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PowerVR demonstrate x2 to x16 core GPU chip for mobile devices!

Pottsey: Do you own or have a lot of shares in PowerVR or sommit? Why is it "good news" the these companies are choosing PowerVR over something else? Did you sell your shares in Nvidia because they killed PhysX LOL:)
 
Or will that not compete?

Other SoCs maybe faster/better on the same generation (and have a great powerVR gpus) but nVidia's aggressive policy of getting products to the market quickly and in high volumes could be a significant blow for other manufactures.

We're seeing this right now...

TI's OMAP 4430 is better than Tegra 2 but nVidia was first to market with large numbers. Long time TI partner Motorola recently switch from OMAP SoCs to Tegra 2 for it's next gen phones (Atrix/Bionic) it's a simple case of supply/demand.
If they can ship Tegra 3 (same gpu performance as SGX543mp2?) to manufactures for August then nVidia will take a big chunk of the market.

Luckily ImagTech have Apple (and Intel) to fall back on :p In 5/10 years you'll be able to buy a mac with powerVR graphics Pottsey ;)
 
metalmackey said "Do you own or have a lot of shares in PowerVR or sommit? Why is it "good news" the these companies are choosing PowerVR over something else?"
Yes I own shares as I predicted the change in technology and rise of GPU's in phones after lots of research. Most people called me mad but hey, look where we are now quad core and better GPU's with quad CPU's coming in phones. Yes I am Fan boy and its good news as this is really pushing technology forward. Sometimes the better and/or faster technology doesn't get implanted. Lastly graphics technology is a hobby of mine and the markets have been boring recently. Things were much more interesting now with more players




Marvin said "Ha. Ha. Ha.Ha.Ha.
I think that may have been what sarge78 was referring to..."

What's so funny? Do you not understand the numbers? It seems to me you have fallen for the marketing hype and don't understand what you are reading. That completely proves my point on how Nvidia are falling behind unless they make a change. The 2012 and 2013 parts of the map are way beind PowerVR's roadmap. Debatable the 2011 part is as well.

GPU wise the upcoming Tegra 2 is around the same speed as the last generation of PowerVR chips. Every benchmark you see has it against the older chips and barely winning in the synthetic benchmarks and sometimes losing in the game benchmarks.

Nvidia themselves say they are only 10 to 20% faster than the SGX540 but products using the SGX540 are a year old. The PowerVR SGX543 is depending on version x4 to x8 times faster then the SGX540. So if we compare this generation Tegra against this generation PowerVR thenTegra is x4 between to x8 slower at GPU performance. Next year or very late this year Tegra 3 is over x10 slower then PowerVR series 6. Nvidia according to that roadmap don't even have anything to compare against PowerVR series 6 chips untill untill 2013. Which is why most of the big companies are announced swapping over or to keep useing PowerVR for the 2012 products.

So how am I being illogical in saying the PowerVR chips and products due in 2011 are much faster than the Tegra 2 chips and products coming in 2011? Well I am out of time to write any more. Interesting times ahead is all I can say

EDIT I don't see Tegra 3 coming out in products by August, surly that would be a new record? Isn't it due to sample at August or later with products end of year or 2012?
Which do you think will be more popular a Tegra 2 Atrix/Bionic Phone or next Gen Iphone out at around the same with only with x4 or more performance?
 
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EDIT I don't see Tegra 3 coming out in products by August, surly that would be a new record? Isn't it due to sample at August or later with products end of year or 2012?
Which do you think will be more popular a Tegra 2 Atrix/Bionic Phone or next Gen Iphone out at around the same with only with x4 or more performance?

Isn't 'between' 4x and 8x the performance a little vague? Also - you say I've been caught up in marketing hype - because obviously PowerVR's roadmaps only show the truth about non-manifested products, while Nvidia must be lying/making figures up...

Also - they are sampling the A0 silicon now - or did you not understand what you were reading? Nvidia hopes to have chips being sold in products by August:

Anandtech said:
Kal-El will be sampling this year and shipping in devices as early as August 2011.
 
Pottsey, think of it this way. If PowerVR have such a chip and everyone uses it thus forcing Nvidia and others out of the mobile market, what happens next? I mean without others to push PowerVR theres no need for them to improve the tech is there.
 
Marvin said "Isn't 'between' 4x and 8x the performance a little vague?"
Yes as it depends on how many cores are used. Different products use different amount of cores. The single core PowerVR SGX543 chip is double the speed of the SGX540 putting it around the same speed as Kal-El Tegra 3 at least from a graphics point of view. The thing is I cannot find anyone using a single core SGX543 they are all going for double, triple or quad core and some are bumping up the mhz rating. That is noticeable faster then what Nvidia is offering at least from a graphics point of view.

As for the series 6 chips I too find that hard to believe. 20x performance is massive even for PowerVR and without benchmarks it's hard to see it being real. But I am inclined to believe its real and not marketing hype due to the shear amount of massive companies that have seen it and are backing it and due to PowerVR's pass history of being spot on what they say they are doing. But I understand if you don't believe it until more facts come out.
The SGX543 on the other hand has had enough demonstrations to prove it's real.




Marvin said "Also - you say I've been caught up in marketing hype - because obviously PowerVR's roadmaps only show the truth about non-manifested products, while Nvidia must be lying/making figures up..."
Nvidia have a history of bending the truth and/or using very specific benchmarks to make themselves look better. Just look at the lies the links with the roadmap. First quad core? right. :rolleyes:

PowerVR have a history of being very honest and telling the truth.



Marvin said " Also - they are sampling the A0 silicon now - or did you not understand what you were reading? Nvidia hopes to have chips being sold in products by August:"
I see the confusion now. One sentence says Tegra 3 is due in devices the end of 2011 or start of 2012. Another sentence says Tegra 3 in products as early as August 2011. What they don't mention until later on is one is for phones and one for tablets. My first read over I missed the August 2011 bit and only read the Tegra 3 in Dec 2011 bit.

Another problem with August 2011 that would be a record timeframe to get a product out. Both the Tegra 1 and 2 got delayed. Can Nvidia really push it out that fast? I don't think so due to past history but I cannot rule it out. But still if they do push it out that fast Tegra can never ship in large numbers due to Apples usually strategy which some consider dirty. I believe best case is Nvidia get 10% of the market. Most likely case 5% or less.

In the end it looks like for phones Tegra is way behind. For Tablets is closer but I still think PowerVR have a large edge.



metalmackey said "Pottsey, think of it this way. If PowerVR have such a chip and everyone uses it thus forcing Nvidia and others out of the mobile market, what happens next? I mean without others to push PowerVR theres no need for them to improve the tech is there. "
But they still will improve. PowerVR have been a monopoly for years and contently pushing hard even without any real competition. Now that competition is heating up I don't see anything changing. If the competition dies away I don't see why PowerVR would be any different from the past.
 
Isn't 'between' 4x and 8x the performance a little vague? Also - you say I've been caught up in marketing hype - because obviously PowerVR's roadmaps only show the truth about non-manifested products, while Nvidia must be lying/making figures up...

Wouldn't be the first time. :p
 
Sorry for the massive necromance of this thread but the other day Anandtech done a wonderful analysis of comparing current generation mobile graphics products to desktop GPU's and after reading it I remembered this thread from 2011.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6877/the-great-equalizer-part-3

It really is amazing how fast mobile GPU’s are advancing. At this rate it’s only going to take a handful of years to overtake desktop chips. Year after year the performance increase between generations has increase far more in the mobile space then desktop. This year’s dual core PowerVR chip should have around 4 times the capability over last year’s chip and if the rumors are true that’s at a resolution of 2048x1536 with free FSAA.

I doubt Pottsey will ever read this as he is probably struggling to get out of bed from all the humble pie he's been eating but current generation mobile GPU's are around the mid-high desktop GPU range from 2006!
 
Seems pretty impressive however that our mobile devices now rival, maybe exceed current gen consoles.

Fair point but that point was always going to come. Console hardware dates back to 2005 and would have started life around 110nm process today's chips are being produced on 28nm which is huge a drop. Still mobile chips are still a long way off there desktop counterparts.

It would be interesting if they could do a power draw to performance analysis, in this scenario I think a mobile platform would have a huge advantage.
 
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One of the key differences are drivers/hardware-fixed function stuff. Its completely different generation, take those same desktop cards, or cards with similar power made up to date on current processes with upto date optimisations in architecture, etc, they would use insanely less power. 3-4 process node drops is a huge saving in power and die size, a 7900gtx would likely be below 50mm2 with smaller mem bus and efficiency savings by now, keep in mind a Tegra 3 is 80mm2, and provided **** performance in that test in comparison(obviously with cpu cores included though and the 5th stupid core). Arm chips aren't nearly as small as people think, with both A15 massively increasing size along with the performance, and power, while the 3mm2 type numbers people talk about are the individual cpu core sizes without the rest of the chip, AMD/Intel cores aren't that much bigger with bobcat/atom.

Mobile is power limited, it was growing fast because they weren't at the power limit more than anything else, how they are hitting the power wall. Though a15 can itself use a pretty hefty amount of power compared to mobile chips 5 years ago, its about using that power, doing something quicker then turning to idle with WAY lower idle usage than older mobile chips. But ultimately those chips only had a generation or two of max power usage growth before they hit a brick wall, and thats basically whats happening. They've grown the core size significantly, and overall chip size, but because a mobile battery can only take so much load power before the device eventually becomes useless(because people want more than 2-3 hour battery life), they are now bound by the same growth limits as AMD/Nvidia in desktop, every new process might mean you get 70-80% performance from the same die size in the same power limits, doesn't matter if that is 80mm2 and 3W or 350mm2 and 250W.

The next big jump in mobile performance will come from battery technology, by jump in performance I mean gaining from mobile towards desktop card performance. Till you can use 15W load in a tablet without the thing overheating or battery running out in 5 minutes, they're stuck. Thing is, this was patently obvious years ago, its EXACTLY what happens in desktop.

For years the discrete gpu's grew in size and power limit, that size/cost/power limit is now and has been for a while around the 300-500mm2(depending on market segment/cost) and power grew up to 300W then backed off a bit, die size is now backing off as well due to increasingly complex processes hurting yields and costs of very big cores.
 
Sorry for the massive necromance of this thread but the other day Anandtech done a wonderful analysis of comparing current generation mobile graphics products to desktop GPU's and after reading it I remembered this thread from 2011.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6877/the-great-equalizer-part-3



I doubt Pottsey will ever read this as he is probably struggling to get out of bed from all the humble pie he's been eating but current generation mobile GPU's are around the mid-high desktop GPU range from 2006!
Just been pointed at this thread. Could I just point out a few things? The new chips did have x4 the capability. I said enough power for “a resolution of 2048x1536 with free FSAA.” As it turns out I was not crazy and that is just what we have today. Next the top end mobile chips in those links are double to triple the speeds of those desktop cards from 2006. Even the desktop card from 2007 is under half the speed.

http://images.anandtech.com/graphs/graph6877/53970.png Dark blue are mobile chips and I think we can agree those top mobile chips are far faster than 2006 mid range desktop cards, faster even then the 2007 cards.

I should have defined a handful of years more accurately but if you count the PowerVR Rogue series 6 chip as handful of years then what I said is pretty much true. I think I even said a timeframe of 2013/2014 in another thread. I have to admit I thought those chips would be near the start of 2013 but we still have time yet for them to come out this year. Go look up PowerVR rouge series 6 chips then come back and tell me I am wrong.

EDIT. A quick look back and the stuff I said about Tegra turned out pretty much right.
 
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I don't know what you said about Tegra but if you said it's going to be a pile of crap or words to that effect then you were right along with what most of us were thinking.

The new chips did have x4 the capability. I said enough power for “a resolution of 2048x1536 with free FSAA.”

What does that even mean? x4 capability of what? And what's PowerVR going to run at 2048x1536 with free FSAA? It will certainly make the screens on tablets look a lot crisper but it won't be running any games at that res unless developers strip out most of the ploygons.

BTW you said it 'would overtake desktop chips in a few years'. Well low and behold a few years on and these mobile devices can barely keep up with Mediocre desktop video cards from 7 years ago.

While mobile chips are limited to a tiny power envelope it will take years for them to catch up with today's offerings.
 
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