Posted by abufrejoval
- Today at 14:27:35
Short variant: expect OnePlus tablets to perform like next-gen OnePlus phones due to less throttle.
Caveat: since OnePlus tablets tend to have previous-gen SoCs, it becomes a muddle.
Hint: buy both on the downward swing for economy, especially during the "RAMpocalypse".
Long story:
I've had quite a view OnePlus devices, starting from the very first phone. Initially it was mostly about the ability to get extended security updates via Linaro/LineageOS, then simply about easy rooting, today it's mostly very solid build quality at fair prices, once they reach somewhere past mid life cycle: I tend to pass my devices on to kids and other family members, where they typically last for a very long time.
The reason I'm mentioning that is that OnePlus tablets tend to lag behind their phone brethren and since I am still operating the OnePlus 11/13 and 15 as well as the OnePlus Pad 2 and 3 side-by-side, I believe I can predict pretty much where the OnePad 4 (or 5, since 4 is supposed to be an unlucky number in China) might wind up: not very far ahead of the Pad 3 in terms of performance, but potentially much more expensive.
I've just benchmarked those five devices again, which mark both the transition from the Gen 8 to the Oryon cores (OnePlus 11->13, OnePad 2->3), as well as the transition from Oryon V1 to V2 (OnePlus 13->15), while also checking Android and Linux desktop mode support, including a full KDE Plasma desktop running via Termux, because of all that noise around the Fruity Cult's Neo laptop using a smartphone chip that's very close to the Oryons: I wanted to know, if perhaps the Pad 3 was the better Neo as a side quest (not part of this post).
Long story, somewhat shorter, the Oryon V1 on the OnePad 3 in all practical terms is about as fast as the Oryon V2 on the OnePlus 15. Or said differently, the OnePlus 15 can't realize the 20% generational speed advantage higher clocks and other measures are supposed to deliver for V2 vs V1, most likely because throttling is near instanteneous.
And I don't think it's the heat that throttles directly, because I can't get the phones (nor the tablets) to run ever hot to the touch, but OnePlus limiting the power draw long before heat would build up. I've thrown all kinds of CPU and GPU loads on the devices, via Android but also using the Linux environment offered by Termux: I measure clocks and temps using AIDA64 or CPU-Z, while the desktop mode allows me to throw workloads from a 2nd screen via its launcher, KDE or a Linux shell. Unfortunately Snapdragons won't give you a Watt figure for what they consume, even if that's typically just a guesstimate in other platforms, too.
But before I get lost in more details, I'd like to take one step back to the initial Oryon generation.
On the phones that transition (OnePlus 11->OnePlus 13) wasn't really all that noticeable, while on the tablet side things are quite different: the Pad 3 feels like it got a real shot in the arm vs the Pad 2, which isn't exactly a slouch, unless you pick it up immediately after the Pad 3.
And as I've hinted, the transition from OnePlus 13 to OnePlus 15 is very hard to notice in terms of performance, perhaps I should mention that the only gaming I ever do on mobile devices is running 3Dmark.
I've also had a Snapdragon Elite - X1E-78-100 based Windows laptop for a while, which shows the other end of the Oryon V1 spectrum (45 Watts) and my impression is that Oryons are both quite starved by energy at the low end (phone), but also offer sharply diminishing returns at the high end (laptop).
Sustaining 5 Watts or even more on a phone isn't just hard on the battery, dissipating the heat becomes an issue with the limited surface available. At 45 Watts laptops face the same issue, since the productivity oriented ones are designed with 10-15 Watts sustained heat in mind.
The tablets offer a mid point, which seems a pretty near ideal match to the Oryon's top of the CMOS knee, with more surface for heat dissipation and battery capacity to sustain it, they manage quit a bit better and show off the Oryon architecture advantage vs. their Gen8 predecessors, which was still a pure phone focus design. I have no way to measure actual consumption, but I'd guess somewhere between 10-12 Watt peak and 7-9 Watt sustained or simply "more than 5 Watt phone, less than a 15 Watt laptop".
(That just happens to be a Wattage sweet spot, that garners a lot of current attention, because the Fruity Cult's Neo sits there as well, to make it work with a half-capacity battery. And I couldn't help but notice that the Pad 3 sits at that very same performance point with twice the RAM and storage, adding a Pen, a keyboard cover and even a smartwatch for free at less of a price.)
This post is only about generational speed uplifts, so I'm not addressing the fuctional gaps.
Conclusion:
One the phone side, generational uplifts are extremely hard to come by, because the fixed thermal envelope nearly ate all the generational uplifts in architecture and fab process.
On the tablet side the Oryon transition (Pad 2->3) the bigger screen and new SoC represented a significant upgrade for the (still) current generation, which also happens to be rather affordable with nice bundles currently, probably due to high stocks.
But I don't expect big changes with the tablet this article refers to, because the only real change is in peak clocks with some design tweaks and binning. That might earn it some benchmark crowns due to Geekbench's propensity for ultra short peak loads, but the thermal envelope for each form factor ultimately determines what can be done.
Current Pad 3 stocks were likely produced before RAM prices shot up and fab capacity was repurposed, the next gen tablets may suffer from both, while not offering much of any real-world performance boost.
Deutsch
English
Español
Français
Italiano
Nederlands
Polski
Português
Русский
Türkçe
Svenska
Chinese
Magyar