2017-03-01, 12:07
Notice: cpu differences between S905 and S905X
in the datasheets and comparisons from amlogic and third-party websites, the SoCs 905 and 905X look very similar: They both have a "Quad core Cortex A53 @ 2.0 GHz" (or 1.5 GHz, if the sheet was fixed after the shady frequency scaling of the amlogic kernel came to light) and a "Penta-core ARM Mali-450MP" GPU. The main difference that is noted are the different video codecs that are supported by the hardware: S905X adds VP9 and HEVC Main10 with HDR decoding and the neccessary HDMI 2.0b link.
Last week I received a S905X box and did some comparisons to my S905 boxes. While both worked fine with libreelec, and hardware decoded video was the same; software decoded video showed significant differences: S905 would play 720p h.264 10-bit ("hi10p") encoded videos just fine, while S905X would not be watchable at all: video was jerky, with many dropped frames and severe a/v sync issues.
The reason appears to be a difference in the cpu cores: During playback, the S905 was at less than 80% load per core, while the S905X was at 100% load. Further searches found that benchmarks under android also show a difference between S905 and S905X. See http://www.cnx-software.com/2016/07/31/a...omparison/
Conclusion: If you are interested in cpu-bound applications on your device, like software decoded video, emulation and games, pick the S905 over the S905X.
in the datasheets and comparisons from amlogic and third-party websites, the SoCs 905 and 905X look very similar: They both have a "Quad core Cortex A53 @ 2.0 GHz" (or 1.5 GHz, if the sheet was fixed after the shady frequency scaling of the amlogic kernel came to light) and a "Penta-core ARM Mali-450MP" GPU. The main difference that is noted are the different video codecs that are supported by the hardware: S905X adds VP9 and HEVC Main10 with HDR decoding and the neccessary HDMI 2.0b link.
Last week I received a S905X box and did some comparisons to my S905 boxes. While both worked fine with libreelec, and hardware decoded video was the same; software decoded video showed significant differences: S905 would play 720p h.264 10-bit ("hi10p") encoded videos just fine, while S905X would not be watchable at all: video was jerky, with many dropped frames and severe a/v sync issues.
The reason appears to be a difference in the cpu cores: During playback, the S905 was at less than 80% load per core, while the S905X was at 100% load. Further searches found that benchmarks under android also show a difference between S905 and S905X. See http://www.cnx-software.com/2016/07/31/a...omparison/
Conclusion: If you are interested in cpu-bound applications on your device, like software decoded video, emulation and games, pick the S905 over the S905X.
