Sunday Q&A

19 February 2017
Everything you always wanted to know about phones, but were afraid to ask.

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  • consumersmartphone
  • K5u
  • 20 Feb 2017

SaRPeR: Can you test the Sony Xperia XZ's battery life again after the Nougat update? Lots of people are saying Xperia XZ's battery life improved drastically after updating to Nougat?

I have XZ and tested XZ (exclude my phone), yes the battery life get improve and get better but not like it improve from 2900mAh be like 3500mAh. So dont get high hope! Can say from Endurance rating 72h improve to Endurance rating 74h.

    • K
    • Kangal
    • uCX
    • 20 Feb 2017

    regs, 19 Feb 2017Quite poor Q&A. Last answer is completely and entirely ... moreregs is right.

    When it comes to actual intensive mobile gaming, it actually relies on a few things:
    Resolution, GPU, CPU, RAM, and Optimisation.

    The more graphically powerful/intense a game becomes, the more GPU grunt it requires.
    However, it also needs to not be bottlenecked by the CPU and RAM, and Optimisations.

    If we assume the App in question is equally optimised for all SoCs/phones on the list, we can eliminate that variable. Now, since we don't know what resolution the phones have, we will have to assume again that they are all equal, and running the Mobile Game at a 720p resolution. Then we'll look at RAM, and it seems all SoC's come with at least 2GB ddr3 RAM variants which is enough to run the full system, app, bloat, and background tasks. So they could be bottlenecked by the CPU, and we'll run a quick list of what has what:
    QSD 430 - 1.4GHz x8 A53... probable bottleneck
    Kirin 655 - 2.1GHz x4 A53... lots of bottleneck
    QSD 625 - 2.0GHz x8 A53... some bottleneck
    Helio X10 - 2.0GHz x8 A53... some bottleneck
    QSD 650 - 1.8GHz x2 A72... no bottleneck
    Helio X20 - 2.1GHz x2 A72... no bottleneck

    So we know the QSD 650 and Helio X20 won't be bottlenecked. The QSD 430 will not be able to run properly. The other SoC's would limit their GPU's abilities. So the next thing is to compare the GPU's of the top two SoC's to the rest of the category:

    QSD 430 ---> out of this competition
    Kirin 655 ~ 41GFLOPS... very slow, won't run
    QSD 625 ~ 130GFLOPS... fast enough to run
    Helio X10 ~ 90GFLOPS... too slow
    QSD 650 ~ 180GFLOPS... run very smoothly
    Helio X20 ~ 105GFLOPS... fast enough to run

    Out of the competition is the QSD 430, Kirin 655, and Helio X10.
    The Helio X20's GPU wouldn't be bottlenecked but is only fast enough to run the App.
    The QSD 625's GPU is slightly faster but it will be slightly bottlenecked, bringing its graphical performance actually on-par with the X20.
    The QSD 650 is the only processor that can run smoothly, and won't be bottlenecked either.

    Now it could be possible the best contender (QSD 650) may not be able to sustain performance as long as the following contenders, mostly depending on the thermal envelope.
    So let's have a quick comparison:
    QSD 625 - 14nm..... won't be thermal throttled
    Helio X20 - 20nm.... very littler thermal throttling
    QSD 650 - 28nm.... some thermal throttling

    However, the QSD 650 already commences a 70% performance lead over the Helio X20 and the QSD 625. So the question becomes, how much performance loss would their relative throttling affect them? Well its really hard to say, because we're crossing the boundary between theoretical and practical. But in my expert opinion it would be closer to something like this:

    QSD 625 ~ -0% loss
    Helio X20 ~ -1% loss
    QSD 650 ~ -3% loss

    So if we summarise the results for the top three contenders, it'd look something like this:
    Chipset: GPU total power - CPU bottleneck - Throttling limits = Performance Expectancy
    QSD 625: 130 x 80% - 0% = ~103GFLOPS sustained
    Helio X20: 105 x 100% - 1% = ~104GFLOPS sustained
    QSD 650: 180 x 100% - 3% = ~174GFLOPS sustained

    As was expected, the edge in lithography didn't help the architectural advantage the QSD 650 had over the QSD 625. While the Helio X20 was a formidable contender, it was greatly hampered by its GPU. Its GPU is actually great, but its cut-down from its proper specs and hence why it lost.

      • ?
      • Anonymous
      • Py%
      • 19 Feb 2017

      [deleted post]Yeah it's making profit but more of it is due to restructuring. Coming to sales yes the made few bucks but their sales have gone down drastically so lesser sales but more money per sale. Gsma says losing on sales if this continues then there won't be many phones to sell to make money from

        • S
        • Srv946
        • BwZ
        • 19 Feb 2017

        AnonD-270570, 19 Feb 2017Is it why iphone 7 start to sweat and gets insanely hot whe... moreIf the video was going to make your gf hot maybe it made the phone hot too.

          • r
          • regs
          • pRP
          • 19 Feb 2017

          Anonymous, 19 Feb 2017We're not talking about which is used for what. Stop avoidi... moreIt is indeed matter that we talking about phone SoC GPU, as it's about intensive gaming on phones.

          Now, of course there are things like pure operation capability. There is also pipeline, memory etc. But that's +/- few percents. Or 10-20 % at maximum.

          So it is indeed a good indicators of GPU abilities. We can say pretty much for sure that Mali-T830MP2 and Adreno 505 are no the league of Mali-T880MP4, highly overclocked PowerVR G6200 and Adreno 506. And those 3 are not the league of Adreno 510. That's enough. There are also good offscreen gaming tests like 3DMark and GFXBench that will show relatively same difference between those 3 groups.

          There is also onscreen GFXBench that is matter for enduser that shows well performance of specific GPU on specific device with its limitations, like display resolution.

            • ?
            • Anonymous
            • 0xI
            • 19 Feb 2017

            Anonymous, 19 Feb 2017I have no real words for so much stupidity. Did you just sa... moreJust because gsmarena is popular and creates lots of good posts it doesn't mean they are perfect at everything. It's like you think of them as the only right people ir gods. Lol.

              • r
              • regs
              • pRP
              • 19 Feb 2017

              AnonD-152489, 19 Feb 2017I ran the test again coz the 180gfps was not that convincin... moreIt's about FLOPS, not FPS. 32*9*0.6=172.8 to be precise. FPS is a result of operations per second.

              Unless your Adreno 510 is working on full gigahertz. But hardly.

                • ?
                • Anonymous
                • 3SL
                • 19 Feb 2017

                AnonD-270570, 19 Feb 2017Is it why iphone 7 start to sweat and gets insanely hot whe... moreNever experienced something like that. Which app did you use? Probably the app is badly programmed for iOS or has an issue which leads to this

                  • ?
                  • Anonymous
                  • 3SL
                  • 19 Feb 2017

                  Anonymous, 19 Feb 2017Comparing cpus by single core speed is stupid. Benchmarks ... moreI have no real words for so much stupidity. Did you just say GSMArena is completely wrong?

                    • ?
                    • Anonymous
                    • 0xI
                    • 19 Feb 2017

                    AnonD-152489, 19 Feb 2017You seem agitated, no need, we're here just sharing the inf... moreWell... sorry. I'm not in the best mood right now :/

                      • D
                      • AnonD-152489
                      • pRE
                      • 19 Feb 2017

                      AnonD-270570, 19 Feb 2017Is it why iphone 7 start to sweat and gets insanely hot whe... moreNo it isn't.. It's something to do with (I'm guessing) the radio and apple does use radios from different vendors.. And they most probably solve it with some software optimizations..

                        • D
                        • AnonD-152489
                        • pRE
                        • 19 Feb 2017

                        Anonymous, 19 Feb 2017If you had read the posts I've replied to, you would see th... moreYou seem agitated, no need, we're here just sharing the info and trying to help,, and no adreno, mali, etc are not CPU's they're GPU's, it's one of the several parts you will find in an SOC. And it plays an important role in gaming... Do I sound like I didn't know you were taunting.. Lol

                          • D
                          • AnonD-270570
                          • rJr
                          • 19 Feb 2017

                          AnonD-152489, 19 Feb 2017Layman explanation for A10 chip will be like this, when a c... moreIs it why iphone 7 start to sweat and gets insanely hot when trying to upload a 5 min video on drive while 2015 galaxy s6 handles it easily and take little time? It's my personal experience when I tried sending a video to my gf on Valentines day.

                            • ?
                            • Anonymous
                            • 0xI
                            • 19 Feb 2017

                            AnonD-152489, 19 Feb 2017We weren't comparing GPU's,, were we? If you had read the posts I've replied to, you would see that the talk was about gpus. Do you think adreno bla bla bla and mali bla bla bla are cpus?

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                              • AnonD-152489
                              • pRE
                              • 19 Feb 2017

                              As far as gaming thing goes, I'd say anything ticking above 15k in antutu 3d section can handle most of the intensive games on low graphic mode for sure.

                                • D
                                • AnonD-152489
                                • pRE
                                • 19 Feb 2017

                                Anonymous, 19 Feb 2017We're not talking about which is used for what. Stop avoidi... moreWe weren't comparing GPU's,, were we?

                                  • D
                                  • AnonD-152489
                                  • pRE
                                  • 19 Feb 2017

                                  regs, 19 Feb 2017He is talking about gaming experience. So there is 3D test ... moreI ran the test again coz the 180gfps was not that convincing to my brain.. And I was right,, it's getting 290gfps.. The sd650

                                    • ?
                                    • Anonymous
                                    • 0xI
                                    • 19 Feb 2017

                                    regs, 19 Feb 2017Nvidia Tegra X1 is producing 512 GFLOPS in single precision... moreWe're not talking about which is used for what. Stop avoiding the main topic. Your gigaflops and teraflops don't mean more performance. Your way of comparing gpus is wrong.

                                      • A
                                      • Arian Adler
                                      • B{M
                                      • 19 Feb 2017

                                      There is only way for android way-out also winning vs iOS : Rewrite the code again! anew!! afresh!!! Common alphabet xD

                                        • r
                                        • regs
                                        • pRP
                                        • 19 Feb 2017

                                        AnonD-152489, 19 Feb 2017Very well said, rn3 user myself.. Sd650 is a thing of beaut... moreHe is talking about gaming experience. So there is 3D test in Antutu for that with separate 3D score. That's only matter test.

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