9 replies to this topic

[Admin]

So how does Adreno 205 compare to other GPUs on the market today?


Adreno 200

Adreno 200, included as part of QSD8x50 chipset, is currently being used by many smartphones including Nexus One, HTC Evo and HTC Incredible.

Adreno 200 features:

• First OpenGL ES 2.0 graphics processing unit with programmable Function Pipeline
  
• Concurrent CPU, DSP, graphics, and MDP
  
• Streaming textures that can combine video, camera, SVG and other image surfaces with 3D graphics

Although Adreno 200 performs quite decently, it has been grossly outperformed by the likes of PowerVR SGX540, which is included as part of Hummingbird chipset used by Samaung's Galaxy S series phones. To a lesser extent, it is also outperformed by PowerVR SGX530, which is used by the phones such as Droid X, Droid 2 and iPhone 4(rumor).

Interestingly, this GPU was also recently included as part of MSM7x27 package, which typically runs at 600MHz (MSM7227 is used by HTC Legend, LG Optimus GT540, LG Loop (for Rogers) and HTC myTouch 3G Slide). 600MHz MSM7227 ran almost as fast on Quadrant benchmark as 1GHZ QSD8250, which is amazing given its lower clock frequency.

Adreno 200 is expected to stay for a while longer as part of MSM7x27 line-up, which is now considered to be a low-end.


Adreno 205

Adreno 205 is a relatively new GPU - Qualcomm has been sampling it since June 2010. It is included as part of Snapdragon 1.3GHz QSD8x50A, 800MHz MSM7x30 or 1GHz MSM8x55.

..........

Now everyone knows that HTC G2 (also known as HTC Vision, HTC Vanguard, HTC G1 Blaze and HTC Desire Z) will be the first phone to feature Snapdragon MSM7230 chipset which uses Adreno 205. Other phones to use Adreno 205 includes HTC Desire HD, HTC myTouch HD, and HTC Merge/Lexikon.

Adreno 205 features:

• Hardware-accelerated SVG and Adobe Flash®
  
• Significant improvements in shader performance over Adreno 200 GPU
  
• Streaming textures that can combine video, camera, SVG and other image surfaces with 3D graphics

Based on the early benchmark results, Adreno 205 is expected to be about four times faster than Adreno 200. Samsung's Hummingbird with PowerVR SGX540 is expected to beat Adreno 205 by a small margin, however. Still, given that nothing touches the performance of SGX540 today (that's right, iPhone 4 is not even close!), this is quite an improvement.

Interesting to note that Adreno has a hardware-accelerated support for Adobe Flash. Are we going to see much smoother movies in action on this platform?

Will Snapdragon QSD8x60 and QSD8672 use this GPU as well? Perhaps at a higher clock speed? These are dual-core chipsets running at 1.2GHz and 1.5GHz respectively. Rumored phones such as T-Mobile's HTC Glacier (also known as HTC Emerald), Verizon's HTC Scorpion and Verizon's HTC Merge are expected to use these chipsets. If we are lucky, we may get to see some of these phones during 2010.

Updated (Oct 13, 2010): Here's the link to some benchmark numbers for Adreno 205 vs current champ - PowerVR SGX540 used in Samsung's Hummingbird.

Adreno 220

And finally, we have Adreno 220! Qualcomm claims this GPU will be several times more powerful than Adreno 205, becoming competitive to console gaming systems! Not a lot of information has been published about this GPU up to this point. It is expected to become available during 2011.


Look for Quadrant benchmark numbers for T-Mobile's HTC G2 in this comparison table soon.

[Admin]

Added more phones that feature Adreno 205 GPU.

[StevieMac]

Nice article. Thanks for writing it up!

[Admin]

Thanks.

[Admin]

Added some benchmark references for Adreno 205.

[kodinos]

very good article! thanks a lot for clarifying the issue!

[Admin]

You're welcome.

[Sara M]

Glad I came across this tutorial. That would've been another $100 for nothing. Thanks for saving me a few bucks.

[Admin]

You're welcome.

[cristorb]

Nice this is very informative, i used to have an htc evo 4g, and sold it now i have the htc evo 3d.