Intel Atom x5-Z8350 vs Qualcomm Snapdragon 615 MSM8939

Intel Atom x5-Z8350

The Intel Atom x5-Z8350 is a power efficient quad-core SoC for Windows and Android devices (tablets and convertibles), which has been presented in February 2016. It is clocked at 1.44 - 1.92 GHz and part of the Cherry Trail platform. Thanks to its new 14 nanometer low-power process (P1273) with tri-gate transistors, energy efficiency has been significantly improved over its predecessor Bay Trail-T (e.g. Atom Z3795). In addition to the CPU cores, the SoC offers a DirectX 11.2-capable GPU as well as a LPDDR3 Memory Controller (2x 64 bit, 25.6 GB/s).

Architecture

The processor cores are based on the Airmont architecture, which is basically a slightly modified shrink of the previous Silvermont core. While performance per clock has not been improved, the more efficient 14 nm process leads to a better utilization of the CPU Burst (alias Turbo Boost) and a therefore somewhat higher overall performance.

Performance

Compared to the Atom x5-Z8500, the Atom x5-Z8350 is clocked slightly lower and therefore about 10 percent slower. However, the x5 still beats many ARM-based SoCs and offers a performance similar to a Qualcomm Snapdragon 801. Compared to the older x5-Z8300, the Z8350 offers 80 MHz higher boost clock and therefore a similar performance. See our X5-Z8300 site for detailed benchmarks.

Using Windows, the chip is adequate for simple everyday tasks such as light browsing or Office, but not for complex software or modern games.

Graphics

The HD Graphics (Cherry Trail) is based on the Intel Gen8 architecture, which supports DirectX 11.2 and is also found in the Broadwell series (e.g. HD Graphics 5300). With 12 EUs (Execution Units) and a clock speed of up to 500 MHz, the GPU is significantly faster as the HD Graphics (Bay Trail) and can handle at least some older and less demandig Windows games in very low settings. The GPU also supports 4K/H.265 video acceleration.

Compared to ARM SoCs, the HD Graphics offers a performance sligthly below a Qualcomm Adreno 330 or PowerVR G6430.

Power Consumption

The entire SoC is rated at an SDP of 2 watts, which indicates a TDP of less than 4 watts. Thus, the chip can be used in passively cooled tablets.

Qualcomm Snapdragon 615 MSM8939

The Qualcomm Snapdragon 615 MSM8939 is a mid-range ARMv8-based SoC largely for Android tablets and smartphones. Announced in February 2014, the S615 is one of the first 64-bit capable SoCs from Qualcomm. In addition to 8 Cortex-A53 CPU cores at up to 1.7 GHz, the SoC integrates an Adreno 405 GPU with a 2x 32-bit memory controller (LPDDR3-1600, 12.8 GB/s) and supports Wi-Fi (802.11ac), Bluetooth 4.0, UMTS, and LTE.

CPU

The Cortex-A53 is the successor to the very popular Cortex-A7 design. In addition to the new 64-bit capable ARMv8 ISA, the cores offer a variety of other improvements such as better branch prediction. This leads to a significantly higher performance per clock, which is even above the older Cortex-A9.

The eight cores of the Snapdragon 615 are divided into two quad-core clusters, each optimized for a different operating point. While one cluster can clock up to 1.7 GHz to handle more demanding applications, the other cluster is limited to a maximum of 1.0 GHz for energy-saving purposes. All eight cores can be active at the same time, although most applications aren't parallelized to support 8 cores efficiently.

Overall, the Snapdragon 615 offers a performance similar to that of the older Snapdragon 600 (Krait architecture).

GPU

Another new feature is the integrated graphics unit named Adreno 405 (550 MHz). The Adreno 400 series has been substantially redesigned and supports DirectX 11.2 (FL 11_1) including hardware tessellation, OpenGL ES 3.1, and OpenCL 1.2. Furthermore, the performance has been significantly improved, which is now similar to the Adreno 320 and PowerVR G6200.

Features

The Snapdragon 615 offers numerous wireless technologies such as Bluetooth 4.0 and WLAN 802.11a/b/g/n/ac as well as a Multi-SIM cellular modem supporting LTE cat. 4 (up to 150 Mbps), WCDMA, CDMA, EV-DO, TD-SCDMA and GSM/EDGE.

The SoC can encode and decode 1080p videos using dedicated hardware and stream content to displays with up to 2560 x 2048 pixels. A large number of video codecs including H.265 (playback only) will be supported. The camera ISP can handle sensors with up to 21 MP.

Power Consumption

The Snapdragon 615 is manufactured by TSMC in a 28 nm LP process. According to the specifications, we expect a medium or medium-high power consumption for use in medium-sized or larger smartphones and tablets.