NVIDIA SHIELD Tegra 4 Android Gaming Portable

We have a few more graphics-related benchmarks for you here, namely Futuremark's 3DMark Ice Storm benchmark and Basemark X. These two tests are a bit more comprehensive than the ones on the previous page...

GPU Testing (Continued)
Futuremark and BasemarkX

Please note that we've included two scores for the NVIDIA SHIELD here. All of the devices were tested with Ice Storm's standard test, but since the SHIELD outpaced everything by such a large margin, we re-ran the test in Extreme mode on the SHIELD as well.  As you can see, regardless of the settings used, NVIDIA's Tegra 4 crushes everything else.

BasemarkX tells essentially the same story as Ice Storm. Once again, the Tegra 4's 72-Core GeForce GPU is simply in a league of its own in this test.

Battery Life Tests
How Long Will She Last... 

The NVIDIA SHIELD is packing a 28.8 watt/hour battery, and though NVIDIA doesn't make any specific claims about battery life, we wanted to try and quantify it is some way. In an attempt to quantitatively measure the SHIELD's battery life in a controlled benchmark environment, we used the AnTuTu battery tester. During the test, we set the screen to 50% brightness and let the benchmark do its thing. Although this test is relatively new for us, we were able to compile results from a few phones for comparison purposes as well.


The SHIELD isn't a phone obviously, but since it's running a mobile SoC and Android, we've compared it to some smartphones and tablets anyway.  And as you can see, at least according to AnTuTu's battery test, SHIELD can operate untethered for a bit longer than any of the other devices we tested.

During real-world use, the SHIELD would easily last a whole day with light use (browsing, checking e-mail, casual gaming) and it would hold a charge while in stand-by for days on end. If you played one of the more taxing games on the device non-stop, however, you'll only get about 4 - 5 hours on charge.
 


Marco Chiappetta

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

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