Friday, August 23, 2013

Mobile Processors : Quad Core VS Dual Core



There was a time when everyone was fascinating about Mega Pixel of their phone camera, and after that era, Screen size of mobile phone came into the picture. The bigger size phones always fascinate people. But now the benchmark has changed, the number of cores attracts people, and it is the new benchmark for comparing mobile phone.

People are talking about single core,dual core,quad core processors. Now even some small companies even launching phones at budget prices having quad core processors. So in this article we are going to learn what is the exact meaning of multi-core architecture of any smart phone.

First of all the basic difference is just simple, a dual core processors can carry out the instruction sets by improved performance. Quad core processors also does the same work, and they are basically four cores which are integrated on a single silicon chip which gives us high performance.
In simple words,quad core processors can carry out same work done by dual core processor at a twice speed!
dual core vs quad core processors


If you compare the processor with your brain then dual core processor have two brain and quad core have four brain. So, the time required to complete the task by quad core is almost fourth  of the single core. But its not as simple,actual performance depends on memory cache,bandwidth, core clocks,.etc. Thus variation will always be there.

Memory

Typically only a more powerful processor is not always important. Because processor takes help from ROM(read only memory) and RAM(random access memory).

For ROM,the operating system of any smartphone is stored on the ROM. These memory area can not be accessed by the user. If you want to access that area then you must root your smartphone. Mostly in Android phones these situation occurs when you have less internal space for installing big applications and games. The less amount of memory, your phone will become slow. 

Same situation comes in RAM 's case. Where, all the running applications are stores on RAM and that's why processor takes help from RAM. If you have a quad core phone then it maybe having 1-2 GB RAM or other dual core phone having 512 MB to 1 GB of RAM.

So,in conclusion, the amount of RAM is always as important as a processor and it makes big difference in performance. 

Snapdragon processor by Qualcomm dual core vs quad core processors
Snapdragon processor by Qualcomm

Result of performance

It depends on Architecture of the processor and clock speed. Most of mobile processor are based on ARM architecture. Upon these architecture several companies are licenced to make the type of processors. Few examples of these companies are Qualcomm , Nvidia, Samsung Exynos. They are having licence to produce it, and they make processors based on that. In latest technologies , they are said to be having A5,A6,A8,A15 architecture processors. So if the processor having quad cores but have older architecture then it will be not optimum in comparison with other processors. 

So always go for ARM  architecture of the processor and know about its clock speed.

Power consumption

We have heard that if you have more cored phone then you might be having less battery power to use. But it is not always true because latest Quad core processors come with advanced architecture which consumes less power and even in some conditions they beats the dual core processors. In normal conditions the mobile phone switch off the non used cores and they will be activated when they will actually needed. 

So, battery power depends on the amount of mAh of battery,not totally on processor.

nvidia tegra processor dual core vs quad core
nvidia tegra processor 

Final verdict

At the end of the day, all depends on the price of the phone and in that matter, quad core processors have complex architecture so they are costlier then dual cores. 

If you are going to buy a phone , try to figure out other features like clock speed, RAM, ARM architecture.  

"You can buy a smartphone having Quad core processor at the price of 15000 INR. And even a dual core phone at 18000 INR. So there would be some concrete difference between them"



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