Dell Venue 8 7000 Tablet (Review): Getting A RealSense

by Marco Chiappetta, Paul Lilly — Tuesday, February 03, 2015, 12:00 PM EDT

Having seen how the Venue 8 7000's Moorefield chip performs in CPU and web browsing tasks, we now switch our attention to graphics, where the Imagination PowerVR G6430 will get a chance to show its stuff. This is a licensed graphics core that's typically found in ARM-based SoCs and is based on PowerVR's Series 6 "Rogue" architecture.

Graphics testing

iOS and Android Graphics testing

Dell Venue 8 7000 GFXBench T-Rex

As we saw when focusing on the CPU, the Venue 8 7000's graphics performance is also middle-of-the-road, albeit again towards the higher end. Its ability to push 31 frames per second in GFXBench's T-Rex test is respectable, though it can't keep pace with other slates that put gaming performance as a priority.

Dell Venue 8 7000 GFXBench Fillrate

Noticing a theme yet? Another benchmark, another finish that slides in a small space between middle and high. The general takeaway at this point is that, among the tablets that fall in the middle of the pack, the Venue 8 7000 is one of the faster slates, though clearly behind the fastest slates that take these tests to a whole new level.

Graphics and Gaming

Futuremark 3DMark Ice Storm

Dell Venue 8 7000 3DMark Ice Storm Unlimited

In 3DMark Ice Storm Unlimited, the Venue 8 7000 puts on its best showing yet, though as we've seen all along, it's not in the same league as the iPad Air 2 or SHIELD Tablet. So, what's that mean in terms of gaming?

It means that there are tablets out there that are better suited for playing games, if that's your primary goal. However, the Venue 8 7000 is certainly capable of pushing pixels around a screen and running whatever games currently exist on Google Play. So, unless gaming is pretty much the only thing you're interested in, you shouldn't be put off by these graphics test results.

Tags: Intel, Dell, Atom, tablet, RealSense, Moorefield

Marco Chiappetta

Marco's interest in computing and technology dates all the way back to his early childhood. Even before being exposed to the Commodore P.E.T. and later the Commodore 64 in the early ‘80s, he was interested in electricity and electronics, and he still has the modded AFX cars and shop-worn soldering irons to prove it. Once he got his hands on his own Commodore 64, however, computing became Marco's passion. Throughout his academic and professional lives, Marco has worked with virtually every major platform from the TRS-80 and Amiga, to today's high end, multi-core servers. Over the years, he has worked in many fields related to technology and computing, including system design, assembly and sales, professional quality assurance testing, and technical writing. In addition to being the Managing Editor here at HotHardware for close to 15 years, Marco is also a freelance writer whose work has been published in a number of PC and technology related print publications and he is a regular fixture on HotHardware’s own Two and a Half Geeks webcast. - Contact: marco(at)hothardware(dot)com