Compare SoC CPUs used in Ainol ELF Aurora II (AmLogic 8726-MX), woPad i7 i8 (Rock-chip RK 2918), and woPad A10 (AllWinner A10)

The Latest Three Major Chinese tablet Soc Solutions: Amlogic AML8726-MX, Rockchip RK2918, and AllWinner A10

Amlogic AML8726-MX, Rockchip RK2918 and Allwinner A10 are the latest three major System-on-Chip (Soc) CPUs widely adopted by Chinese tablet manufacturers in 2012. AmLogic AML 8726-MX is the latest one, which replaced its previous generation AML 8726.

Ainol’s new generation of NOVO 7 ELF (aka ELF II) and NOVO 7 Aurora (aka Aurora II) will be powered by Amlogic AML 8726-MX, woPad i7 and woPad i8 use Rock-Chip’s RK 2918, while woPad A10 and the old generation of Ainol’s NOVO 7 ELF and Aurora run on AillWinner A10.

Compare Amlogic AML8726-MX, Rockchip RK2918, and AllWinner A10

Amlogic AML8726 – Built in 65nm process, ARM A9 architecture, 800mHz main frequency, 128k L2 cache, Mali 400 GPU of 250MHz, supports 1080P decoding.

AmLogic AML8726-MX was just released this month, April 2012,  to replace AmLogic AML 8726. AmLogic AML8726-MX is made with 40nm process, due-core ARM A9 architecture, 1.5GHz main frequency total, 256k L2 cache, Mali 400 GPU of 300MHz total, supports 1080P decoding.

RK2918 – Built-in 55nm process, ARM A8 architecture, 1.2GHz (currently 1GHz tested) main frequency, 512k L2 cache, GC800 GPU up t0 600MHz, supports 1080P decoding.

Allwinner A10 – Built-in 55nm process, ARM A8 architecture, 1.5GHz (currently 1.2GHz tested) main frequency, 512k L2 cache, Mali 400 GPU of 300MHz, supports full formats 2160P decoding.

It can be simply figured out from above specs that AmLogic AML 8726-MX is clearly the winner. It is the only due-core CPU, based on more advanced architecture ARM A10, and made by more advanced process 40nm (It is made by Chinese foundry SMIC. SMIC recently started their 40nm production. Their yield is probably lower than TSMC, which is already in 28nm production).

AmLogic AML8726-Mx doubled  AML8726-M (Cortex-A9) ARM core.  Amlogic announced 7500 DMIPS, from which fact we have deducted 1,5GHz operational frequency:

7500 DMIPS / 2 cores / 2,5 DMIPS per MHz  = 1,5Ghz 

As for GPU,  there are two Mali-400 GPU cores inside, operating at 300-400 MHz, giving this chip power close to 88M triangles/s and fill rate  3.2G pixels/s.

Just compare those figures with iPad GPU performance:

• iPad : PowerVR SGX535 … 28 MT/s
• iPad2 PowerVR SGX543MP2 … 70 MT/s
• new iPad :  PowerVR SGX543MP4 … 140 MT/s
• a tablet with AML8726-MX: dual Mali-400MP … 88 MT/s

The new iPad has 4-times more pixels to work with, which is huge amount of work for GPU (and cause of new iPad overheating issues) . For displays used  in 7″ tablets (mostly 1024×600 and sometimes even 1280×800), 3.2Gpixels/s is more than enough to bring very good graphical and game performance, probably better than iPad 2 and the new iPad .

Both RK 2918 and AllWinner A10 have larger cache. RK2918 runs games smoother since it has higher GPU frequency, while A10 has faster CPU than RK2918, therefore, it’s better at browsing the web and running daily software. In addition, Allwinner A10 supports 2160P decoding, although you rarely need to play a 2160P video, A10 is more powerful in video decoding than RK2918 and AmLogic 8726-MX. For example, RK2918 tablets can’t play TS or M2TS format HD videos which music fans or professional advertising producers usually need to play, but Allwinner A10 tablets can do it pretty well. Regarding the GPU, Mali 400 has lower frequency than GC800, but Mali 400 is more compatible with gaming apps, so it’s easier to find compatible packets on Mali 400 (Samsung Galaxy SII adopts Mali 400, too). In some cases, it can be very disappointing if it can’t play the game you want at all.

In Conclusion:

Web browsing & Software usage: AML>A10>RK29

Video decoding: A10>AML>RK29

Gaming performance: RK29=AML>A10

Gaming compatibility: AML=A10>RK29

In addition, the heat and power consumption of A10 is better than RK2918. Since the tablet running AmLogic8726-MX are not released yet, we cannot test its heat and power consumption. However, since it is due-core and made by 40nm process, it should have less heat and power consumption than AllWinner A10 and RK 2918.

uPlay Tablet carries tablets with all these three mainstream Soc CPUs:

Amlogic AML 8726-MX: Ainol’s new generation of NOVO 7 ELF (aka ELF II) and NOVO 7 Aurora (aka Aurora II)

AllWinner A10: woPad A10

Rock-Chip RK 2918: woPad i7 and woPad i8