Multicore CPU…useful or just marketing? Intel reckons Android not ready for multicores
So this debate is popping up again as to whether multicore processors are actually doing something useful for the end user.
- Is it making things run faster?
- Is it making devices run more powerful applications/games?
- Is it saving battery?
- Does the presence of multicore produce a positive difference for the end user?
Without immediately going into the actual virtues of having multicore, it is already a growing trend, at least amongst the geeks, powerusers and those that recommend these devices in stores to newbies, that more cores somehow immediately means better. You guys had a long chat about this before on the news that WP8 Lumias may eventually get Qualcomm’s S4 dualcore chip. Some were happy, some were not – why just dual core you cried out.
Is it enough just to look at the performance and stick with that?
For me, I want these extra cores. Why? Because we’re still stuck in this superficial specs race where those with ‘lesser specs’ on paper are dismissed. Although for some reason, when those specs are reversed, folks still give Nokia a bad time (remember the uproar against the 41mp by some? Although some media outlets were pleased too). Either that or make some huge campaign to reeducate the public on the meaning of multicore and what that actually does, if anything positive at all for the end user.
Intel, who have been rather behind ARM with regards to mobile chips have recently claimed that:
Android is Not Ready for Multicore
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2182710/intel-claims-android-ready-multi-core-processors
Is intel just saying this to defend their medfield single core chip from Qualcomm, Samsung, nVidia and co?
Apparently Intel did some internal testing and in their tests, they outperformed multicore with a single core. Whether this is in actual real life situations and not simply benchmarks, I don’t know. Not only is Intel saying the single core performed better, but the second core became a detriment
because of the way some of the people have not implemented their thread scheduling
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2182710/intel-claims-android-ready-multi-core-processors
At least speaking of Android, Intel is saying it does NOT make efficient use of multicore processors.
For the most part, the specs race on Android is the way manufacturers have been differentiating themselves from each other. More numbers = better on the surface.
You can see already that single core devices don’t have to be slow. N9, 900, 808, all single core devices from Nokia with three different OSes, but just optimised on single core running just as fast if not faster than dual core and even quadcore counterparts (on certain tasks). Independent benchmarks from places like Anandtech also showed more cores do not necessarily perform better. But marketing and perceptions have already moved on to desire more cores. The pseudotechy person isn’t going to care that their Android isn’t fully optimised and ready for quadcore. They’re just going to brag about the quadcore and be done with it. That’s mostly the reason I’d need to see Nokia come out with multicore processors. Well not the personal bragging, but getting past the barriers and into consumer awareness and consideration – not being left out simply because it doesn’t meet initial specs and actually give the devices a go.
Source: theinquirer
Category: Nokia
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well sonys sticking to dual core for now because they dont see the point/ability to properly introducing more cores
Its true. Have heard a few times that some devices, namely One X, have quad core, yet it is only for spec sake as it can only utilise 2 cores (no, not meaning the four can be used if needed to.)
Well, I have actually tried the One X and it is much smoother than any dual core devices that I have seen.. So why is that?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-TMsw4QdkW0
htc one X is lags at some areas.
but i think its the only tegra3 phone that lags
There is a nice comparison video in Pocketnow about the speed difference between GS2 and GS3. There was no real world difference between the two. However in benchmarks the quad-core GS3 seems to be much better.
Speed difference? Probably not much at all, but S3 is at least by my experience a lot smoother than S2. (So smoothness is better, not speed)
The One X 2 core variant is faster than the 4 core version in most benchmarks (yes there are 2 versions of the One X)
Why is that?
one for US and one for europe.
I mean one for the rest of the world.
I think the 2cores is to support the US bands for 4G while the ordinary 4cores are for the rest of the world.
At least they have support for most users and not 4G only for the US.
I checked an one x (international) doesn’t have 4G in Europe, the 4G version is called one xl.
Sorry for the confusion.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTC_One_X
which onex did you try and also the 2 core version of the onex is faster than its quad core counterpart
Quick question, are the Medfield devices on par performance wise with the arm devices? And how about battery life?
I wonder if Intel is ever going to allow Nokia to use their chipsets anymore
As a printed circuit board designer I have used multiple CPU and now multiple core Intel CPU’s in my primary system for many years and it is my understanding from the software engineers that the primary function was for multitasking situations however the software OS and applications have to be written to take advantage of the multiple cores. I do no know if WP and Android are written with this in mind but I would bet that most apps are not.
It’s best not to talk about something you obviously don’t know much about. Besides, do you seriously think Intel is all for truth when their effort is so behind regarding mobile/embedded processors (ARM)?
It’s also best not to comment when you haven’t bothered to read anything I’ve written. Seems a lot of your previous comments are there just to complain about what I write about. thanks!
The first things I’ve pointed out was that Intel is behind in mobile and right after ‘is intel just saying this to defend their medfield single core chip from Qualcomm, Samsung, nVidia and co?’.
Even if I’m not the most proficient at a particular subject I’m going to try and give as much sides of the argument as I can and allow readers to discuss the topic in question openly.
Some people aren’t the most technical, I know I am not, but I think all perspectives are welcome. You seemed to be in the know and had an opportunity to educate yet decided instead to complain.
Ok sorry for being too critical. If you compare Exynos3XXX-single vs Exynos4XXX-dual (all with 45nm) or Exynos4-dual vs Exynos4-quad (32), you will see that the performances have jumped quite a bit without having increased the clock speed or anything else. (There are other factors like cache size etc) or having suffered too much in terms of battery. While it is true that the return diminishes as per the number of cores, at least up to now it is not the case that number of cores didn’t offer performance benefits for android devices. S4 (dual core) beating Tegra3 (quad core is not a good example case because they have different architecture (Qualcomm’s own A15-ish architecture vs A9).
Besides Medfield offers pseudo multi(dual)-core capability via Hyper-threading. So is Intel saying Hyper-threading is of no use for Medfield
Hyper threading is useful for properly threaded apps, which at this point means pretty much the web browser only. So multiprocessing is not useless, but it’s of limited usefulness. The situation is quite similar to desktop ten years ago, except mobile OSes typically are not used for multitasking as much, so proper threading of apps is even more important for concrete benefits from multiprocessing.
No they are not. You’re not that good with reading comprehension, are you?
They are saying that without proper software support benefits of having multiple cores are lost and that SoC manufacturers should participate in this part as well.
Given that latter point, we can presume Intel is taking more active role in Android development to ensure that hyper-threading can be utilized as intended.
Thanks.
Good point. To the end user however, they are probably not aware of this and think that simply adding more cores = better, without any regard to the different architectures.
One the one hand it may not be a good example of dual core vs quadcore, but on the other it does show that in all instances, quadcore is not simply the symbol of being better.
lol.. i thought so, u dont know a thing, maaan the applications used to measure the performance of these chipsets are optimised for quadcore and different cores to handle multi thread processes, so they give different results and differnt values, so if these chipsets are used in real world applications, games and in android os, the results are like intel said… any way they also change performance because of increased ram and increased single core efficiency in a quard core so galxy s2 is better than s3, so its not mostly due to quard core
sorry you are wrong. Let’s just say I should just know about those Exynoses
no one doubts that the chips themselves can be faster its whether or not the operating system can actually make more use of those chips compared to say a next generation dual core
and as we’ve seen dual cores still seem to outperform quads
Intel is mostly right in this matter. The Medfield really does outperform ARM dual cores in many use cases. Four cores is already deep in the diminishing return area, although Android 4.0 is supposed to improve on that a little.
In any case, even for desktop four cores is usually the sweet spot, and mobile Oses are not as well optimized for multiprocessing as desktop OSes. So at this point at least four core phones are more about marketing than actual performance.
Friend’s “dual-core” lags. Not stutter. Lag.
It’s multi core. It. Should. Not. Lag.
What dual core device is this?
My dual core tablet – Tegra 2, Android 3.something – that definitely lags, and lags a lot at times.
At least in part this is down to Android itself (recent slashdot article claiming a recompile of Android resulted in 30-100% speed improvements)
Tegra 2 has some issues running Android due to the chip not fully supporting some ARM features. They couldn’t fully decode MP4 on the GPU as well. That’s why Android had problems on them. And that’s also why Google has been with Samsung and their Exynos CPUs lately.
Android is not optimized for any sort of hardware besides its minimum spec so I can understand why adding all this quad core processors wont really increase the performance that much.
The reason why the iPhone can be so fluid is because Apple knows exactly what hardware is going in and makes sure that the iOS runs perfectly on that hardware, so that is what im hoping the Nokia and Microsoft partnership will achieve.
Speaking of the iPhone, I find it rather frightful how relatively smooth a 2009 3GS on latest firmware (it ‘multitasks’). It’s veery slow to load the more intensive games but other core apps move by so swiftly.
I don’t think there were any devices from Nokia from 2009 that are that smooth today. Unfortunately that means even N900 exhibits some painful lags now (as expectations have increased). There is of course no need to explain the torturous experience of trying to use a N97 today. Poor little bugger didn’t even have the chance of updates because it was hindered by poor management choice of cheapening out on hardware.
Whilst Android performance may not increase that much with quadcore, they’re certainly meeting the expectations at least on pure spec desirability. I think Nokia and MS are deeply set on focusing with raw performance first. Whilst that’s awesome and all, I fear that if they’re devices don’t meet the perceived specs standards of 2012/2013 it will be simply another reason to ignore their devices.
The same thing happened with my poor X6. It received no OS update and stucked with S60v5.
Your are very true…if nokia won’t make multicore devices, they will be simply ignored by general users. Though we know that they can optimize the OS to run smoothly on single core, still there are people who think more cores is a better choice.
few years ago we had camera m.p race people useto buy camera phone with higher m.p.now we have specs race.usefull or not one big problem everyone is complaining of nokia its behind competition in bringing latest specs to the market.
Without doubt i can say if nokia brings in a phone with galaxy s3 specs it will be top seller.
apps also are important. If nokia put quad core and 2gb ram on a symbian device, people won’t give a fuck because it lacks apps
agreed with symbian.but applicable to wp
Right.. From their statement;
“…says that it wasn’t until APRIL 2011 when Android 2.3.4 became available that the OS was really ready to embrace dual-core processors. Before that, you had Android devices shipping with dual-core power that was not being taken advantage of by the OS.”
Guess what ALL of the current dual core Androids are running? 2.3.4 or better. And by the way, the difference is HUGE between dual and single core with android.
Also the new quad core devices are also significantly smoother than the old dual core ones. Is it the extra 2 cores? I don’t know, but something causes them to run better.
So this was basically a pointless claim from Intel, as Android DOES now support dual core, and quad cores seem to be much faster too. Don’t believe me? Go to a store, and try for yourself.
It would be interesting to try and compare the quadcore OneX and SGS3 against the dualcore OneX and SGS3, to see, if any, performance differences. It may be easiest to compare those set of devices instead of comparing it against other older dual core Androids that may have other factors causing a difference in performance.
The only comparison that I did was trying both SGS2 and S3, and S3 seemed to be a lot smoother.
A video I found;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RqbCtkzbs5Q
I recommend going hands on though, the differences are far easier to notice.
You could start with this:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/5779/htc-one-x-for-att-review
There are some factors to take in consideration, but in short, the gist of the issue is this:
a) Nvidia Tegra 3 uses 4 ARM A9 cores with a 5th companion core, which uses very low power. When the 4 processors aren’t needed, it switches to the fifth, low power core. The GeForce GPU is good, but not the best.
b) Samsung Exynos 4412 (the one in the GS III) also has 4 ARM A9 cores, but they are manufactured at 32 nanometers (Tegra 3 I think are 45 nm), which make they more power efficient. Their GPU, the Mali 400 is one of the best in the industry, and in the GS3 is clocked very high.
c) The Qualcomm Snapdragon MSM8960 (Krait S4) is the dual core CPU used in the AT&T HTC One X and also the American version of the GS3. It is comparable to the Exynos and Tegra 3 because its two cores implement some ARM 15 technology, the sucessor to ARM 9. Their Adreno 225 GPU is not cutting edge, but it is clocked high, which thanks to the powerful, but efficient two cores. The reason this CPU is used in America is because Qualcomm has integrated LTE on it, which Tegra 3 and Exynos haven’t yet. I think Tegra 3 will support LTE by calendar Q3 of this year.
More info in:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/5811/samsung-galaxy-s-iii-preview
http://www.anandtech.com/show/5072/nvidias-tegra-3-launched-architecture-revealed/1
Also, the only way in which a multi-core processor is better than a single core, is if the software running on it is optimized for multi-threading. Otherwise is a waste.
The reason why Android pushed CPUs so much towards higher Hz and cores is because, until Android 4, the graphics rendering was done by the CPU, not the GPU.
Continue reading, they do say that it even now, the multicore support isn’t very good. Just that before 2.3.4 those cores weren’t used at all. There are also other performance improvements being made, so comparing devices with older one core CPUs to devices with newer multi-core CPUs isn’t really saying anything. ( Although I do often hear SGS buyers claim that their phone runs as smooth as SGS2 )
I have a Unicorn N9. And I’ll be honest. It’s slow..
Everything in the Swipe UI is fast (except when just booted).
But the apps start slow and streaming video is a PAIN (and no I’m not gonna tweak my N9 or overclock it. I have ONE non-store source thirdparty app and ofcourse thats wazapp).
Watching youtube clips is hell. Compared it to a dualcore SGS2 and that thing was playing clips smooth.. (hell it’s even slow copared to the HTC desire HD).
Doesn’t say much about the SGS2 (same goes for the Desire HD) because I’ve seen it lag on more than one occasion with simple tasks like unlocking the screen or trying to go to the homescreen.
I hope PR 1.3 will improve alot of things on the software side because I ám of the opinion that the N9 is powerful enough.
It justs needs a little optimization.
(I’m getting a black N9 soon so I might tweak one and keep the Unicorn completely tweakfree. That way if I screw up the Unicorn can keep on living beside me
)
Oh and on topic. I think Intel is just trying to save it’s ass on this one. Let’s be realistic here.
Intel is losing big time in the smartphone/tabletmarket so ofcourse they’ll say that they’re the only one who can do real math and calcules.
Intel’s not just late. They’re really late. Even so much that I think they won’t every be the number one chip provider in the smartphonemarket or tabletmarket for that matter.
Also you can defintely see, WITH YOUR OWN EYES, that dualcore and quadcores does speed things up. But the only usecase where this is notably noticable is in webbrowsing, videostreaming and webconnected/related apps.
You won’t notice it much (if at all) opening your agenda app.
Keep your S3 or One X. My N9 works smooth, fast and has Nokia freaking maps.
Oh and my favorite. Dumping series and seasons of videos without converting a bit! Love avi. divx files! MKV works too but not all.
(there’s a little wordplay going on here which I’m proud of since I’m not a native english speaker so: PUN Intented).
The Xolo X900 would like to have a word with you:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/5770/lava-xolo-x900-review-the-first-intel-medfield-phone
Sorry if I seem to quote Anandtech a lot, but I think their CPU reviews are the best, even if they seem to be a bit on the Apple side of the equation.
its not because of dual core or quad its because youtube and flash are highly optimised for android and not for n9 so is ur bad youtube performance and belle menu scrolling is smooth in fp1 its not because of increse in mega hz to 1.3 its mainly because the os is optimized
I’m guessing that the youtube app in the N9 should be optimized for the N9 eventhough it’s just the HTML5 webapp..
But I agree. Software optimization is key. MeeGo Harmattan is still an unfunished OS. When it reaches the level of Belle wether that be normal belle or with a fp. This thing will run like water, unstopable.
true, instead of abandoning mego they sholud hav merged smarter phone os and mego and continued itc as open source and impleting new features at every release
Adapt or vanish , survival of the fittest , these all come to mind when you remember Palm’s lack of good hardware specs compared to other phones .
palm had one of the best touch based OSes and it didn’t help the company survive because of it’s lack of perceived CPU specs
Android pre-ICS weren’t utilizing the multi-cores efficiently but it has changed with ICS which uses a multi-core architecture to good use. Try using a vanilla ICS on a single core & dual core phones and you can see the difference(Nexus S & Galaxy Nexus). I really like ICS as an OS and doesn’t lag on most of the time.. Google has finally managed to get the Android to work smoothly.
Intel is just trying to hide its failure not to have a multi-core Medfield out yet. The current single-core Medfield in the Lava Xolo phone does perform well with a single-core when compared to multi-core ARM processors but it still lags behind in few scenarios. Also, running two cores at 50% load is better than running one at 100%. I wonder how Intel will change its stand when it releases the multi-core Medfield processors. Will Intel say that Android is finally able to use multi-cores properly (Jelly Bean is scheduled for release just about the same time. I hope Intel doesn’t use Jelly Bean to stress its poiint)? I’m eagerly waiting for this one just like for Elop’s response when releasing a dual-core WP8 based phone (after Elop’s commented that multi-cores are a gimmick when asked about multi-core WPs).
But still devices are selling because of that tag Dual Core. Few might be tech geeks but still majority don’t know what’s going on inside and they just go for the higher specs.
I think it is a valid point Nokia need multi-core devices – even if it doesn’t make any performance difference. The average non-techie user doesn’t want to be seen with a ‘backward, single-core Nokia’. it is just about competing with what is seen as the best on the market, and (rightly or wrongly) single core doesn’t cut it anymore.
I agree, very much.
Nobody is going to be buying the ipad 1 if the ipad 3 is already on the market (metaphor).
Your shit has to be future proof and Nokia in every aspect of it’s smartphoneproduction does not deliver that.
It is absolutely not a sane, rational and viable option to opt for a Nokia device at this moment in time. This is the truth and it is the KEY problem.
They are not THAT much behind any more. Medfield is a serious contender for dual core ARM processors, and once the dual core versions are available, the quad core ARMs will probably get stiff competition.
The lesson of last 20 years of processor history: NEVER underestimate Intel. They have resources that are vastly superior to ARM or the ARM design manufacturers, and they have much superior manufacturing technology. These allow them to come back from unfavorable position very quickly when they put their mind on it.
Amen
they are also a monopolist with gobs of money. they are a bit of a dr. jekyll / hyde. they do good, and they are also partly evil as evidently seen screwing AMD. i think competition should be there, if we allow intel to be a monopoly again we’ll never see this level of competitiveness as seen in the mobile industry. intel will be happy selling chips at a premium with piss poor graphics. kick them hard and they will strive to give something worthwhile along with their great CPUs.
SMP (multicore etc) was invented some years ago to solve 2 things: megahertz race cant be indefinite and multitasks OSes were more and more popular
the main problem with multicore is that real value from additional core is very depends on OS design (synchronization, context switching etc). For example at that times there was OS/2 and WinNT which supported SMP arch. And there was a test for performance increase by adding more cores. The winner was OS/2 due much better internal design. There was almost linear increase of performance.
So, taking in account that Android based on Linux plus there is Java on top of it and very small number of programmers for Android these days even thinks about multitasking performance, I can assume that Intel is right
Things may change in future but…Java is not the best solution for mobiles
I don’t understand why a section of Nokia users consistently diss a good spec’d cellphone!
first they said s3 devices supposedly ran just fine. later, when the 701 came around and when news said apollo would have better hardware there was cheers. if 1.3 ghz was great news, what happened the first time ?
whatever the galaxy s3 has multicore, it’s also got a beast of a battery – which affords it a full blown, all day long usage of ANY task thrown at it. compare that with the poor performance of say something like an E7 – pathetic battery, slow cpu. so what stops nokia from giving good hardware ? the e7 was not exactly cheap to begin with. and even though the build is solid, it’s just not up there as a flagship device. we now have the asha series and 808 sharing pretty much the same platform of hardware.
let’s ignore symbian devices, because they were from yesterdays’ mistakes. what about the windows phone devices ? again we see low ram, lower specs all round. so while we have excellent polycarbonate bodies etc, why not give some better hardware too along with higher resolution ?
As a ex-android user, U can tell all this is true, Android suck! great hardware sucks SW!
Nokia actually can follow Android foot step
but with a few amendments like what they have done before
by unlocking new features via Software update and optimize all the cores in the update like what they have done before touchscreen smartphone generation…
Nokia cannot follow any SW footsteps anymore :>
not in the WP at least. they can do it with s40/ meltemi
I’m not sure about multicore on s40/meltemi (if any at all)
true. I speculated or “just supposed” because they did bring in a 1ghz plus processor, if meltemi is for the long haul, then maybe….
we can only wish and speculate… If Nokia follow the old route, I bet symbian and MeeGo are already on dual-core with maximum optimization of both cores unlike Android…
You guys only focus on specs but can these phones actually work outside of the u.s or europe? Nope not even the great iphone. Take it from me who actually been all over the world. The only phone can do that is blackberry. When it comes down to crunch time blackberry stands appart and all your fancy specks just becomes docile. So nokia can produce 10 cores and all it won’t matter they are still the worst.
If android is not ready for Multicore processors then what os is?
People often confuse the CPU and GPU when this topic comes up. The CPU on mobile devices is doing the things before you see them in most situations. Network calls, math calculations, etc. etc.. The smoothness of the device is usually the result of the GPU and can make a device seem so much faster than it is if the Operating System utilizes it well. Also this is the world of Async programming so multi cores are actually really important regardless if you are offloading tasks to cores on a web server or onto cores on your device.
The way Android is built is very brutal, they attack tasks with brute force because they are not optimized for any one processor/gpu combination or multiple cores. Also they do not optimize for a certain amount of registers on the CPU as well as either IOS or WP7. Basically no matter the specs Android will never run faster on a whole as either IOS or Windows Phone. Android has so much hardware fragmentation weight it is trying to hold together and it will eventually crumble under it if they do not make a more controlled environment.
the smoothness of the device is depends on how fast you can transfer big amount of memory between cpu’s and gpu’s memory
so it not only the gpu and cpu but system itself as a whole
Ah so that’s why my Nokia 500 ain’t as smooth. Haha thanks for the explanation!