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Mobile processors are powerful/fast enough!!!!

B

Billy95Tech

Suspended
Original poster
Apr 18, 2014
540
61
Nvidia Tegra, Snapdragon, Apple don't NEED to make there mobile CPU faster and better every single year because there is not many apps, games who taking advantage of the power of the new Snapdagon 810 and new Tegra CPU and Apple A8X and at the moment the power is being wasted to be honest.

I have a Samsung Galaxy Tab Pro 8.4 and it has the Snapdragon 800 CPU and it is fast, zippy and powerful enough for tasks like video editing and heavy gaming

But do i think it should and needs to be more powerful and faster? NO because it is already powerful/fast enough!

And i think Nvidia, Snapdragon should wait every 2/3 years to release a new CPU which is more powerful/faster Because the new CPU's Snapdragon 810, Tegra, A8X is powerful and fast enough And they are getting as powerful as the I3, I5, I7 Core CPU..


But i am sure over time lots more apps, games will be taking advantage of the power of the new Snapdagon 810 and new Tegra CPU, Apple's A8X but i think they should wait every 2/3 years to release a new CPU which is powerful/faster instead of releasing a new CPU evey single year.



It makes PERFECT SENSE to make CPU's more powerful for tablets because you will use tablets for heavy demanding tasks like video editing, heavy gaming but for phones all you do is on a phone is calling, texting, some very light web surfing, gaming so even the Snapdragon 200/400 and Apple's A5/6 is enough for that kind of stuff.


So what do you guys think? It be great to know your thoughts about this! :)
 
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iphonedude2008

iphonedude2008

macrumors 65816
Nov 7, 2009
1,134
450
Irvine, CA
In addition to the reasons of the poster above, good enough is never a good reason to not do something. Weren't cell phones "good enough" before the iphone? They had enough power to make calls and text and even play a few games. In addition, their batteries lasted for multiple days, much better than our current smartphone. Without advancement, smartphones wouldnt be possible since things will always be "good enough" until shown otherwise.
 
Liquorpuki

Liquorpuki

macrumors 68020
Jun 18, 2009
2,286
8
City of Angels
1. They're not as powerful as latest gen Core chips
2. Even if your device doesn't use all that processing power, you still gain battery savings and architecture efficiency when you jump to the latest CPU.

Best part of the S6 IMO is it's the only phone on 14nm
 
Oohara

Oohara

macrumors 68040
Jun 28, 2012
3,050
2,423
Liquorpuki said:
1. They're not as powerful as latest gen Core chips
2. Even if your device doesn't use all that processing power, you still gain battery savings and architecture efficiency when you jump to the latest CPU.

Best part of the S6 IMO is it's the only phone on 14nm
Click to expand...

Bolded part is reason enough. Also more processing power brings more possibilities to apps and functions, it just takes the developers a while to catch up sometimes.
 
spinedoc77

spinedoc77

macrumors G4
Jun 11, 2009
11,488
5,413
IMO the logical advancement to smartphones is to plug them into a hub at home and work and have them replace the desktop/laptop. That's why I think they need to keep improving specs.
 
M

MikhailT

macrumors 601
Nov 12, 2007
4,583
1,328
I don't think you understand what these companies are doing at all. What Apple and other companies are doing aren't about building the most powerful CPU/GPU chips, they're building more integrated SoCs that can do a lot of functions at the same time, so that it can idle more often and thus increase the power efficiency each year.

If that is exactly what they're doing, Apple would've ship a quad-core 2.0ghz CPU a few years ago, they have the technology to do just that 5 years ago.

What Apple and others are trying to do:

1. Increase power efficiency, the less power these CPU uses at idle, the more battery life you get. Power efficiency at SoC levels are increasing much faster than the battery chemistry. The battery has only improved 10% in the last decade. Put the same CPU from 5 years ago into today's hardware and you'll lose your battery life by half automatically.
2. The faster the CPU finishes the task, the more it can idle. The more it can idle, the more battery life you get. It is far more important to finish a task at 50Ghz and idle 5 minutes than it is to run the task 5 minutes at 5Ghz. (oversimplification but that's the point).
3. Many of the on-board SoC functions are important for improving the quality of your images (Image Sensor Processor), built-in crypto hardware accelerators allows the OS to encrypt your data in real-time rather than causing you to wait, Voice Processor to let Siri understand what you're talking about, and many more.
4. GPU can be used to compute alongside the CPU, it is very good at parallel jobs, much better than CPUs.
5. These companies aren't building brand new CPU/GPU every year, they're iterating the same CPU/GPU designs to be more efficient while at the same time building a new CPU every 2-3 years. So, in fact what you're saying, they're already doing. Apple in this case is rare, they managed to do a few new designs twice in a row but it won't happen often.
6. A lot of these changes are helping all aspects of the software development but you can't see it. In one case, the ARMv8 ISA helps Apple build a better compiler that lets developers build faster apps automatically such as removing memory objects at faster speed. You can read more here: https://mikeash.com/pyblog/friday-qa-2013-09-27-arm64-and-you.html
 
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A

AppleRobert

macrumors 603
Nov 12, 2012
5,729
1,133
They are fast enough but there is no choice but to increase. Why? Because of screen resolution. :)
 
spinedoc77

spinedoc77

macrumors G4
Jun 11, 2009
11,488
5,413
LIVEFRMNYC said:
Don't see that happening.
Click to expand...

Yeah many didn't see the tablet replacing the laptop either. With the processing power smartphones will have in the future and consumers penchant for carrying pretty much everything computer related in their pockets this is where I see it going eventually, at least for every day low grade computing tasks.
 
Savor

Savor

Suspended
Jun 18, 2010
3,742
918
Why stop improving? I say improve on everything with SoC, camera, and battery efficiency but slow down on increasing screen resolution.

1080p is perfect for screens from 4.7 - 5.5

720p for under 4.7 inches

I am willing to go 2k or above with screens over 5.5 inches as it maintains the 400+ pixel density and as long it doesn't take a huge hit on battery life. I didn't think I would notice a difference between 326ppi vs 401ppi or 720p vs 1080p with a 5-inch screen, but I do when texting or reading. And I do alot of texting and reading on my phone. So this is why I am open to 2k resolutions but for bigger screens like the Nexus 6.
 
AustinIllini

AustinIllini

macrumors G5
Oct 20, 2011
12,699
10,567
Austin, TX
Savor said:
Why stop improving? I say improve on everything with SoC, camera, and battery efficiency but slow down on increasing screen resolution.

1080p is perfect for screens from 4.7 - 5.5

720p for under 4.7 inches

I am willing to go 2k or above with screens over 5.5 inches as it maintains the 400+ pixel density and as long it doesn't take a huge hit on battery life. I didn't think I would notice a difference between 326ppi vs 401ppi or 720p vs 1080p with a 5-inch screen, but I do when texting or reading. And I do alot of texting and reading on my phone. So this is why I am open to 2k resolutions but for bigger screens like the Nexus 6.
Click to expand...

It's an interesting point you made about screen resolution. While it's clear the initial 2010 claims of a 326ppi screen as the optimal retina display is false, there has to be an actual pixel density where the difference is not noticeable.
 
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