The Tablet Test: iPad mini vs Android Nexus 7, featuring Need for Speed: Most Wanted

Michael Pearce | 02:21 - 24 December 2012

sigh, the a5 does in fact have a much better GPU than the Nvida built Tegra 3. Though in well optimized titles featuring well-threaded game code and lots of CPU extensive calculation (real time physics, for example) the Tegra may have an advantage or, even, elevated capability respective of titles. Certain processor exhaustive games are incompatible with non Tegra 3 devices, though I'd venture to guess they are few and far in sum.

I'm speaking here as a proud owner of installment 7 & 10 of the Nexus range as well as Transformer Infinity ( which has marginally better graphics capability hanks to DDR3 operating at 1.6 GHz) Kudos to Nvidias developer relations advisory program for extracting as much GPU performance as it had considering it features 4 pixel and 8 vertex shaders. The fat quad core, though, doesn't hurt.

llnond | 05:21 - 22 November 2012

@PatricRMD

I understand what you are saying and I agree with you. However, I was responding to the ridiculous claim that the A5 chip was more powerful than the Tegra 3.

PatricRMD | 08:56 - 21 November 2012

Mark, llnond and Tuwdc,

It is one thing to compare tablet hw capability, and an entirely different thing to compare a game that has been optimized for these two platforms/devices to different degrees. You can have a 3x faster device that still runs a game slower and with worse graphics than the 3x slower device. It's all up to how the game has been optimized for that device, and in this case also that platform/OS. I used to struggle with this stuff back in the days when working for Futuremark, and faced the same hurdle now at Remedy when porting Death Rally from iOS to Android.

The iOS versions of games are more likely to be further optimized than Android versions for the simple reason that the hardware variety is smaller. Unlike the previous comments, game speed is more up to graphics performance than CPU. All iOS devices use IMG GPUs, and all higher end such have the same SGX54x generation. Optimize for this hw and you'll have a faster running game on a very high percentage of all devices out there. On Android you can optimize for Tegra 3, but then there are the IMG devices, Qualcomm, ARM Mali etc etc. It's just not worth it from a business perspective to make the same polish for all Android devices on the market. iOS devices are therefore likely to win all this kind of comparisons, but it does not necessarily mean that the hw would be better.

llnond | 04:05 - 21 November 2012

@tuwdc

I pity you and your ignorance.

Do some research. The A5 chip is a dual-core chip that maxes out at 1GHz, whereas the Tegra 3 in the Nexus 7 is quad core and runs at 1.2 GHz.

Think about it.
A5: 2 x 1GHz = 2GHz
Tegra 3 (Nexus 7): 4 x 1.2GHz = 4.8GHz

So, this means that the TEGRA 3 has more than twice the power of the A5.

Now, how about you keep your mouth shut and we go about our business.

Tuwdc | 20:33 - 19 November 2012

Lol! Quadcore CPU is useless when the tegra 3 is GPU is junk! The A5 is Double as powerful as tegra 3. in no Way Nexus 7 has a technical advantage!