In a time when mobile phones were thick and black and white, processors were single-core, and gigahertz seemed an insurmountable bar (about 20 years ago), the only characteristic for comparing CPU power was the clock speed. A decade later, the second important characteristic was the number of cores. Nowadays, a smartphone, less than a centimeter thick, contains more cores, and has a higher clock speed than a simple PC of those years. Let's try to figure out what the processor clock speed affects.
The processor frequency affects the speed at which the processor transistors (and there are hundreds of millions of them inside the chip) switch. It is measured in the number of switchings per second and expressed in millions or billions of hertz (megahertz or gigahertz). One hertz is one switching of processor transistors per second, therefore, one gigahertz is one billion such switchings in the same time. In one switch, to put it simply, the core performs one mathematical operation.
Following the usual logic, we can come to the conclusion that the higher the frequency, the faster the transistors in the cores switch, the faster problems are solved. That is why in the past, when the bulk of processors were essentially improved Intel x86, the architectural differences were minimal, and it was clear that the higher the clock frequency, the faster the calculations. But over time, everything changed.
Is it possible to compare frequencies of different processors?
In the 21st century, developers taught their processors to process not just one instruction per clock, but more. Therefore, processors with the same clock frequency, but based on different architectures, produce different levels of performance. Intel Core i5 2 GHz and Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 2 GHz are different things. Although the second has more cores, it will be weaker in heavy tasks. Therefore, the frequency of different types of cores cannot be compared; it is also important to take into account specific performance (the number of instruction executions per clock cycle).
If we draw an analogy with cars, then the clock frequency is the speed in km/h, and the specific productivity is the load capacity in kg. If a car (ARM processor for a smartphone) and a dump truck (x86 chip for a PC) are driving nearby, then at the same speed the car will transport a couple of hundred kilos at a time, and the truck will carry several tons. If we talk about different types of cores specifically for smartphones (Cortex A53, Cortex A72, Qualcomm Kryo) - then these are all passenger cars, but with different capacities. Accordingly, here the difference will not be so huge, but still significant.
You can only compare clock speeds of cores on the same architecture. For example, MediaTek MT6750 and Qualcomm Sanapdragon 625 each contain 8 Cortex A53 cores. But MTK has a frequency of up to 1.5 GHz, and Qualcomm has a frequency of 2 GHz. Consequently, the second processor will work approximately 33% faster. But the Qualcomm Snapdragon 652, although it has a frequency of up to 1.8 GHz, is faster than the 625 model, since it uses more powerful Cortex A72 cores.
What does a high processor frequency do in a smartphone?
As we have already found out, the higher the clock frequency, the faster the processor runs. Consequently, the performance of a smartphone with a higher frequency chipset will be higher. If one smartphone processor contains 4 Kryo cores at 2 GHz, and the second contains 4 of the same Kryo cores at 3 GHz, then the second one will be about 1.5 times faster. This will speed up the launch of applications, reduce startup time, allow heavy sites to be processed more quickly in the browser, etc.
However, when choosing a smartphone with high processor frequencies, you should also remember that the higher they are, the greater the energy consumption. Therefore, if the manufacturer increased more gigahertz, but did not optimize the device properly, it may overheat and go into “throttling” (forced reset of frequencies). For example, the Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 once suffered from such a drawback.
How fast and smooth a smartphone will be is determined by its three main hardware components - the main processor, video card and RAM. It is this hardware that is responsible for the correct operation of the interface, for the ability to launch resource-intensive games and applications, as well as for their quick launch and stability.
How not to choose a “brick” instead of a mobile device? What should be inside a smartphone for it to become your reliable electronic assistant, justify the money invested, and not add unnecessary hassle? Below we will consider the specifics of the processor’s influence on the operation of a smartphone, and also note which of its indicators are recommended for optimal operation in general and individual resource-intensive tasks.
Processor manufacturers
The processor is perhaps the main hardware component of a smartphone, as well as any other computer device. Drawing an analogy with human 
body, it can be safely called the heart - the generator of all ongoing processes within the system.
Unlike the processors that manufacturers use in computers and laptops, smartphones are equipped with processors based on the energy-efficient ARM architecture. This allows the smartphone to work offline for more than ten hours under moderate load.
Processors for mobile devices are produced by such companies as: Qualcomm, Samsung, MTK, Intel, Nvidia and others. Of this list, the leading position is occupied by Qualcomm, which released the flagship processors Snapdragon S4, 400, 600 and 800. The latter - the Snapdragon 800 processor - is installed by manufacturers on most of their top-end smartphones.
But Apple designs processors for its gadgets independently, and, by the way, also uses ARM architecture. But Apple only designs; the linear production of this company’s processors is carried out by third-party manufacturers.
The same strategic position is occupied by Apple's main competitor, Samsung, which, through the efforts of its own specialists, designed a processor for mobile devices - Exynos 5.
Another company is participating in the competition with these giants of the mobile technology market - MediaTek. MTK - processors produced by this company - until recently were used as “low-grade” components of budget, low-functional models of mobile equipment. However, today everything is different - productive capacity at an affordable price has attracted famous players in the mobile equipment production market. And manufacturers such as LG, Sony and others equip some of their smartphone models with MTK processors. MediaTek managed to significantly increase its authority in the market after releasing several models of high-performance processors for mobile devices.
Two more serious players in the market of components for computer and mobile equipment are the well-known companies Intel and Nvidia. Intel produces smartphone processors based on the Atom x86 architecture, the same architecture used in PC processors. True, such smartphones are still quite rare.
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CPU frequency
The clock speed of a processor is an indicator of its power and performance. The higher this indicator, the better - it would seem that the logic is simple, but not everything is so simple. When choosing a smartphone processor, you cannot rely only on the clock speed, despite the fact that the rule “the more, the better” still works. Modern processors for mobile devices can increase or decrease their frequency depending on whether they are performing a resource-intensive task or a task with a simple load. Modern smartphones are usually equipped with processors with core frequencies above 1 GHz. If this figure is lower, know that this is either an outdated model or a rare, low-performing budget model. But manufacturers can supply top smartphone models with processors with a core frequency of even more than 2 GHz.
But even with the same core frequency, processors from different manufacturers can show completely different performance results. Moreover, some processors will cope more successfully with some tasks, while others - respectively, with others. Therefore, the best way to find out which processor, with which clock frequency, will be better for performing specific user tasks is to test performance using a benchmark. Benchmark is a special type of program that is designed to compare the performance of computer and mobile equipment. The most popular benchmarks for the Android platform are AnTuTu Benchmark and Quadrant. These apps will test your Android device - smartphone or tablet - and return the results in the form of a number of performance scores. This rating will serve as a measure of the speed of a particular mobile device compared to others.
Number of processor cores
How many computing cores should a mobile device processor have? Smartphones with single-core processors - today such a picture can only be found in rare budget models from manufacturers. Top budget smartphone models, medium- and powerful-performance devices – their performance is ensured by multi-core processors that ensure the operation of various device tasks. Processors with two computing cores gave rise to the evolution of processors - processors with four, five and even eight computing cores appeared.
As with the processor clock speed, the situation with computing cores may seem simple and straightforward - the more cores a processor has, the more productive the processor is. Perhaps in most cases this is true, but practice shows that this is not always the case. Thus, smartphones, as a rule, do not use all of their processing cores at the same time. Another nuance - most applications for mobile platforms are simply not designed to work with a processor with more than two cores.
A striking example is the iPhone 5s. This gadget is powered by a dual-core processor, but as a result of Apple's impeccable work in optimizing the hardware and operating system, the device boasts performance that will be the envy of Android smartphones with powerful multi-core processors.
Tegra 3 - a popular processor platform developed by Nvidia - is a branded product that has declared itself as an ideal configuration that provides performance to mobile devices while saving battery power. The platform is a processor with four computing cores of 1.6 GHz each and a fifth additional low-power core, which ensures the operation of the mobile device in energy saving mode. Thus, mobile devices based on Tegra 3 for games and resource-intensive applications use the full power of four cores. But when resource-intensive content is not played, four powerful cores are inactive. At this time, the fifth core ensures mail checking, background operation of system services and processes, as well as other lightweight tasks, prolonging the battery life of the gadget.
Exynos 5 is an eight-core processor platform from Samsung, which powers the super-efficient Samsung Galaxy S4 and Samsung Galaxy Note 3 smartphones. Exynos 5 is essentially based on two processors with four cores. One of the processors is low-power, but saves battery power. The other is very powerful, but, therefore, absorbs a lot of energy. Depending on what tasks the smartphone performs, either one or the other processor works. When running resource-intensive games and applications, a more powerful processor comes into play, while simple tasks of the smartphone and its background work are provided by a low-power, economical processor.
MediaTek worked hard to release a full-fledged eight-core processor and introduced it at the end of 2013. But to what extent will such productive capacities be in demand in mobile devices by ordinary users? Will smartphone manufacturers be able to ensure that such processors work well together with other hardware components? Are the creators of mobile operating systems, game and application developers ready to implement such power to the masses?
Optimal processor for a smartphone
If we talk about some average indicator that is suitable for optimal operation of a modern smartphone, this is a processor with two computing cores and a frequency of at least 1 GHz. Today this is perhaps the most reasonable minimum - the smartphone’s processor will perform all the necessary tasks and even more, while the cost of the device will be affordable for many.
But if you plan to explore the capabilities of your smartphone to the fullest and are buying it to play powerful action games on it, go for a device with a quad-core processor.
When choosing a smartphone, also pay attention to the processor manufacturer. Thus, Snapdragon processors from Qualcomm and Exynos from Samsung are considered the most productive solutions. If financial capabilities allow, these processors should be preferred to alternatives from MediaTek.
The speed of a smartphone is influenced by three factors - the processor, the graphics core and RAM. Since the graphics core is often combined with the processor, and RAM itself has minimal impact, special attention should be paid to the choice of processor for a smartphone.
Let's look at the main characteristics and the most common processor models for smartphones.
Chinese manufacturers are used to boasting that their smartphones are powered by 8-core processors, and uninformed consumers are impressed. However, in reality, the number of cores is not the most important indicator of device performance. To solve everyday problems, two cores may be enough for the consumer. The example of Apple is indicative: the latest devices of this company operate on a dual-core A8 chip, but in terms of speed the iPhone will give the same performance to all “Chinese”.
The meaning of the kernels can be described as follows. Previously, all smartphone commands were executed sequentially, and therefore manufacturers sought to increase the clock frequency of the phone's processor, however, now the so-called era of parallelization has arrived. Each core of a modern smartphone can perform several functions, and the smartphone itself can perform millions of operations simultaneously. Streams of information no longer have to be queued, and this increases the speed of the gadget. However, to baffle even a dual-core chip, the user will have to try hard.
Frequency
The processor frequency affects the number of operations performed per second. The higher the processor frequency, the faster the queue of smartphone commands, which was mentioned earlier, moves. Over time, the role of processor frequency becomes secondary due to the fact that the number of cores comes to the fore. However, this point is important: a multi-core processor can speed up the operation of a gadget only if the information is divisible. If the information is indivisible, then even in an 8-core processor only one core will work, and its performance will be equal to the clock frequency.
That is why you should focus on the needs: users who work with graphics, music, video files need a multi-core smartphone, while gamers should pay attention to the frequency - programmers do not always provide for the fragmentation of software processes.
The best processors for smartphones
- Qualcomm is a company that produces not only the famous Snapdragon chips, but also the development of key technologies, for example, LTE. Processors from Qualcomm are used by such large manufacturers of mobile equipment as HTC, Samsung and Sony (Xperia Z line). The latest top-end chip, the Snapdragon 810, faced criticism for being expensive and overheating, but this did not affect the overall popularity of Qualcomm products.
- MediaTek is Qualcomm's main industry competitor. The company focuses on the optimal price-quality ratio, and therefore smartphones with a processor from MediaTek, when compared with analogues, are simply cheaper. It is noteworthy that it was MediaTek that was the first to develop the 10-core Xelio X processor. The company's products are used, in particular, by the Chinese giant Lenovo.
- Samsung – is actively developing its own Exynos line. The 8-core Exynos 7420 is found in the latest models of Samsung smartphones, for example, in the S6 Edge.
- Intel is a leader among laptop processor manufacturers, but in the mobile development industry this company is in the second tier. Intel Atom powers the Asus Zenfone line, a number of Lenovo models, and some smartphones from other little-known manufacturers.
Conclusion
Disputes about which processor is better for a smartphone are meaningless - one must proceed primarily from the personal needs of the user, and not from technical characteristics. In the race for the number of cores and clock speed, the user risks simply spending extra money for an advantage that is useless to him.
The smartphone industry is progressing every day, and, as a result, users are getting newer, more modern and powerful gadgets. All smartphone manufacturers strive to make their creation special and irreplaceable. Therefore, today much attention is paid to the development and production of processors for smartphones.
Surely, many fans of “smart phones” have more than once asked the question, what is a processor and what are its main functions? And also, of course, buyers are interested in what all these numbers and letters in the name of the chip mean.
We suggest you familiarize yourself a little with the concept "smartphone processor".
Processor in a smartphone- this is the most complex part and is responsible for all calculations performed by the device. In fact, it is wrong to say that a smartphone uses a processor, since processors as such are not used in mobile devices. The processor, together with other components, form a SoC (System on a chip - system on a chip), which means that on one chip there is a full-fledged computer with a processor, graphics accelerator and other components.
If we are talking about the processor, then first we need to understand such a concept as "processor architecture". Modern smartphones use processors based on the ARM architecture, which is developed by the company of the same name ARM Limited. We can say that architecture is a certain set of properties and qualities inherent in a whole family of processors. Qualcomm, Nvidia, Samsung, MediaTek, Apple and other processor companies license technology from ARM and then sell the finished chips to smartphone manufacturers or use them in their own devices. Chip makers license individual cores, instruction sets and related technologies from ARM. ARM Limited does not produce processors, but only sells licenses for its technologies to other manufacturers.
Now let's look at concepts such as core and clock speed, which are always found in reviews and articles about smartphones and phones when talking about the processor.
Core
Let's start with the question, what is a kernel? Core is an element of the chip that determines the performance, power consumption and clock speed of the processor. Very often we come across the concept of a dual-core or quad-core processor. Let's figure out what this means.
Dual-core or quad-core processor - what's the difference?
Very often, buyers think that a dual-core processor is twice as powerful as a single-core processor, and a quad-core processor is, accordingly, four times more powerful. Now we will tell you the truth. It would seem quite logical that moving from one core to two, or from two to four, increases performance, but in fact it is rare that this power increases by a factor of two or four. Increasing the number of cores allows you to speed up the operation of the device due to the redistribution of running processes. But most modern applications are single threaded and therefore can only use one or two cores at a time. The question naturally arises, what is a quad-core processor for then? Multi-core is mainly used by advanced games and media editing applications. This means that if you need a smartphone for gaming (3D games) or shooting Full HD video, then you need to purchase a device with a quad-core processor. If the program itself does not support multi-cores and does not require large resources, then unused cores are automatically disabled to save battery power. Often, the fifth companion core is used for the most unpretentious tasks, for example, to operate the device in sleep mode or when checking mail.
If you need an ordinary smartphone for communication, surfing the Internet, checking email, or keeping up with all the latest news, then a dual-core processor is quite suitable for you. And why pay more? After all, the number of cores directly affects the price of the device.
Clock frequency
The next concept we have to get acquainted with is clock frequency. Clock frequency is a characteristic of the processor, which shows how many clock cycles the processor is capable of working per unit of time (one second). For example, if the device characteristics indicate frequency 1.7 GHz - this means that in 1 second its processor will perform 1,700,000,000 (1 billion 700 million) cycles.
Depending on the operation, as well as the type of chip, the number of clock cycles it takes for the chip to perform one task may vary. The higher the clock frequency, the faster the operating speed. This difference is especially noticeable when comparing identical cores operating at different frequencies.
Sometimes the manufacturer limits the clock speed in order to reduce power consumption, because the higher the speed of the processor, the more power it consumes.
And again we return to multi-core. Increasing the clock speed (MHz, GHz) can increase heat generation, which is highly undesirable and even harmful for smartphone users. Therefore, multi-core technology is also used as one of the ways to increase the performance of a smartphone without making it too hot in your pocket.
Performance increases by allowing applications to run simultaneously on multiple cores, but there is one condition: the applications must be the latest generation. This feature also saves battery power.
Another important characteristic of the processor that smartphone sellers often keep silent about is CPU cache.
Cache- This is memory designed for temporary storage of data and operating at the processor frequency. The cache is used to reduce the processor's access time to slow RAM. It stores copies of part of the RAM data. Access time is reduced due to the fact that most of the data required by the processor ends up in the cache, and the number of accesses to RAM is reduced. The larger the cache size, the larger part of the data needed by the program it can contain., the less often access to RAM will occur, and the higher the overall performance of the system will be.
The cache is especially relevant in modern systems, where the gap between the speed of the processor and the speed of the RAM is quite large. Of course, the question arises, why do they not want to mention this characteristic? Everything is very simple. Let's give an example. Let’s assume that there are two well-known processors (conditionally A and B) with absolutely the same number of cores and clock speed, but for some reason A works much faster than B. It’s very simple to explain: processor A has a larger cache, and therefore itself the processor runs faster.
The difference in cache volume is especially noticeable between Chinese and branded phones. It would seem that according to the characteristics numbers, everything seems to be the same, but the price of the devices differs. And this is where buyers decide to save money with the thought “why pay more if there is no difference?” But, as we see, there is a difference and a very significant one, but sellers often keep silent about it and sell Chinese phones at inflated prices.
This is how we briefly dealt with the main characteristics of a CPU for a mobile phone. Every day we hear about new developments and projects, and there were even rumors about an eight-core processor. But today the most popular gadgets are those with a quad-core processor. As they say, time will tell which chip will perform better.
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Just five years ago, smartphones had single-core processors, and predictions about the appearance of multi-core chips in mobile gadgets only caused smiles. However, at the beginning of 2011, the first smartphone with a dual-core chipset was introduced, and since then the number of cores in mobile processors has only been growing. Today we are no longer too surprised by chipsets with ten cores (for example), and there is no reason to believe that this figure will stop increasing. To understand what manufacturers are trying to achieve and why smartphones need so many cores, let’s start with a short excursion into history.
In pursuit of productivity
Until 2011, growth in the performance of mobile device processors was achieved primarily by increasing their clock speed. But it was not possible to move forward vigorously by increasing frequencies: in mobile devices there is an acute problem with cooling. Overheating at high clock frequencies can be reduced by switching to a more refined technical process. However, the improvement of lithographic equipment did not occur quickly enough, and then manufacturers decided to increase the performance of smartphones in a way already tested on PCs - by adding a second computing core.
So, the first smartphone with a dual-core processor appeared in 2011: it was the LG Optimus 2X with the NVIDIA Tegra 2 chipset. The chipset was built on ARM Cortex-A9 cores with a clock frequency of up to 1 GHz, made using a 40 nm process technology. The smartphone really showed good results in synthetic tests and when performing certain tasks, but for about a year its “dual-core” capability was almost useless, since application developers were in no hurry to massively optimize their programs to work with two cores. However, different processes could already load both cores simultaneously, which gave a visible increase in speed.
However, the more devices with multi-core processors became widespread, the more attention they received from developers of demanding applications - primarily games. Of course, smartphone manufacturers did not stop at two cores and already in 2012 the first device appeared with a five-core LG Optimus 4X HD processor based on the NVIDIA Tegra 3 chipset with four ARM Cortex-A9 cores clocked at 1.5 GHz and a fifth core - companion with a frequency of 500 MHz. The four main cores accounted for the device's outstanding performance, but quickly drained the battery. Therefore, simple tasks were processed by the companion core operating at a reduced frequency.
The first “pure” quad-core processor was the Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro. Unlike NVIDIA chipsets, in the S4 Pro line Qualcomm used its own cores called Krait, which supported aSMP technology, which allows you to select the voltage and frequency of each core individually and even disable them completely. The synchronous systems that NVIDIA and ARM were developing at that time could not do this.
In pursuit of energy efficiency
The performance of quad-core solutions completely satisfied both consumers and manufacturers: the latter could only reduce the technical process as much as possible and increase the clock frequency. However, when developing the first quad-core processors, engineers had to seriously think about energy efficiency. The result of these difficult thoughts was the appearance of the 4-PLUS-1 architecture by NVIDIA and the introduction of aSMP technology into Qualcomm processors, which we have already discussed.
Around the same time, the ARM big.LITTLE architecture appeared, which was designed to solve the existing problem. big.LITTLE's first implementation, Clustered Switching, was not very successful because it only allowed the device to switch between clusters of cores of the same type without the ability to control each of them individually. The first chipset with such an implementation of the architecture was the Samsung Exynos 5 Octa (5410) with four ARM Cortex-A7 cores and four Cortex-A15 cores, used in the Galaxy S4 smartphone. In this processor, with a power consumption of up to 1 W, the LITTLE cluster operated, which, when this threshold was exceeded, was turned off to start the big cluster with a maximum power consumption of up to 6 W.
In the second implementation of big.LITTLE, called IKS, clusters consisted of two cores of different types, but one could be running at any time. This technology allowed different types of cores to work simultaneously (for example, two performance and two energy-saving cores in an eight-core chipset), but it was still impossible to use all the cores.
Finally, HMP technology appeared, which was capable of using any combination of cores at any frequency of each of them, including simultaneous operation of all cores for maximum performance. It is HMP that is used in all modern chipsets built on the ARM big.LITTLE architecture, and the first processor on this architecture was also the Exynos 5 Octa (5420) chipset developed by Samsung.
Are kernels used by applications?
There is a fairly common belief that smartphones don't actually need multi-core processors. They used to say this about quad-core processors, now they talk about eight-core processors. Allegedly, mobile applications simply cannot use all the cores, as a result of which most of them “idle” unnecessarily. But even at the dawn of “multi-core” smartphones, one core could be used by a running application, while the other at the same time was engaged in updating widgets, synchronization and other system processes. Currently, mobile programs, starting with the simplest ones, can use at least four cores. To confirm this, Android Authority conducted its own research, running various applications and analyzing core load. Here's what we managed to get for the Chrome browser on the quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 chipset:
As you can see in the graphs, Chrome can run in multiple threads (otherwise we would see a maximum of two cores being used), and the operating system tries to balance the load on all cores to avoid situations where two cores are 100% loaded while the other two are idle.
If we run the same test on a chipset with big.LITTLE HMP architecture, the picture changes:
In the case of using heterogeneous multiprocessing, the number of cores used will be close to the maximum, and the core load graphs will not even approximately coincide.
To understand why this happens, and why the same application requires a different number of cores on different chipsets, let's look at another graph obtained in the Epic Citadel game:
The graph shows that under heavy load the big cluster is active, which corresponds to the simultaneous use of four cores, but when the load decreases, both clusters can work simultaneously for some time, using a total of eight cores. Low load on each core will not cause jumps in energy consumption, and a further reduction in load will lead to a complete shutdown of the big cluster and the inclusion of the energy-saving LITTLE cluster.
The conclusion from the above is simple and categorical: the lack of multithreading in Android applications is a myth, and the operating system distributes the load on the cores in the best way depending on whether the chipset uses the big.LITTLE architecture or not.
In pursuit of marketing
The first eight-core processors caused ridicule from skeptical users, but despite this, they became the best available solution for optimizing the balance of performance and power consumption of a smartphone. Manufacturers, however, did not stop, and in 2015, Mediatek introduced the first chipset with ten cores - Helio X20, and also announced that it would soon release a twelve-core processor.
The Helio X20 uses not two, but three types of cores with smoothly increasing performance: four Cortex-A53 at 1.4 GHz, four Cortex-A53 at 2 GHz and two Cortex-A72 at 2.5 GHz.
Despite the impressive numbers, unlike the first two-, four- and eight-core chipsets, the Helio X20 did not become a sensation, inferior in benchmarks to its competitors with fewer cores. Applications that can simultaneously use more than eight cores are still negligible, and a further increase in the number of cores will not provide any noticeable performance gains in the near future.
As for the inevitable companion of the ever-increasing power of mobile devices - the need to reduce power consumption, manufacturers of chipsets and smartphones are actively using other methods for this, for example, reducing the technical process and optimizing other components - screens or memory. And an increase in the number of cores leads, rather, to an increase in the cost of end devices.
There is an alternative example of development - Apple. While Android manufacturers use Google's operating system, and most of them also use third-party processors, Apple itself develops iOS and designs chipsets for its mobile devices. This allows the company to achieve a good balance between performance and energy efficiency through deep optimization of both the software and hardware of gadgets. In its modern chipsets, Apple uses... only two cores of its own design called Twister. Of course, Apple smartphones show much lower numbers in benchmarks compared to Android devices, but why chase numbers if the system, all programs and games on gadgets work perfectly?
Chasing the future
At the beginning of 2016, quad-core chipsets became the de facto minimum standard for smartphones (except iPhone). Only in the most budget models can you still find dual-core processors, and single-core processors have become history. Was this useful for users? Undoubtedly, yes, since the market always puts everything in its place, and unsuccessful decisions quickly become a thing of the past. Dual- and quad-core processors have proven that they are an excellent solution for increasing the performance of smartphones without fatally reducing battery life. Now it is quite possible to say that the ARM big.LITTLE HMP architecture met expectations when using six to eight cores. It balances performance and energy efficiency better than others, changing these parameters within wide limits depending on the current tasks.
Every year it becomes more and more difficult for smartphone manufacturers to surprise users. Companies find it difficult to switch to more sophisticated technical processes, which limits the possibility of increasing the frequency, and the existing performance standards are already such that, having bought a flagship, a person will not feel its lack for another 3-4 years. As a result, chipsets appear that amaze the imagination with numbers, which do not yet hide any benefits for the end user. And a further increase in the number of cores in mobile gadgets today is hardly justified: in this way it will not be possible to achieve a noticeable increase in either the performance or autonomy of the devices.
Time will tell how long chipsets with more than eight cores will stay on the market, but such processors do not carry any important innovations that everyone can experience, so it’s definitely not worth pursuing such devices in the near future.
