cores or clock rate?

[thisismelsemail]

My knowledge of processors is novice at best. So my question is this, is a processor (or SoC) with fewer cores but a higher clock rate better or faster than one with more cores and a lower clock rate. Also factor in reliability.

Posted via the Android Central App

 

[LeoRex]

Well... the only time clock rate can be an indication of comparative performance is when you have two of the SAME SoCs that have different clock rates. The Asus ZenPhone 2 has two models, and one of the differences between the two is the clock rate on the Intel Atom processor they run on. As you can imagine, the processor with the higher clock rate is quicker. Across different processor families, all bets are off.

Same for cores. Not all cores are the same. Some cores are powerful, but power hungry, others not so smart but sip power. And you can have the same design, but they are made using a different process, wihch affects performance as well. It all depends on how the chip is designed and made.

Lets look at the Snapdragon 808, the Snapdragon 810, and the Exynos 7420. All three processors are based on multiple cores using the same two different designs... the high power ARM Cortex A57 and power efficent A53 cores. But all three have some distinct differences. The 808 has two A57 cores and 4 A53 cores. The 810 has four cores of each... . the 7420 also has four of each cores, but UNLIKE Qualcomm's chips, which uses a 20nm fabrication process, the Exynos use's Samsung's slick new 14nm process. All those complaints about the Snapdragon 810's overheating issues? Qualcomm would have been better servced using Samsung's process (which their next gen processorts certainly will)... The Exynos doesn't have nearly the same heat issues as the 810. The 808? Well, it doesn't run nearly as hot as the 810, but it had to lose half its more powerful cores to get there.... and it uses a less powerful graphics processor as well.

Now... lets look at others. The Snapdragon 805, which is in the Nexus 6 and Galaxy Note 4, consists of four Krait (as opposed to ARM) 450 cores running at a max speed of 2.7GHz. To be honest, I think this is till the best overall SoC that Qualcomm has made to date.. It doesn't have the raw processing power of either the 810 or 808, but it doesn't suffer from the heat issues of the 810, and it actually has better graphical capabilities than the 808....

Now let's go looking at Apple... the iPhone 6 uses what Apple calls the A8 SoC. This is a DUAL core processor of their own design running at 1.4GHz. Half the cores and half the speed of the Snapdragon 805? It must be much slower. Nope.... Each core is actually more powerful than the cores used in the Snapdragon.... but the Snapdragon has twice as many. Its hard to compare performance across such different platforms, but all indications are that neither processor has an advantage. Why the two approaches? Well, the dual-core A8 is a better match for what iOS demands while the higher core counts of the Snapdragon do a better job of handling what Android needs....

I hope this makes sense... it is kind of a complicated mess though.

 

[Rukbat]

It depends on how the software was written, but there's no one-to-one correspondence. Some software will run faster if there are more cores, some won't.

Reliability - well, there are a few views on that, but the faster you run a chip, the more hear it generates, and the more cores it has the more heat it generates, so again, there's no definitive answer. If you have 2 cores and one goes bad, the CPU still runs, if you have only 1, it's dead, but I don't thing there are any more single core SoCs being used in any but the cheapest phones.

 

[thisismelsemail]

It actually makes a lot of sense. I just read earlier that the 820 SoC is gonna be based on the 14nm design. As you said, no surprise there. I had no idea the way the processor is manufactured had so much to do with it. And i can understand the way the software being written has to do with it as well. Correct me if im wrong, what im seeing as that android thrives on multitasking, thus the need for more cores. So it can split the work load. Apple ios on the other hand is based on simplicity. There isn't a whole lot of multitasking involved there. So they can get away with using a dual core with powerful cores. Am i understanding this correctly?

Posted via the Android Central App

 

[Tsepz_GP]

Well... the only time clock rate can be an indication of comparative performance is when you have two of the SAME SoCs that have different clock rates. The Asus ZenPhone 2 has two models, and one of the differences between the two is the clock rate on the Intel Atom processor they run on. As you can imagine, the processor with the higher clock rate is quicker. Across different processor families, all bets are off.

Same for cores. Not all cores are the same. Some cores are powerful, but power hungry, others not so smart but sip power. And you can have the same design, but they are made using a different process, wihch affects performance as well. It all depends on how the chip is designed and made.

Lets look at the Snapdragon 808, the Snapdragon 810, and the Exynos 7420. All three processors are based on multiple cores using the same two different designs... the high power ARM Cortex A57 and power efficent A53 cores. But all three have some distinct differences. The 808 has two A57 cores and 4 A53 cores. The 810 has four cores of each... . the 7420 also has four of each cores, but UNLIKE Qualcomm's chips, which uses a 20nm fabrication process, the Exynos use's Samsung's slick new 14nm process. All those complaints about the Snapdragon 810's overheating issues? Qualcomm would have been better servced using Samsung's process (which their next gen processorts certainly will)... The Exynos doesn't have nearly the same heat issues as the 810. The 808? Well, it doesn't run nearly as hot as the 810, but it had to lose half its more powerful cores to get there.... and it uses a less powerful graphics processor as well.

Now... lets look at others. The Snapdragon 805, which is in the Nexus 6 and Galaxy Note 4, consists of four Krait (as opposed to ARM) 450 cores running at a max speed of 2.7GHz. To be honest, I think this is till the best overall SoC that Qualcomm has made to date.. It doesn't have the raw processing power of either the 810 or 808, but it doesn't suffer from the heat issues of the 810, and it actually has better graphical capabilities than the 808....

Now let's go looking at Apple... the iPhone 6 uses what Apple calls the A8 SoC. This is a DUAL core processor of their own design running at 1.4GHz. Half the cores and half the speed of the Snapdragon 805? It must be much slower. Nope.... Each core is actually more powerful than the cores used in the Snapdragon.... but the Snapdragon has twice as many. Its hard to compare performance across such different platforms, but all indications are that neither processor has an advantage. Why the two approaches? Well, the dual-core A8 is a better match for what iOS demands while the higher core counts of the Snapdragon do a better job of handling what Android needs....

I hope this makes sense... it is kind of a complicated mess though.

This!

The CPUs have never been more diverse than now. You even have MediaTek using a mix of A53 & A72 cores now. Its very difficult to compare.

 

[LeoRex]

Android thrives on multitasking... Apple ios on the other hand is based on simplicity.

In very broad terms, yes. The two platforms handle background tasks and multi threading differently. Neither is really any better in that sense than the other, they are just different.

I'm curious, though, how Apple implements the enhancements meant to compete with Google Now. Google Play Services does a lot in the background to do it's thing... Apple tries to avoid those kinds of background loads (hence iOS devices good idle battery drain), so how they work it will be interesting.

 

[UJ95x]

As others have said, core count and clock speed don't tell you much about performance. There's also transistor count, die size, instructions per cycle, pipeline length, latency... among other things. Apple is the best example of not needing tons of cores clocked at ridiculous speeds in order to obtain great performance. Their last phone SoC (which came out last year) is still among the best on the market. And the upgraded version which can be found in the iPad Air 2 is the best in any tablet, period.

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