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Nikodemos · Aug 11, 2015

I remember how, a few years ago, their GPUs were hot stuff, powering a lot of devices, including the beloved (by at least a vocal number of GAFers) Vita. However, I took a look recently and the only chips featuring their relatively recent GX6000 series graphics were Apple and a single MediaTek tablet SoC. I couldn't fnd any devices using their latest GT7000 series.

What happened? Was it due to Qualcomm's fuckery (for which they got hit by fines in China and they're likely to get hit in the EU as well)?

Vanillalite · Aug 11, 2015

I love how it's "just Apple" as in being the driving GPU for all of Apple's mobile product line is a small thing.

Stinkles · Aug 11, 2015

I don't know what happened to them but their lovely PR guy, Charles Bellfield, passed away a few years ago under tragic circumstances.

Aiii · Aug 11, 2015

Vanillalite said:
I love how it's "just Apple" as in being the driving GPU for all of Apple's mobile product line is a small thing.

Yeah, being a part of the hardware components of every iPhone, iPod, iPad and Apple Watch sold seems like a pretty sweet deal.

Nikodemos · Aug 11, 2015

Vanillalite said:
I love how it's "just Apple" as in being the driving GPU for all of Apple's mobile product line is a small thing.

Apple has been a traditional client for PowerVR GPUs for a very long time, and is indeed a highly important part of their portfolio, but it represents only a portion of the larger handheld and tablet market.

And not even them use the 7000 series, and might not even use PowerVR anymore in the future, what with all the rumbles about designing their next graphics chip in-house.

Pagusas · Aug 11, 2015

Stinkles said:
I don't know what happened to them but their lovely PR guy, Charles Bellfield, passed away a few years ago under tragic circumstances.

how did Bellfield die? I never heard the full story.

ApharmdX · Aug 11, 2015

Vanillalite said:
I love how it's "just Apple" as in being the driving GPU for all of Apple's mobile product line is a small thing.

Yeah, powering all Apple mobile devices is epic. PowerVR is still here, and they are still very relevant. Too bad they never got back into the desktop GPU sphere. I had a PowerVR Neon 250 and a Kyro. Very cool designs for their time.

MultiCore · Aug 11, 2015

Aiii said:
Yeah, being a part of the hardware components of every iPhone, iPod, iPad and Apple Watch sold seems like a pretty sweet deal.

Not just Apple, but a huge percentage of all mobile devices.
It's either that or Adreno for most of them.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PowerVR#Implementations

Jonnax · Aug 11, 2015

Well the most popular SoC is Qualcomm which is pretty much the majority of phones and they have their own GPU.

It also looks like ARM's reference GPU pretty decent these days seeing as Samsung use it in their Exynos line.

So that kinda leaves them in not a great position to sell their products. Also if I recall correctly Intel used them for one of their Atom netbook chipsets and there were plenty of issues with them pushing updated drivers and I think Linux support was trash as well.

this_guy · Aug 11, 2015

Powervr was great in the Sega Dreamcast.

DonasaurusRex · Aug 11, 2015

...apple and mediatek use their chips? I think they'll be alright for the time being. They only do the design they don't have to fab a thing correct? They aren't going to make much headline news being that part of the business. Just like everyone uses ARM and their arch but they dont have the name recognition of apple or samsung.

Nikodemos · Aug 11, 2015

Jonnax said:
It also looks like ARM's reference GPU pretty decent these days seeing as Samsung use it in their Exynos line

The T760 used in the S6/Edge is a pretty old chip, having been officially launched in October 2013. Samsung have adopted a brute-force approach in squeezing performance out of it, by overclocking it and pairing it with fast memory, however comparison tests with the iPhone 6 have shown that this approach is only partly successful. And, having personally used them side-by-side, I can say that it definitely doesn't feel more powerful than iPhone's GX6450.

ARM seems to have had a hiccup with its 800 series and skipped a year, meaning that there was a two-year gap between it and the 700 series.

DonasaurusRex said:
...apple and mediatek use their chips?

There's a single MediaTek SoC which uses a GX6000 series chip and it's only used in a tablet line. And it bears reminding that Apple doesn't pay their suppliers more than the market average; it's why they're so profitable in the first place, nearly all the money stays with Apple.

Somnid · Aug 11, 2015

Samsung uses ARM designs, Qualcomm uses their own designs, Nvidia uses their own designs. Most of the rest that used PowerVR were smaller companies couldn't keep up with the arms race.

So now it's Apple, MediaTek and Intel's mobile SoCs. I wonder if anyone will actually pick up their new ray-tracing chip.

DonasaurusRex · Aug 11, 2015

Nikodemos said:
The T760 used in the S6/Edge is a pretty old chip, having been officially launched in October 2013. Samsung have adopted a brute-force approach in squeezing performance out of it, by overclocking it and pairing it with fast memory, however comparison tests with the iPhone 6 have shown that this approach is only partly successful. And, having personally used them side-by-side, I can say that it definitely doesn't feel more powerful than iPhone's GX6450.

ARM seems to have had a hiccup with its 800 series and skipped a year, meaning that there was a two-year gap between it and the 700 series.

There's a single MediaTek SoC which uses a GX6000 series chip and it's only used in a tablet line. And it bears reminding that Apple doesn't pay their suppliers more than the market average; it's why they're so profitable in the first place, nearly all the money stays with Apple.

are the GX6000 series 28nm?

Nikodemos · Aug 11, 2015

DonasaurusRex said:
are the GX6000 series 28nm?

PowerVR have gone 28 nm since around 2012, I believe.

DonasaurusRex · Aug 11, 2015

Nikodemos said:
PowerVR have gone 28 nm since around 2012, I believe.

so maybe companies are waiting for newer process designs the whole industry been stuck on 28nm for a while.

Nikodemos · Aug 11, 2015

DonasaurusRex said:
so maybe companies are waiting for newer process designs the whole industry been stuck on 28nm for a while.

But that also applies to Mali and Adreno as well. Most of the existing designs are either on 28 nm or - a handful - on the 20 nm process, but that one has proven not to have any appreciable power savings or performance gains, and no real cost decrease either. Only Samsung currently use the 14 nm process.

AmyS · Aug 12, 2015

PowerVR GT7900 sounds like a beast.

http://blog.imgtec.com/powervr/powervr-gt7900-redefining-performance-efficiency

At a target frequency of 800 MHz for 16nm FinFET+, PowerVR GT7900 delivers 800 GFLOPS in FP32 mode and 1.6 TFLOPS in FP16 mode.

That's theoretically better than Nvidia Tegra X1 which gets 512 GFLOPS in FP32 and 1.0 TFLOP in FP16 Even though there are many other factors for GPU performance. But PowerVR should inherently have greater bandwidth efficiences (right?) since it's a tile based renderer.

Fuck, I wish PS VITA hadn't sold so badly in the west. A third generation Sony portable could've been amazing. VITA was only like 51 GFLOPS.

Xyphie · Aug 12, 2015

They'll likely be in big trouble in a few years unless someone acquires them. I imagine the vast majority of their revenue comes from iOS devices and everything indicates that Apple is building their own GPU for their chips.

Intel is likely to move to internal IP for Atom eventually and MediaTek seems to prefer Mali over PowerVR IP these days.

Nikodemos · Aug 12, 2015

Yeah, the GT7000 series sounds pretty awesome, even in quad-core config.

I don't like MediaTek's offerings, since they routinely underpower their GPUs. Nearly all their midrange SoCs use low-end dual-core Malis with single-channel memory.

Sir Abacus · Aug 12, 2015

You get Mali cheap from ARM and Adreno cheap with Qualcomm SOCs.

There's no reason to get a PowerVR chip unless you want better than "meh, good enough" performance. Intel is (was?) licensing PowerVR for Atom with both Series 5 and Series 6 solutions. They had a G6430 on the Z35xx Atom series last year but no upcoming products appear to be using it.

Imagination are trying to bring back MIPS to provide a single SoC solution but nothing big has erupted in the phone/tablet market yet. They do have the CI20 with a 1.2GHz MIPS chip and an SGX540.

Sir Abacus · Aug 12, 2015

DonasaurusRex said:
are the GX6000 series 28nm?

PowerVR is IP blocks which are integrated onto the main SoC die. Apple are using Series 6 on 20nm for the A8 series but its up to the licencee to determine the process and how they want to integrate it onto the SoC.

Nikodemos · Aug 12, 2015

Sir Abacus said:
You get Mali cheap from ARM and Adreno cheap with Qualcomm SOCs.

Except that I was led to believe Qualcomm weren't really cheap, but they used their enormous leverage along with threats of lawsuits for patent infringements (basically patent trolling) to force chipmakers adopt their designs.

At least that's how I understood the proceedings in Chinese courts which ended in... $975 million, was it? fines and the current proceedings with the Union's competition directorate (which are likely to result in more fines).

Sir Abacus · Aug 12, 2015

Nikodemos said:
Except that I was led to believe Qualcomm weren't really cheap, but they used their enormous leverage along with threats of lawsuits for patent infringements (basically patent trolling) to force chipmakers adopt their designs.

At least that's how I understood the proceedings in Chinese courts which ended in... $975 million, was it? fines and the current proceedings with the Union's competition directorate (which are likely to result in more fines).

I thought it mostly came down to cash for implementing 3G and 4G standards rather than Adreno adoption.

AmyS · Aug 12, 2015

Not that I expect Nintendo to have partnered with anyone other than AMD for NX, it is interesting to note that PowerVR was potentially a possible candidate for the hardware, according to Eurogamer.

In Theory: Nintendo's next-gen hardware

Published 10/01/2015

Around 18 months ago, during an informal chat with an extremely well-placed individual in the hardware manufacturing business, an interesting nugget of information dropped into the conversation - Nintendo was already accepting pitches from third parties on the hardware make-up of its successor for Wii U. Two names were mentioned: AMD and Imagination Technologies, creators of the PowerVR mobile graphics tech.

What Nintendo is looking for in its next-gen hardware is a cheap, efficient architecture with in-built scalability, able to run comfortably in both handheld and console forms. We've mentioned Nvidia's enviable scalability, but there are plenty of other potential partners to choose from, kicking off with the two names mentioned in passing to us so long ago - Imagination Technologies and AMD. In the former, we see a UK company with some of the most advanced mobile GPU parts on the market - its eight-core PowerVR contribution to the iPad Air providing last-gen console-beating power in a tablet form factor. Its latest 6-series 'Rogue' architecture is a proven force on mobile, and based on the firm's whitepapers, the GPU should scale up to provide enough power to produce a generational leap beyond the Wii U.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/d...-next-gen-hardware-and-the-strategy-behind-it

AMD most likely already has the design win for NX locked up, probably in the form of both a console and a handheld for starters. But nothing is ever a guarantee. We know Nintendo switched from Nvidia/Tegra to DMP / PICA200 with 3DS. I think AMD is a better choice for console, but aren't they unproven in the mobile space?

Would it even be conceivable for Nintendo to have a common architecture for home and handheld systems by using two different GPU providers, but say, the same CPU architecture?

I dunno where I'm going with this, maybe it's AMD's rocky situation at present that's making me think. I really think it's at least 95% certain AMD will power NX, in any and all forms the hardware takes.

Nikodemos · Aug 12, 2015

Sir Abacus said:
I thought it mostly came down to cash for implementing 3G and 4G standards rather than Adreno adoption.

Oh, yeah, I remember something about Qualcomm going around and buying up radio modem makers some years ago, basically cornering the market on high-speed cellular.

AmyS · Sep 10, 2015

Nice Q&A video with ImgTec rep on PowerVR's wide range of GPUs for mobile devices, capabilities, including flexibility working with a variety of CPUs and mobile OSs, and future PowerVR Wizard ray-tracing GPUs which is about 2-3 years away for products.

The guy asking questions is pretty enthusiastic, almost to be point of being annoying, but do still watch.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtU0ac1RvpY

Dreamcast gets mentioned towards the end.

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