Compare Atrix 4G to a desktop gaming rig/console?

[astrosyn]

I wonder how quick the miniaturization progress went. What devices can it match by gaming performance?
I think probably a 2GHz P4 with a GeForce 4 or 5600. I think it can beat PS2 and Xbox too.

 

[masse]

Can it even run a web browser as fast as that pc?

It probably belongs somewhere between a PSP and the NGP. Not that the comparison is worth anything.

 

[dguy]

The Tegra 2 and other mobile processors are designed for absolute minimum power consumption while getting as much performance as possible within that extremely strict power consumption envelope. Something like a Geforce 4 or Pentium 4 were designed with no real power limitations, performance was the exclusive goal. As a result, they blow Snapdragons and Omaps and Tegras out of the water in raw performance metrics.

Once we get out of order processors we will start to see some serious performance gains but that won't be until the end of the year at the earliest.

 

[Evil.Bonsai]

Can it even run a web browser as fast as that pc?

It probably belongs somewhere between a PSP and the NGP. Not that the comparison is worth anything.

Actually, it's worth quite a lot, providing you care about such things. I remember back when a pc running Quake at 50fps was AMAZINGLY fast. Now, they have it running on a calculator (not nearly as well, though.)

Without hard numbers, though, it's hard to say, as then it''d just be subjective memory you'd be comparing it to.

 

[astrosyn]

This graphics are probably equal to DirectX 9:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akYJu_yc3W4
The demo looks on par with TES Oblivion on Xbox 360 to me, only without HDR.
I bet it could run Stalker DX8 on maximum, if it was optimized for it.

I remember, when I had a P4 / GeForce 4, it could only run something like TES Morrowind or Serious Sam at maximum setting.

 

[barry99705]

This is a joke right?

 

[Snow_Fox]

I feel raped.

Really. I feel emotionally raped and scarred by this entire thread.

Hopefully if I head desk a few more times, i will not remember it.

Now excuse me while I go cry in the shower.

 

[Evil.Bonsai]

This is a joke right?

I feel raped.

I don't know what's wrong with these two, but the question is still valid. I'm not nearly as optimistic as astosyn, with regards to it's capabilities, but taken as a whole, ANY smartphone these days is a better platform than just about any PC before 2000. Again, without hard numbers to compare (and I'm not going to look them up now), it's all subjective.

 

[CyberPunk7t9]

Comparing the Atrix's gaming capabilities to PS2 and xbox is an exaggeration. But the Atrix must be noticeably faster than say the iphone 4, galaxy s and the sony PSP, faster than most devices (consoles and smartphones) of it's size in OpenGL performance.

 

[Snow_Fox]

I don't know what's wrong with these two, but the question is still valid. I'm not nearly as optimistic as astosyn, with regards to it's capabilities, but taken as a whole, ANY smartphone these days is a better platform than just about any PC before 2000. Again, without hard numbers to compare (and I'm not going to look them up now), it's all subjective.

Ok look.

I will try to keep this as simple as possible.

GHZ stands for gigahertz.

a hertz is an amount of occurrences per second.

so ghz = 1000 megahertz and so on down the line to a regular hertz.

From there, you have to understand that power isn't rated on hertz alone and architecture has a lot to do with it.

Intels current architecture for their desktop processors allows them to complete 4 instructions per clock. so in a span of 1000 clock cycles they complete 4000 instructions.

AMD currently performs 2 instructions per clock.

This makes this actual performance almost impossible to gauge because, of different cost, different programs being optimized for different architectures and so for and so forth.

Even ancient hardware was still designed for desktops with power in mind not energy consumption.

As die size decreases needed power decreases as well and heat goes down so it is all around a good thing.

That doesn't mean the architecture is still designed to be as powerful as older equipment.

The newer phones do have quite a few advantages over old desktops.

They have flash memory which is faster.
This speeds up the phone compared to older computers and in no way touches the processor.

Hell the ram in the phones is probably even faster than the old ram, which still doesn't increase CPU speed.

Now if we are to discuss gaming potential, then yes there is some, yes it is impressive for a hand held device.

However, to say it could run stalker if it was optimized for it is an ironic claim.

Stalker was poorly optimized for pc in the first place.

To say it is DX9 capable is well... crazy.

They use a lot of techniques to make the game "pop" and look pretty and "high definition".

But, give the older hardware some credit here guys.

older though it may be and although tech has come far..

DX9 is xbox 360..

DX 9 is obsolete.

xbox 360 is obsolete.

That doesn't mean a new phone would be able to handle it.

If you stripped down games to bare minimum and "optimized" the crap out of it..

You would still just have a horribly stripped/modified verzion of the original which may look neat.. but, a serious gamer would probably start nit picking the details and graphics in no time.

Xbawx 360 fanboys may be happy..

But, I own a quad core xfire rig for a reason.

*edit*
the title just screams fail "desktop gaming rig"

Sorry doesn't compare.. over 2000 spu's in 9 inch cards vs a 4" screen..

 

[Evil.Bonsai]

Ok look.

I'll agree with most of that. I'm just more curious about actual calculations the hardware could perform, not so much "OOOH, the ATRIX could SO OWN a PS2!!!"

By which I mean, say a 2000 era pc running superpi vs the Atrix running superpi (something that could compare app...excuse me, oranges to oranges, more or less)

Not sure exactly how this could be done, but I, for one, would find it interesting to see how these modern handheld computers compare to old desktops.

And yes, I also own a quad-core desktop for a reason. Though no x-fire. As of yet, don't have a need for that (though I was looking at a nice 27" monitor to sit about 18" in front of my face)

 

[Snow_Fox]

I'll agree with most of that. I'm just more curious about actual calculations the hardware could perform, not so much "OOOH, the ATRIX could SO OWN a PS2!!!"

perhaps I over reacted but, I've been in more than one discussion on forums and irl about how numbers aren't everything.

By which I mean, say a 2000 era pc running superpi vs the Atrix running superpi (something that could compare app...excuse me, oranges to oranges, more or less)

My money is still on the 2000 era pc assuming 1ghz or up EVEN against a dual core atrix.

Superpi is fun to play with especially for over clocking.

The problem with superpi is it totally fails to take a metric ****ton of things into account.

My dualcore 2.1ghz laptop could more or less run on par with my brothers 2.4 ghz quad core until it got to the much higher numbers and only be behind a small bit.

Why? well super pi only utilizes one core.

My amd quad core at 4 ghz is put to shame by my brothers 3 year old Q6600 at 2.4 ghz.

In terms of gaming either of our processors will trade spaces back in forth depending on the game and depending on the benchmark.

Hell his benchmarks higher than mine more than I would like.

He paid 300$ for his 3 years ago I paid 150$ for mine recently.

Do I care his old pc benchmarks on par with my less than 6 month old? no not really.. benchmarks are fun and all but, the truth is in real world performance it is all relative to what you are doing.

For gaming.. you can pick either one and get amazing results.. the video game world is more graphics card reliant at the moment anyway.. Sometimes a better CPU is needed to not bottle neck you.

But, to get a pc that could out benchmark his.. I would have had to pay a minimum of 50$ more and I would have gotten probably 10 fps more...

What I am driving at here are two different points.

A. numbers are just numbers.
B. now days gaming is more GPU reliant.
C. 48 cores crammed on a chip won't help in a program that only runs single core anyway

Not sure exactly how this could be done, but I, for one, would find it interesting to see how these modern handheld computers compare to old desktops.

I do find it interesting... just keep in mind that just because something looks on par with a pc version doesn't mean there is anything more to it than looks.

What you also have to realize is that phones today are faster than yesterdays pc's for a lot of reasons.

Think about the fact that you might have had dailup, a 5200 rpm IDE hard drive, and ddr ram instead of the ddr3 ram they have now.

And I am not trying to lecture but, I want to emphasize again ddr ram and a physically moving hard disk drive in yesterdays desktop compared to whatever ram they have now and flash storage which has no moving parts and is by default a load faster.

While we often equate speed with power in the current world the truth is there will *ALWAYS* be ratio's we are trying to keep in the same ball park.

So where I am going with this is since the dawn of pc's.

We have also perfected certain balances to get more performance out of less hardware.

It doesn't automatically equate to a better CPU. The cpu's of yesteryear could probably still give today's phones quite the run for the money.

Heck at times my Captivate is faster than my OC'd to 4ghz amd 955, 4 gigs of ram, behemoth of a desktop.

Its not that I don't take care of my precious chimera, the phone is just balanced to be snappy an light weight.

Just because the phone sometimes gets things done a little quicker doesn't mean my PC isn't going to win the big race.

And yes, I also own a quad-core desktop for a reason. Though no x-fire. As of yet, don't have a need for that (though I was looking at a nice 27" monitor to sit about 18" in front of my face)

Don't go too big.

Your going to need an incredibly high resolution to really get the most out of that if it is going to be relatively close to you.

At 1080p dont' go any higher than 23" unless its gunna be further away.

 

[c_r]

Can it even run a web browser as fast as that pc?

It probably belongs somewhere between a PSP and the NGP. Not that the comparison is worth anything.

This. I usually have anywhere between 40-70 tabs open on my internet desktop that's an aging p4....with no noticeable slowdown...and even with all those tabs open...an additional single page still opens wayyyy faster than the atrix can open up a solitary single page through wifi.
(or a netbook running wifi)

ok maybe that's not what the tegra2 chip is optimized to do, but for my web browsing purposes...an old p4 pc and a netbook still smoke it no contest.

 

[zzbrandon]

Personally I think the atrix can make a great mini-emulation gaming console that you can carry around anywhere. It has a N64 and psx emulator that work quite well and has support for wiimotes and wii classic bluetooth controllers that can support up to 4 controllers. Therefore simply pop it in your multimedia dock. Select webtop and than maximize phone view and play your emulator with 4 controllers and friends and what do you know you have a full fledged game console. If you look at the power that game consoles had with the ps2 only having 16mb of ram and the xbox only having 32mb of ram with low end processors I think the atrix is more the suitable to being a pretty powerful little portable console, phone, and entertainment center. Not to mention it doesn't even have andriod 2.4 yet which will make it really shine with the extra support for the dual core processor it has. You also have to consider the architecture for android os based off linux is better than what it might have been for older machines as well. As a little game console I personally think it's awesome and it far surpasses my wii in power(80mb of ram and a single core 800mhz processor.)