phone, I and others would love to know.
Pete_ - Monday, June 20, 2011 - link
Oops *333/266 I mean.Pete_ - Monday, June 20, 2011 - link
It's curious to see the comparison against the EVO 3D. The pro version clearly benches far above the Droid 3 yet the regular version benches under it. Very odd.iamlilysdad - Monday, June 20, 2011 - link
Different sets of instructions are supported by different chipsets. Tegra, for example, notable has no support for NEON instructions, which hinders it's performance significantly in certain applications/benchmarks.The flipside is that certain games aren't able to run on Galaxy S II devices because of lack of support for specific sets of instructions. This will have to be remedied by the dev, because for Samsung would need to implement a hardware change.
It's sad, really, to see the type of hardware fragmentation that we're seeing happen in terms of Android SoC's and what they can/can't do.
LetsGo - Tuesday, June 21, 2011 - link
Hardware fragmentation is good, more competition in the GPU space.Also if you have a rooted device you can always install Chainfire 3D for maximum compatibility :).
ph00ny - Wednesday, June 22, 2011 - link
Why do manufacturers need to implement changes when game devs are not utilizing standard OpenGL? Whole tegra optimized comes from utilizing Nvidia specific texture compression method. Also devs like chainfire have remedied this as much as possible by creating an app to act as an intermediate driver and translate nvidia specific instructions to standard OpenGLmetafor - Monday, June 20, 2011 - link
The two benchmarks use different scenes. GPU's, like CPU's are a lot more complex than a simple number can represent. Different scenes or game engines will hit different strengths and weaknesses of a GPU. If the scene is texture-heavy (outdoor scenes with a lot of sky, etc), then GPU's with a high pixel shader/texture pipeline will do better. Whereas if a scene is fragment or object-heavy, then GPU's with a lot of vertex performance will win out.GLBenchmark's Egypt also uses a lot of advanced OpenGL features that Pro doesn't. So for any given GPU design/driver, it may hit certain weaknesses in OpenGL command interpreting that doesn't perform well.
fortelv999 - Monday, June 20, 2011 - link
I understand that it may not be so important but i think it's interesting to see the 4 ULP Geforce cores of the Tegra2 getting beat down by a year old GPU...Of course i don't know the detail about the implementation done by TI on this particular SoC... i know it runs at a higher clock than on the Galaxy S, but is it still one core? If so, how would it compare to the SGX542MP used on the iPad2(possibly iPhone5)?
metafor - Monday, June 20, 2011 - link
Well, GLBenchmark on the iPad 2 has been tested by this very site and the results were at least 2-3x the performance of any of these phones at the iPad 2's resolution (1024x768). So the SGX543MP2 (I assume that's what you meant) is a beast.Of course, looking at the size of the A5 chip, it very well should be.
Exodite - Tuesday, June 21, 2011 - link
I believe one of the reasons for the performance, aside from the fairly high GPU clocks, is the superior memory bandwidth of OMAP.Since smartphone GPUs don't have dedicated memory this can make a lot of difference depending upon the application.
Lucian Armasu - Tuesday, June 21, 2011 - link
Don't confuse the PowerVR SGX 540 in OMAP 4 for the PowerVR SGX 540 in Hummingbird. It's been overclocked and improved, and has about 50% higher performance than before. Just look what kind of FPS Galaxy S and Nexus S are getting vs Evo 3D and Droid 3.Lucian Armasu - Tuesday, June 21, 2011 - link
I meant Optimus 3D*softdrinkviking - Monday, June 20, 2011 - link
does anyone know if this is going to be pentile for sure?i read a couple of reports that said it probably would, but i was still hoping that the US version would stick with the IPS screen on the droid 2 which i liked way better.
i have used the atrix a lot, and i really don't like the screen, i find it washed out, blurry, and difficult to read text on.
really, really hoping the droid 3 doesn't have that same screen.
Pete_ - Tuesday, June 21, 2011 - link
Yes, it will for-sure have the PenTile screen. I'm using it right now on my recent Droid X2 upgrade (which I may send back for the Droid 3) -- I hated it quite a bit when I first got it last week, but I've grown used to it, and going from a 4.3" DX2 screen to a 4.0" D3 screen may make it all the less noticeable. Odd to say: but it's far less of an issue for me now.chocoberryp - Tuesday, June 21, 2011 - link
http://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c...Here it is. SGS2 just rocks.
DrChemist - Tuesday, June 21, 2011 - link
How come you left out the benchmark of the Galaxy S2. One of the fastest out of the bunch I would think and they do have it available in Korea and later here.PyroHoltz - Tuesday, June 21, 2011 - link
Thanks for the info Brian.One question, have you considered normalizing the charts based on pixels per device?
Other than that, let's hope this device does in fact ship w/ 1GB of DDR2.
ebilcake - Tuesday, June 21, 2011 - link
Galaxy S II is faster than all of them,Updated result sfor you guys.
Galaxy S II Retail
Egypt - 43 fps
Pro - 59.9 fps (Yes limited by 60 fps limit)
Please stop refering to outdated results from a pre-release model.
ebilcake - Tuesday, June 21, 2011 - link
A nice phone, droid phones are usually decent but never cutting edge performace.Galaxy S II outscores it but for some reason not included in the results.
This is what the Galaxy S II scores for comparision.
Eqypt - 43 fps
Pro - 59.9 fps (60 fps cap)
ebilcake - Tuesday, June 21, 2011 - link
Is there a reason my comments are getting deleted?kioshi - Tuesday, June 21, 2011 - link
We Milestone users (I live in Brazil) are f... with an inferior device?