dual processors on the Motorola Droid

[db83]

I've heard the motorola droid has dual processors? can anyone confirm/deny?

I just ordered it today, but I'm considering refusing the package to wait for the HTC passion... if it comes to verizon. Any thoughts on this? Is the HTC passion worth waiting for? Hardware pros and cons vs. the motorola droid? any input would be appreciated, I have like a day to make the decision.

 

[mth04]

I've heard the motorola droid has dual processors? can anyone confirm/deny?

I just ordered it today, but I'm considering refusing the package to wait for the HTC passion... if it comes to verizon. Any thoughts on this? Is the HTC passion worth waiting for? Hardware pros and cons vs. the motorola droid? any input would be appreciated, I have like a day to make the decision.

The Droid has a CPu and GPU in it. The Passion will havve the 1GHZ Snapdragon processor in it, but no NO GPU. If it's worth waiting or not is up to you

 

[db83]

Theoretically, what would be faster of the two? any other info on the passion?

 

[Donkey Hodie]

Given the rate of change on cell phones, you could wait for the "next new thing" pretty much forever. There will always be something new and hot coming down the road.

 

[wuyanks]

Theoretically, what would be faster of the two? any other info on the passion?

nobody knows yet we don't even know how fast the Droid is, let alone a phone not even on the market.

but the Passion will have the Sense UI, and may look sleeker (HTC is kickass). and it will be a fast phone. the key question is, WHEN will we see it in the US?

 

[mth04]

Try this

Theoretically, what would be faster of the two? any other info on the passion?

Well try this link HTC Passion Dragon Snapdragon Google Phone Battle with iPhone, Droid Phone Reviews

Hard to say what will be "faster', all I can say is the Droid rocks. When the Passion gets here. I'll be messing with that

 

[db83]

does the droid have a 550mhz CPU along with a 550mhz gpu? or are the speeds different?

 

[mth04]

does the droid have a 550mhz CPU along with a 550mhz gpu? or are the speeds different?

I have been looking around but haven't found the GPU spec. 550MHZ sounds right on the CPU. I can tell you from using the Droid since release week. Its VERY VERY good

 

[wuyanks]

we had our greatest minds pondering over this very same question db83. check out this thread:

http://www.droidforums.net/forum/droid-hacks/24-so-550mhz.html

and guess what... nobody knows for sure

 

[Dave12308]

The Droid has a CPu and GPU in it. The Passion will havve the 1GHZ Snapdragon processor in it, but no NO GPU. If it's worth waiting or not is up to you

The thing is, both the TI OMAP 3430 and the Qualcomm Snapdragon are PLATFORMS, not discrete CPUs. The OMAP has the ARM Cortex A8 CPU core, The Snapdragon's Scorpion Applications Processor is very similar to the Cortex A8 (actually, I believe it IS an A8 core).

The Snapdragon DOES have a GPU (unsure of what type, I believe it may be a custom OpenGL ES 2.0 accelerator), it's capabilities are:

up to 22M triangles/sec and 133M 3D pixels/sec

This is actually higher performance than the PowerVR SGX 530 built into the Droid's chipset, as that tops out at around 10M triangles/sec in the implementation used in the OMAP 3430.

 

[db83]

where did you read that dave? and how much of a performance improvement do you think this would give the passion over the moto droid?

 

[ezeddiekun]

If it beats the droid in both clock cycles and gpu power than I guess its a big difference!

 

[Dave12308]

where did you read that dave? and how much of a performance improvement do you think this would give the passion over the moto droid?

Actually, I read it on Qualcomm's site in the data sheet for the mobile phone version of the Snapdragon. I'll give you a link:

Snapdragon™, Qualcomm Snapdragon™, QCT Snapdragon™ - QCTConnect.com

The Passion likely runs the QSD8650 variant (CDMA capable for mobile handsets).

As far as performance improvement, it would likely depend on exactly how good the Scorpion CPU is at number crunching. It depends on a lot of things, such as CPU cache; memory bus width, etc. Same as on a PC platform. For example, both an Intel Core i7 and an AMD Phenom x4 are x86-64 instruction set compatible; but even at a given clock speed, they are not directly comparable. The Core i7 is simply faster in most instances.

And concerning the GPU, OpenGL performance differences would mostly depend on the quality of the device driver and the actual architecture of the GPU. The Droid very well could end up being a faster device overall, especially if the Snapdragon's GPU isn't as efficient, or the drivers aren't as well optimized. Very hard to tell until we can directly compare the 2 devices. Theoretical maximum triangle and fill rates mean little to nothing in the real world. I do know that I cannot dig up any specifics on the Snapdragon GPU; however the Droid's PowerVR SGX530 is an established GPU in the market, and I uses a tile-based rendering scheme known for its efficiency.

POWERVR Visual IP Cores

If it beats the droid in both clock cycles and gpu power than I guess its a big difference!

If only it were that easy, buying consumer computing devices would be so much easier. Basically, like I said above; architectural differences could end up making the Droid's processor faster. Same with the GPU. If clock speed meant everything, the Intel Core2 series would have never caught on and people would all be using Pentium 4s. After all, a Core2Duo at 1.86GHz blew the doors off of a 3.2GHz dual-core P4. Yet based on clock speed, the P4 SOUNDS faster. My current video card (nVidia GTX275) runs at 666MHz, my old 8800GT ran at 700MHz. Yet my GTX275 is roughly 3x faster.

 

[brianr0131]

And another important thing to remember is that the Passion is rumored to be underclocked to 768 mhz anyway, to maintain decent battery performance. And, even at that clock speed battery performance could be worse than the droid.