Source
r/EmulationOnAndroid•
hackis

Just how much better are desktop CPUs compared to Phone CPUs?

Taking the new Snapdragon 865, it has a geekbench5 single score of ~900 and multi score of ~3300. If I look up scores of my desktop Ryzen 5 1600, it has a single score of ~950 and multi ~5100.

Now I have trouble believing that mobile CPUs are this close to desktops in terms of single core performance, but are there any other benchmarks that could compare desktop CPUs and smartphone CPUs? I understand it's hard to compare ARM and x86, even more so when smartphone CPUs can't run at maximum performance indefinitely like desktops due to thermals, but if these scores are somewhat accurate and phone CPUs are closing in on desktops, wouldn't it mean that something like RPCS3, Xenia or Yuzu could run Xbox 360/PS3/Switch games decently well if they were to be ported to Android?

Playing something like Breath of the Wild or GTA IV on my phone would be the dream, even if it's few years away.

Posted Jan 30, 2020, 7:30 PM UTC

4240
One_Death_To_Far•

so heres the thing: CISC architecture CPU's are much more complex with being able to do things like anticipate data (x86)

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RISC cpu's are not as complex, lacking in many ways.

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This can be seen with how 32 bit application emulation runs very slow on RISC processors (phone processor).

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[deleted]•

[deleted]

1
rBeowulfWild Gunslinger•

A phone is already more powerful than PS3/X360... you just need optimizatons, this is the hard part...

Yet, a phone CPU is still at least 10 times slower then a desktop cpu (top spec vs top spec with same core count)

22
hackisOP•

10x? Would that be multi core or single core performance? Because the SD865 has the one performance core running at 2.84Ghz, I have trouble believing it would be that much slower compared to like a 4.5Ghz Ryzen. Sure it's only one core, the other 7 cores are clocked differently at slower speeds, but isn't single core performance the most important thing for emulators?

I would have honestly expected it to be like 2-3x worse than a top of the line desktop CPU.

-8
SpecialistProfessor7•

GHz doesn't matter and is a poor way to measure performance. ARM chips are designed for low power draw which is why, despite the fact iPad Pros and high end phones are technically as powerful as consoles, they throttle heavily after half an hour at peak performance due to heat buildup. ARM is efficient with low energy use and x86 is great at high energy.

Companies making each type of chip are spending a lot to be better at the other end of the spectrum. Hence the big kerfluffle over Intel not hitting it's 7nm target date.

A 1 Ghz core in a 2019 x86 CPU slaps the shit out of a single core in a 2000 x86 CPU clocked at 2 GHz because its significantly more efficient.

If you really want to compare computational performance, you want to look at Teraflops. They're an objective measure of performance across architectures.

30
hackisOP•

Yeah, makes sense since I remember having older AMD CPU back in 2016 that had higher clock speed than my current ryzen and it was a lot worse.

Still, everywhere I look online (Quora, reddit, articles) I see conflicting answers. Some say ARM CPUs are nowhere near desktop CPUs, some say they're close, others say CPUs like A13 even surpass a lot of modern laptop x86 CPUs. I did a lot of research and I can't find a uniform answer anywhere.

I tried looking up rendering tests between ARM and x86 so that it would hopefully give me an idea of the speed difference between them, but when I found this video of an A12X on an iPad vs a desktop AMD threadripper, the ARM CPU in the iPad actually won. I know it's comparing 2 different programs on different operating systems, but still that's insane. And the A12X isn't even the most powerful phone/tablet ARM CPU. And few weeks ago there's been a lot of these articles about the new A14 and how it could be as powerful as the 15' Macbook Pro.

For the record, I'm not looking for a debate or trying to prove my own points or something, I just want to know how much of a performance difference there really is between a desktop and phone CPU, if it's even possible to measure it somehow.

9
SpecialistProfessor7•

9 to 5 Mac is a website with a clear bias towards Apple and you probably shouldn't trust them on matters like this. As well, the video compares a task done on a computer running poorly optimized software versus an iPad running what is optimized for a single platform.

Again, read up on teraflops. Right now the highest end ARM chips are around as powerful as the middle range i3 series, under optimized conditions.

9
el_rika•

It's roughly 8 - 10 years behind (which is great). High end Smartphone CPUs of today are comparable to ~ 2012 top mainstream CPUs. GPUs are a different story and are advancing a bit faster.

8
lagunareturns•

Converting emulators to mobile (RISC) processors can be done optimally and hence it compete with pc that is until more complex system like PS2 and Dolphin struggle and compare to 10 year old high end processors.

Also stop saying the Snapdragon 865 will compare to PS3/XBOX 360, DO NOT COMPARE with Unreal games as they are heavily optimised... Come on show me GTA5 or Last of us on Android.

Why even compare when it is the developers putting decent games on Android instead of idle, gatcha, subscription or loot boxes games...

WOW a Gatcha game with PS3 games... GREAT.... I do hope you can see the heavy sarcasm...

3
hackisOP•

I didn't mean that the developers would port PS3 or Switch games to android, but rather than when (or if) the open source emulators like RPCS3, Xenia or Yuzu would be ported to Android that they could hopefully run games like GTA IV or BoTW at decent framerates in few years.

I know about the piss poor state of Android "games" filled with ads and subcriptions. That's why I pretty much only play emulator games on my phone with some exceptions like GTA: SA.

3
boih_stk•

Holy shit I feel dumb reading all of this, and you guys clarified a hell of a lot of the same questions I had. Major props to everyone involved in this thread, super informative and interesting convo.

3
FewMail•

You won't get an objective answer for this on Reddit. You'll get idiotic answers pulled out of no where that support reddits biases. Check anandtech for their ARM chip reviews. The A_X reviews of the iPad pro chips make a lot of comparison to desktop chips and they're basically the fastest consumer ARM mobile chips out there.

2
pipyakas•

It's close, in Geekbench anyway. Your modern & complex emulators like RPCS3 wouldn't be available for ARM for a long, long time

2
kristianity77•

Phones are massively advanced. When you see what you can do emulation wise on a mobile phone, its comparable to a low to low middle range pc in terms of raw performance.

Like my black shark 2 pro, can run ppsspp at 5x resolution at a locked 60fps, yet my laptop (which is a mid range 2018 model MSI costing me 600 pounds at the time.) cannot.

-1†
gary_the_merciless•

Mid range PC? Absolutely not. My older low end desktop is still far better at emulation than my phone.

Are you sure you were using the right cores? Laptops do love to thermal throttle too and often have poor gpus.

9
kristianity77•

Well, a: I stated low end to lower middle. Not middle range and b, what phone do you have?

-3
gary_the_merciless•

its comparable to a low to low middle range pc

s9

A low-mid range pc is still going to be way more powerful than your smart phone.

6
Caronte0•

Not really, it's kinda the same. If by low-mid range you mean PC without dedicated graphics and by phone you mean one with a Snapdragon 855.

-2
kristianity77•

Well all I know is my phone will play GameCube and Wii games easily at 2 or 3x resolution. But my laptop cannot. My laptop is an i3 from 2018 paired with a gtx 1050 2gb. It's not that low end but it doesn't play them games as well as my phone. But my phone is a overclocked 855 snapdragon

-3
radityaargap•

that's so dumb. why do you set resolution to 5x? your phone is only 1080p, setting it to 5x psp resolution will not give you more pixels than your phone can show lol so dumb.

1
kristianity77•

Never heard of outputting the phone in 4k to a 4k TV?

1
radityaargap•

if you output 1080p to 4k, it will still be 1080p upscaled to 4k. it's not gonna turn into 4k. this is not a pc lol.

1
kristianity77•

Sorry I don't think I'm being clear enough. My phone, cna output 4k over hdmi. Not upscaled 1080p , but 4k. Therefore even though on my phone screen it would only be 1080p, it's actually 4k on my TV.

Source of this, me, with a 65 inch Sony 930e 4k TV, a black shark 2 pro phone, and ppsspp, or retroarch with shaders, or redream Dreamcast emulator. Take your pick

1