Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 (2014 Edition) Review
by Brian Klug & Anand Lal Shimpi on October 1, 2013 9:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Tablets
- Samsung
- Mobile
- Galaxy Note 10.1
GPU & Performance
Although Exynos 5420 fixes the big underlying issue with Samsung’s silicon on the CPU front, it’s actually the GPU that sees the most dramatic change. ARM once again wins Samsung’s GPU business and equipped the Exynos 5420 with a 6-core Mali-T628, replacing the PowerVR SGX544MP3 from the previous Exynos 5410. Overall performance takes a huge step forward. Looking at T-Rex HD (offscreen) we see the best example of where the Mali-T628MP6 lands: about 11% slower than Adreno 330 and 8% behind IMG’s PowerVR G6430 in the iPhone 5s. It’s definitely a competitive GPU with the latest and greatest from IMG and Qualcomm, but not faster than either. It’s incredible to think of just how far we’ve come. It wasn’t too long ago that we were complaining about non-Apple SoCs not taking GPU performance seriously, but here we are talking about competitive performance across the big three ARM vendors.
NAND Performance
We've been tracking storage performance on these devices for a little while now and have noticed forward progress over the generations. The new Note 10.1 does reasonably well in our IO tests, with its strengths being sequential read and random write performance (arguably the two more important metrics). Since the tablet ships with Android 4.3 it should feature FSTRIM support (something we're still verifying on the 2014 Edition), which will help keep NAND performance high as long as you don't fill up all of your storage (remember: try to keep ~20% of the internal NAND free at all times).
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sundragon - Wednesday, October 2, 2013 - link
"Not really, while it is not a reference ARM design, apple have only modified it slightly, but it is still a conventional arm v8 chip."Please state the ARM chip that corrolates to it?
It's not an ARM 53/57... It is, however, an Apple designed chip using the ARMv8 architecture...
The Exynos is a plain ARM 15... It's baked into a Samsung designed SOC...
Shootergod - Sunday, December 1, 2013 - link
I don't know that Note 10.1 2014 beat both iphone 5s and ipad air in geekbench 3 scores and Note 10.1 2014 LTE ver. which runs Snapdragon 800 with Adreno 330 beats out every single behcnmark of apple latest devices,so? what is your point? sounds more like you are a butt-hurt ish**p filling with so much insecurities to give reasons and bash others at any time LOL! take care noob,don't say something just by reviews(made up by apple fanboys).Google some real-deal performence and multitasking skills of this tablet before you even begin to bark :) ok?apandya27 - Tuesday, October 1, 2013 - link
Actually the A7 isn't designed by ARM, its a custom design by Apple (they license from ARM). Its been custom since the A5 I think.teiglin - Tuesday, October 1, 2013 - link
You should be clear if you want to refer to the Apple A7 SoC (with its Cyclone cores) in an article about a chip that contains four ARM Cortex A7 cores. Cyclone is the second generation of fully custom cores designed by Apple--the Swift cores in Apple's A6 SoC last year were the first, while the A5 featured a pair of Cortex A9s.apandya27 - Tuesday, October 1, 2013 - link
My mistake. Yes I was referring to the Apple A7 chip being custom designed. Thanks!Sarav - Wednesday, October 2, 2013 - link
Only since A6 which used 'Swift' cores. A5 just used regular ARM cortex A9 cores I think.MySchizoBuddy - Tuesday, October 1, 2013 - link
According to article here at anandtech. Apple A7 is indeed Apple designed CPU that implements the ARM ISA. it ISN'T designed by ARM. it was clearly mentioned by anand when he talked about the A7.ananduser - Tuesday, October 1, 2013 - link
It says more about ARMv8 vs ARMv7. It also says more about benchmarks not being able to use multiple cores. The Mali GPU however is surprisingly decent. I expected Imagination's PowerVR, that Apple uses, to be an order of magnitude better.Kevin G - Tuesday, October 1, 2013 - link
The iPhone 5S GPU is surprisingly decent for a phone though. Apple's A7X expected in the iPad 5 would have either 6 or 8 PowerVR clusters following tradition. This would be a 50 to 100% boost in theoretical GPU performance. There is a chance that Apple's A7X would be a triple or quad core CPU too.danbob999 - Tuesday, October 1, 2013 - link
It's not about ARMv8 vs ARMv7. The benchmarks are probably still compiled for ARMv7. Apple almost always lead in javascript benchmark. Even when they used a standard ARM design (such as Cortex A8) at lower clock speed. So all we know is that even with a slower CPU, Apple still comes ahead in javascript benchmarks. It doesn't mean their CPU is any faster.