NVIDIA Tegra 4 gets benchmarked, running inside a Project Shield console

posted by Nick T. / May 08, 2013, 3:30 AM

NVIDIA Tegra 4 gets benchmarked, running inside a Project Shield console

Qualcomm's newest Snapdragon SoCs have been getting quite a lot of attention lately. That comes as no surprise given the fact that their maker managed to bring the Snapdragon 600 to the market in a timely manner, and the even more powerful Snapdragon 800 is almost ready to be produced in volume. However, let us not forget that there's one more very capable contestant, which is about to stick its next-gen quad-core chip inside a number of upcoming smartphones and tablets. Of course, we're talking about NVIDIA and its Tegra 4 system-on-a-chip.

One of the very first commercial devices to be powered by Tegra 4 will be NVIDIA's portable, Android-based video game console – a gadget that you may have heard about, currently known only by its Project Shield codename. And since gaming will be its primary purpose, it goes without saying that its maker will ensure that the device has the processing power required to run even the most demanding of Android video games. But just how powerful is Project Shield, and more importantly, how powerful is the Tegra 4 SoC inside it? Well, it's very capable indeed, if this alleged Project Shield benchmark is anything to go by.

Apparently, someone who has possession of a Project Shield console ran the popular AnTuTu benchmark on it and got an impressive score of over 32 000 points. In comparison, a Samsung Galaxy S4 with a Snapdragon 600 chip gets about 25 000 points at best. Sure, the latter has a 1080p screen, while the Tegra 4's 72 GPU cores need to drive less pixels on a 720p display, but still, a difference of over 7000 points is impressive no matter how we look at it.

Keep in mind that benchmarks aren't always an accurate source of information as they can easily be faked. In other words, the device that has appeared on AnTuTu may not be a Shield console at all and its results may have been manipulated. But if the data contained in the benchmark results is legitimate, then NVIDIA's Tegra 4 could be a worthy competitor to the Snapdragon 600, as much as Qualcomm wants to convince us that its chips are superior.

source: RBMen (translated) via The Droid Guy

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30 Comments

1. hung2900

Posts: 966; Member since: Mar 02, 2012

Oh, another benchmark of the gs4 korean variant (1.8 GHz with full HD screen) also reach 32k5 in Antutu, so not surprise both are Cortex A15 and on par.

posted on May 08, 2013, 4:08 AM 11

2. hung2900

Posts: 966; Member since: Mar 02, 2012

Image for the benchmarkhttp://forum.xda-developers.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=1931630&d=1367565823

posted on May 08, 2013, 4:16 AM 7

3. _Bone_

Posts: 2155; Member since: Oct 29, 2012

Yup, plenty of performance in the Exynos 5.

posted on May 08, 2013, 4:29 AM 6

9. darac

Posts: 2156; Member since: Oct 17, 2011

Well, the Exynos seems to be superior if you count in the screen resolution

posted on May 08, 2013, 5:17 AM 6

21. rd_nest

Posts: 1656; Member since: Jun 06, 2010

Note that the nVidia Shield runs a heat sink. So it has much more thermal tolerance, which can never be expected in a smartphone. Any device with a heat sink will be able to generate better benchmark results. Comparing against smartphone is apples-to-orange comparison. If Exynos is actually similar in benchmark, I would think that nvidia should be able to get better result. The thermal limits are so much higher compared to a smartphone. I expect better numbers.

posted on May 08, 2013, 7:04 AM 1

27. Reverence

Posts: 224; Member since: Jul 16, 2012

No one cares about the benchmarks.....we only need no lag, and even when you try to run android on and x86 processor, it lags.....hardware can bring about some difference but significant difference in performance can only be brought by google themselves...just like they did with project butter!

posted on May 08, 2013, 11:06 AM 0

4. TylerGrunter

Posts: 1544; Member since: Feb 16, 2012

NVDIA claims Tegra 4 can do 36000 on Antutu, so that result is line with what is expected (for tablets)http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2415809,00.asp

posted on May 08, 2013, 4:33 AM 0

20. hung2900

Posts: 966; Member since: Mar 02, 2012

Inside this reference device is a NAND chip which is not expected to appear in a mobile handset in the near future. This one boost the benchmark significantly (like a high speed SSD in PC, even much more significantly coz the current NAND flash is miserably slow)

posted on May 08, 2013, 6:55 AM 0

5. taikucing unregistered

1080p : 720p = 1 : 1.5 antutu score 25,000 : 32,000 = 1 : 1.28 well, nvidia tegra 4 should at least get 37,500 because its resolution is only 2/3 of SGS4. I wonder what will SGS4 get if it has 720p resolution and how much score the tegra 4 gets if it has 1080p resolution.

posted on May 08, 2013, 4:40 AM 4

7. faisolbauuz

Posts: 121; Member since: Jan 05, 2013

So the conclusion is tegra 4 is weaker than gs4 in benchmark and dont forget the snapdragon 800 is coming

posted on May 08, 2013, 4:53 AM 5

23. taikucing unregistered

Perhaps you mean "tegra 4 is weaker than snapdragon", not weaker than SGS4.

posted on May 08, 2013, 9:05 AM 2

12. taikucing unregistered

ooops, a typo here.. it should be: 720p : 1080 = 1 : 1.5

posted on May 08, 2013, 5:28 AM 0

14. faisolbauuz

Posts: 121; Member since: Jan 05, 2013

Haha ane baru nyadar Btw i dont see any tegra4i version benchmark it should be slower cause of single channel memory and fewer gpu cores though

posted on May 08, 2013, 5:34 AM 1

18. aditya.k

Posts: 496; Member since: Mar 10, 2013

And Cortex A9 cores! People keep forgetting that! :/

posted on May 08, 2013, 6:26 AM 2

6. shreehari

Posts: 45; Member since: Mar 10, 2013

it not always display (although it matters) which matters there r other issues like reduging lag to max extent it brought a revolution in phones with quad core processors in htc one x now let it bring another one

posted on May 08, 2013, 4:51 AM 0

8. yadu004

Posts: 72; Member since: Apr 26, 2013

not a fanboy here, but some exynos versions of galaxy s4 have scored above 29k and my gs4 (also exynos version)has scored 28k..my point being here is dat it is not the benchmark you should be concerned about, but the battery life. Which is average, which is sad as the so called "Big.little" architecture had the sole purpose of improving battery life along with performance (well that is what, the ARM guys bragged about in CES 2013) hasn't delivered. I think this will be the case with tegra 4 as well. Now,i just have to hope that there would be a software patch managing the CPUs efficiently and thus improving the battery life of the Exynos processor.

posted on May 08, 2013, 5:07 AM 3

10. Berzerk000

Posts: 4275; Member since: Jun 26, 2011

Big.Little is working. If they hadn't have made big.Little, you wouldn't even have that Exynos chip in your GS4 because Samsung isn't stupid enough to put a lone quad A15 processor in a phone. Without those 4 battery saving cores, you're phone would only last a few hours on a charge, if that. ARM advertised increased battery performance when compared to A15 processors without big.Little, not ARM based processors in general. The Exynos 5 Octa delivers 70% less battery consumption than the Exynos 5 Dual, which doesn't have big.Little. The entire point of big.Little was to make A15 usable for phones, which it has done; before, A15 could only be used in tablets because they needed the larger batteries to support them.

posted on May 08, 2013, 5:21 AM 2

28. yadu004

Posts: 72; Member since: Apr 26, 2013

I Know the statistics as well, but that is just the theory. They have incorporated a good processor nonetheless but what i'm trying to say is that they need to manage it much more efficiently as i can't see any significant improvement in it compared to other high-end ones. Other day i was experiencing lags as well (opening gallery, camera etc..) but now they have rectified it with a software patch. Similarly they might do some improvements with the battery life down the road.

posted on May 08, 2013, 12:50 PM 0

11. darac

Posts: 2156; Member since: Oct 17, 2011

Have you turned off the sensors? There's a pile of things working under the hood, that you can switch off. The word is that Samsung's overdone and unoptimized software is the main cause of the battery drain

posted on May 08, 2013, 5:21 AM 1

13. VJo003

Posts: 365; Member since: Mar 11, 2012

Agree with you Lesser the gimmicky stuff better the performance

posted on May 08, 2013, 5:32 AM 0

15. abate

Posts: 43; Member since: Dec 19, 2012

Then why did they pile all those craps on S4? If you have to switch off all those stuffs, why can't you buy an alternate like HTC One or Xperia Z, and enjoy it? I mean what's the advantage S4 has, if you have to switch off all those stuffs? Seriously... No offence here though.. :D

posted on May 08, 2013, 6:08 AM 1

17. Berzerk000

Posts: 4275; Member since: Jun 26, 2011

Because Samsung is all about marketing gimmicks rather than actual product quality. We have all these cool features and gestures that will make your life easier!** **These features must be turned off if you do not want to experience the following: lag, battery drain, and frustration of the features not working as well as we advertise them to.

posted on May 08, 2013, 6:20 AM 1

25. Bluesky02

Posts: 1439; Member since: Dec 05, 2011

haha somehow true :D

posted on May 08, 2013, 9:48 AM 0

24. Bluesky02

Posts: 1439; Member since: Dec 05, 2011

Interesting point of view from you. The Battery Life is something very important to consider. I guess Note 2 is still a good choice.

posted on May 08, 2013, 9:43 AM 0

16. MC1123

Posts: 1256; Member since: Nov 12, 2012

pity, why there's no smartphone with nvidia chips yet... qualcomm enjoys monopoly! broadcom and nvidia what are you doing?!

posted on May 08, 2013, 6:19 AM 0

19. aditya.k

Posts: 496; Member since: Mar 10, 2013

Cause they haven't even started production I guess? Not sure! So no one is going to use a Tegra 3. That's why people use S4 Pro or S600! :D

posted on May 08, 2013, 6:29 AM 0

22. RaKithAPeiRiZ

Posts: 1488; Member since: Dec 29, 2011

you mean Tegra 4 right ?

posted on May 08, 2013, 7:12 AM 0

30. aditya.k

Posts: 496; Member since: Mar 10, 2013

Yeah!

posted on May 08, 2013, 7:02 PM 0

26. babyk

Posts: 379; Member since: Nov 03, 2011

Keep in mind that benchmarks aren't always an accurate source of information as they can easily be faked. In other words, the device that has appeared on AnTuTu may not be a Shield console at all and its results may have been manipulated. STFU AND STFU AGAIN ..we all have seen leaks the past months are very accurate with regards to benchmarks. Just trying to put Nvidia down. Nvidia will be king this year with that crap you heard from qualcomm

posted on May 08, 2013, 10:42 AM 0

29. FlushGordon unregistered

Surprise surprise...Nvidia producing another INFERIOR chip yet again...Iol I wonder how the Tegcrap4 will perform on a 1080p device And the bronze goes to......hahaha

posted on May 08, 2013, 6:24 PM 0

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