ARM Announces ARMv8A-Based Cortex-A72, 16nm FF+ Process, Mali-T880 GPU

[Guest]

Chip IP designer ARM has announced what it deems to be a new high-end 64-bit CPU core, a new GPU core and a new fabrication process aimed squarely at the smartphone and tablet market.

ARM Announces ARMv8A-Based Cortex-A72, 16nm FF+ Process, Mali-T880 GPU : Read more

 

[bit_user]

I'd sure like to see some benchmarks pitting this against Broadwell. ARM has long had an edge in performance per watt, but it sounds like they might be a serious contender in performance per MHz.

 

[erickmendes]

I wouldn't be surprised if by the end of 2015 ARM comes with a mobile SoC more powerful than XBOX One/PS4... Both consoles proudly suck hard... The hard-wired consoles archtecture cant compete with the fast renewal cycles of the CPU/GPU/SoCs from the desktop and mobile market.

 

[jmonaco5]

Erickmendes, the general public has no idea and will continue to buy consoles that are technologically inferior the day they are announced/launched......It does make it easier for game developers to pump out new titles for the same hardware for the next 5 years.

 

[bit_user]

I wouldn't be surprised if by the end of 2015 ARM comes with a mobile SoC more powerful than XBOX One/PS4...

I'll grant you that four A72's at their maximum clock speed might surpass the 8 Puma cores in these consoles.

But there's no way that a mobile GPU is going to surpass either console, anytime soon. Both in terms of memory bandwidth and raw compute, there's still a big gap between these GPUs and anything in the mobile space. The main issue is power consumption (and the corresponding heat dissipation). GPUs are already much more efficient than CPUs, and they're not constrained by a legacy instruction set the way x86 is. So, there's not much one can do to further improve on efficiency besides riding the process curve.

The second issue is that mobile platforms cant afford all the pins and traces you'd need for such a wide path to off-chip RAM. In 2016, we'll probably see this issue effectively eliminated by stacking HBM right in the SoC, itself. But it'll be a while longer before high-end mobile GPUs approach the shader counts or clock speeds of these guys.

 

[bit_user]

he general public has no idea and will continue to buy consoles that are technologically inferior the day they are announced/launched......It does make it easier for game developers to pump out new titles for the same hardware for the next 5 years.

The general public doesn't care. They buy consoles for the games. And developers have a much easier time optimizing games to run well on a couple specific, well-defined platforms. And as they gain experience, the games look better and better on the same hardware. I was impressed with some PS3 titles released in its final few years.

What's sad about XBox One and PS4 is that they launched with only the capabilities of a midrange gaming PC. Unlike the PS3 and XBox 360, which virtually leapfrogged the high-end gaming PCs at the time of their launch. So, I don't expect the current gen consoles to have as much longevity as the previous gen.

 

[bit_user]

Do you fear that your workforce is spending all its timing idling away on Facebook?

Ha ha, no. My workforce is spending all its timing idling away on THG.
: )