NVIDIA Tegra X1 Maxwell GPU vs Qualcomm Adreno 540

NVIDIA Tegra X1 Maxwell GPU

The NVIDIA Tegra X1 Maxwell GPU is an integrated graphics card in the NVIDIA Tegra X1 SoC for (mostly Android based) tablets. It is the successor of the Tegra K1 GPU and based on the Maxwell architecture. It offers the same features as the laptop and desktop Maxwell based products like OpenGL 4.5, CUDA 6.0, OpenGL ES 3.1 and DirectX 11.2. The GPU offers 256 shader cores (2 SMMs) and clocks at up to 1000 MHz. The memory interface offers a maximum bandwidth of 25.6 GB/s (2x 32 Bit LPDDR4-3200).

First benchmarks of the Tegra X1 graphics card using GLBench show twice as high scores as the PowerVR GXA6850 in the Apple A8X. Therefore, the X1 should be the fastest GPU for Android based devices that should not struggle with high end Android games in high resolutions.

The improved video part of the SoC is able to en- and decode 4K videos in H.265 according to Nvidia (decoding at 60fps, encoding at 30fps). Thanks to HDMI 2.0 support, the 4K60 material can be transmitted to external displays (2 displays in parallel at max). The integrated dual ISP is able to drive up to 6 cameras (max. 100 MP, 4096 focus points) at once.

The power consumption of the whole SoC should be rather big compared to other ARM based SoCs. Therefore, Tegra X1 based smartphones are unlikely. As the Tegra K1, the X1 will be most likely seen in tablets with good cooling solutions. Similar to the Apple A8X, the Tegra X1 is manufactured in 20nm.

Qualcomm Adreno 540

The Qualcomm Adreno 540 is an integrated graphics card in the Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 SoC for smartphones. It was introduced in early 2017 and can be found in high-end Android smartphones. 

The integrated GPU is based on the optimized architecture of the Adreno 530, but features clearly improved clock speeds (710 versus 624 MHz according to Anandtech) and better thermal stability. This is also thanks to the new 10 nm process the Snapdragon 835 is produced in. In the reference smartphone from Qualcomm, the Adreno 540 is able to beat or perform at a similar level as the fastest smartphone graphics cards on the market (e.g. the ARM Mali-T880MP12, ARM Mali-G71MP8 or Apple A10 GPU). Therefore, it should be perfectly suited for demanding 3D gaming and also mobile VR and 4K displays.