Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime, Tegra 3 Unleashed

Performance: Graphics

GLBenchmark is new to our 3D performance benchmark set.  The test suite is an OpenGL ES 2.0 benchmark with a number of performance metrics incorporated in it.  We specifically use the Fill Texture Fetch suite to measure raw texture fill rate of a graphics core and the Egypt Off Screen test to measure 3D performance in frames per second.  The Off Screen test renders workloads at 1280x720 for all devices, but off-screen, so Vsynch and screen refresh are not limiting performance.

Graphics testing
OpenGL 3D Rendering Performance

 

 

Looking at the texture fill rate numbers, Apple's A5 offers a boatload of bandwidth, over two times that of NVIDIA's Tegra 3 processor. Samsung's Exynos processor holds its own for that matter, in the Galaxy Tab 7 Plus.  Regardless, Tegra 3, at least according to GLBenchmark, has roughly three times the texture fill rate of Tegra 2.  Conversely, in the Egypt Off Screen test, Tegra 3 races ahead, besting the Apple A5 in the iPad 2 by a comfortable 25% margin.* In addition, in this test, Tegra 3 is living up to NVIDIA's claim, showing performance at almost 3X that of the Tegra 2 tablets here, about 2.6X actually but who's counting?

*Update - 3/9/12:  We became aware of an error in calculation for our GLBenchmark Egypt Offscreen results here and have since updated the chart above.  As you can see, the iPad 2 boasts a significant performance advantage in this test versus the Tegra 3-powered Transformer Prime.

Graphics Testing
3D Graphics Testing

An3DBench XL is a benchmarking tool based on an Android port of the jPCT 3D engine. The app runs 7 tests in total that look at graphics processor fill rate and complex rendering workloads and scenes.

 

This is an Android-only benchmark, so unfortunately the iPad 2 couldn't play here.  We'll also note that the Emporer's New Clothes test seems to be limited by screen refresh (Vsynch) on the higher-end devices, which is why the bar graph is close to flat on that test.  However, looking at the more demanding Flower Power and Magic Island tests, we see some differences.  The Flower Power test shows the Galaxy Tab 7 Plus' slight fill rate advantage again, like it did in the GLBenchmark Fill test.  On the other hand, our Magic Island numbers show a sizable lead for Tegra 3, where the high polygon count in this test shows a nice performance advantage for NVIDIA's new chip.

 


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