Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 MSM8974AC vs Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 MSM8974AA
Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 MSM8974AC
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The Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 MSM8974AC is an ARM-based SoC for tablets and smartphones. It is built at TSMC in a 28nm HPM (High Performance Mobile) HKMG process and includes 4 Krait 400 cores at up to 2.45 GHz and a Adreno 330 at up to 578 MHz. Compared to the Snapdragon 800 chips like the MS8974AB, the 801 offers a higher clock rate for GPU and CPU and support for eMMC 5.0.
Processor
The CPU portion is based on Qualcomm's Krait architecture, which is compatible with the ARMv7 ISA. Compared to the Snapdragon 600 (Krait 300), the new Krait 400 cores of the Snapdragon 801 have been tweaked just slightly with faster L2 cache. Thanks to a clock rate of up to 2.45 GHz and a high performance per MHz somewhere between an ARM Cortex-A9 and a Cortex-A15, the Snapdragon 801 offers very strong CPU performance. The S801 competes with the Nvidia Tegra 4, Samsung Exynos 5420 and Apple A7 and is therefore one of the fastest ARM SoCs on the market in the beginning of 2014 (till the Snapdragon 805 arrives).
Graphics
Another difference between the Snapdragon 600 and 800/801 is the graphics unit. While the S600 implements an Adreno 320 (400 to 450 MHz), the S800 and S801 features the faster Adreno 330 (MSM8974AC: 578 MHz). Both GPUs offer the same amount of texture units (8 TMUs), but the Adreno 330 has 50 percent more shaders (probably 6x SIMD16 vs. 4x SIMD16 of the previous generation). In conjunction with the higher memory bandwidth, the performance is significantly better. As a result, the Adreno 330 is slightly faster than the Mali-T628 (Exynos 5420) and comparable to the PowerVR G6430 (Apple A7). Depending on the device and cooling, however, the performance may vary. The GPU supports OpenGL ES 3.0 as well as OpenCL 1.2.
Features
Furthermore, the MSM8974AC supports many wireless technologies: Bluetooth 4.0, WLAN, IEEE 802.11a/b/g/n/ac (2.4/5 GHz), GSM (GPRS, EDGE), W-CDMA/UMTS (HSDPA, HSUPA, HSPA+, cat.29 DC-HSPA+), MBMS, cat.4 LTE, CDMA2000 (1X RTT, 1 × EV-DO Rel.0/Rev.A/Rev.B, 1× EV-DO Rev.A MC, 1× Adv Rev.A/Rev.B) and TD-SCDMA. Futhermore the Snapdragon S801 supports Dual SIM Dual Active (DSDA) as the Snapdragon S800 MSM8974AB.
The MSM8974AC can encode and play UHD 4K videos in 3840x2160 at 30 FPS (120 Mbps H.264 High Profile) simultaneously via dedicated hardware. Moreover, it supports both USB 2.0 and 3.0 and cameras up to 55 megapixels and stereoscopic 3D.
Power Consumption
Thanks to the new 28nm HPM HKMG process, the energy efficiency has been improved significantly compared to its LP 28nm S600 predecessor. Depending on the field of application, the maximum power consumption should be about 3 W for smartphones or 4 W or greater for tablets. This should be similar to comparable ARM SoCs currently in the market. However, the MSM8974AC will likely need a little more power than the slightly lower clocked MSM8974.
Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 MSM8974AA
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The Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 MSM8974AA is an ARM-based SoC for tablets and smartphones. It is built at TSMC in a 28nm HPM (High Performance Mobile) HKMG process, whereas the Snapdragon 600 was manufactured in 28nm LP. In addition to 4 CPU cores with a clock speed of up to 2.26 GHz, the chip also integrates an Adreno 330 GPU up to 450 MHz, an LPDDR3-1600 memory controller and various radio modules (UMTS/LTE, WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS). Compared to other S801 SoCs (e.g the MSM8974AB), the MSM8974AA offers the lowest CPU-, GPU- and memory clock rates.
Processor
The CPU portion is based on Qualcomm's Krait architecture, which is compatible with the ARMv7 ISA. Compared to the Snapdragon 600 (Krait 300), the new Krait 400 cores of the Snapdragon 800/801 have been tweaked just slightly with faster L2 cache. Thanks to a clock rate of up to 2.26 GHz and a high performance per MHz somewhere between an ARM Cortex-A9 and a Cortex-A15, the Snapdragon 801 offers very strong CPU performance. The S801 competes with the Nvidia Tegra 4, Samsung Exynos 5420 and Apple A7 and is therefore one of the fastest ARM SoCs on the market as of 2013.
Graphics
Another difference between the Snapdragon 600 and 800/801 is the graphics unit. While the S600 implements an Adreno 320 (400 to 450 MHz), the S800 /S801 feature the faster Adreno 330 (MSM8974Aa: 450 MHz). Both GPUs offer the same amount of texture units (8 TMUs), but the Adreno 330 has 50 percent more shaders (probably 6x SIMD16 vs. 4x SIMD16 of the previous generation). In conjunction with the higher memory bandwidth, the performance is significantly better. As a result, the Adreno 330 is slightly faster than the Mali-T628 (Exynos 5420) and the PowerVR G6430 (Apple A7). Depending on the device and cooling, however, the performance may vary. The GPU supports OpenGL ES 3.0 as well as OpenCL 1.2.
Features
Furthermore, the MSM8974AA supports many wireless technologies: Bluetooth 4.0, WLAN, IEEE 802.11a/b/g/n/ac (2.4/5 GHz), GSM (GPRS, EDGE), W-CDMA/UMTS (HSDPA, HSUPA, HSPA+, cat.29 DC-HSPA+), MBMS, cat.4 LTE, CDMA2000 (1X RTT, 1 × EV-DO Rel.0/Rev.A/Rev.B, 1× EV-DO Rev.A MC, 1× Adv Rev.A/Rev.B) and TD-SCDMA.
The MSM8974AA can encode and play UHD 4K videos in 3840x2160 at 30 FPS (120 Mbps H.264 High Profile) simultaneously via dedicated hardware. Moreover, it supports both USB 2.0 and 3.0 and cameras up to 55 megapixels and stereoscopic 3D.
Power Consumption
Thanks to the new 28nm HPM HKMG process, the energy efficiency has been improved significantly compared to its LP 28nm S600 predecessor. Depending on the field of application, the maximum power consumption should be about 3 W for smartphones or 4 W or greater for tablets. This should be similar to comparable ARM SoCs currently in the market. However, the MSM8974AA will likely to need a little less power than the other S801 SoCs due to the lower clock rates.
| Model | Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 MSM8974AC | Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 MSM8974AA | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Codename | Krait 400 | Krait 400 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Series | Qualcomm Snapdragon | Qualcomm Snapdragon | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Series: Snapdragon Krait 400 |
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| Clock | 2450 MHz | 2260 MHz | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| L1 Cache | 0 MB | 0 MB | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| L2 Cache | 2 MB | 2 MB | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Cores / Threads | 4 / 4 | 4 / 4 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Technology | 28 nm | 28 nm | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Features | Adreno 330 (578 MHz), LTE cat.4, UMTS, MBMS, GSM, CDMA2000, tD-SCDMA, 802.11a/b/g/n/ac (2.4/5 GHz), Bluetooth 4.0, 2x 32 Bit LPDDR3-1866 Memory Controller (14.9 GB/s) | Adreno 330 (450 MHz), LTE cat.4, UMTS, MBMS, GSM, CDMA2000, tD-SCDMA, 802.11a/b/g/n/ac (2.4/5 GHz), Bluetooth 4.0, 2x 32 Bit LPDDR3-1600 Memory Controller (14.9 GB/s) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| iGPU | Qualcomm Adreno 330 (578 MHz) | Qualcomm Adreno 330 (? - 450 MHz) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Architecture | ARM | ARM | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Announced | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Manufacturer | www.qualcomm.com |
Benchmarks
Average Benchmarks Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 MSM8974AC → 100% n=10
Average Benchmarks Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 MSM8974AA → 92% n=10
- Average benchmark values for this graphics card* Smaller numbers mean a higher performance
1 This benchmark is not used for the average calculation
