In addition to showing Bay Trail running on a Windows 8.x platform, Intel showed us a “pre-beta” version of the platform running Android 4.2.2. I have to emphasize that the build they showed us definitely seemed pre-beta, as there was some instability, but overall the build was good enough to run some tests on and get a feel for. Intel made it clear that they do have a lot more work to do on their Android build before it’s considered close to final quality than the Windows equivalent.

Gallery: Gallery Title

Inside Android we can still see the CPU state table data and how long the cores are sitting in each performance state still, despite this now being managed in-silicon on Bay Trail. In addition Android sees the 2.39 GHz Z3770 boost frequency and reports it. I didn’t see any strange behavior on the device while running tests and watching CPU frequency, if anything the reference design platform stayed at the maximum boost frequency even with four cores plugged in for an impressive amount of time. Of course this is a tablet so there’s more TDP to play around with compared to a phone.

Depending on where you were in the Android UI, there was some definite stutter, but I’m told this is a result of an issue with Dalvik not allocating threads to cores properly that Intel is still tuning, something which you can see plays itself out as well in the AndEBench Java test that runs in Dalvik. The launcher especially had some stutter, but Intel claimed they were aware of it and that final performance in areas like that would be dramatically improved. Regardless of the state of Bay Trail’s Android port, it affords us the opportunity to look at performance through our pretty standard benchmark suite.

On the CPU side for Android we’re still limited to just a few tests that rely on a combination of native code and stuff that runs inside the browser. That means AndEBench, JavaScript benchmarks, and part of Vellamo.

SunSpider 0.9.1 Benchmark

SunSpider 1.0 Benchmark

Sunspider has been a regular staple but in recent time has become an exercise in browser JavaScript engine optimization rather than actual performance. Nevertheless the FFRD takes the crown in both 1.0 and 0.9.1 (we have more tablet data from the 0.9.1 version so I replicated it here).

Mozilla Kraken Benchmark (Stock Browser)

Kraken is another JavaScript benchmark which hasn’t quite been an optimization target everyone has gone after lately, and it’s also longer, which makes it a bit more reliable. Once again Bay Trail takes the crown here with notably faster JS engine performance.

Google Octane v1

Google Octane is another JS test that isn’t quite as platform optimized yet, here there’s once again dominance by Bay Trail with just over a 50 percent higher score.

Browsermark 2.0

Browsermark has a combination of both JS tests and other web related performance metrics. Here the Bay Trail platform lags behind the 8974 based devices slightly. This isn’t a raw JavaScript benchmark again but rather a more holistic web browsing performance test, so it’s interesting to see Bay Trail a bit behind here.

AndEBench - Java AndEBench - Native

AndEBench is a combination native compiled microkernel benchmark (indicative of NDK application performance) that also runs a very similar workload atop Dalvik like a normal Android Java application. Here we can see what Intel was talking about when they said they have more work to do getting Dalvik working properly at dispatching threads to appropriate cores, hopefully the Java number will climb considerably. The native test also shows a lead over the competition.

GPU Performance

While Bay Trail clearly leads on the CPU side, its GPU performance is more middle of the road - at least among the higher end SoCs. In 3DMark Bay Trail's GPU performance is aided by the more CPU bound nature of the benchmark, but here Intel is able to beat the Snapdragon 600. Snapdragon 800 on the other hand pulls ahead by around 35%.

3DMark - Ice Storm

3DMark - Graphics Score

The 3DMark Physics test is effectively a CPU test, which once again plays to Bay Trail's strengths. Here it's faster than Snapdragon 800 and Cortex A15. Only Ivy Bridge is quicker in a tablet.

3DMark - Physics Score

3DMark - Graphics Test 1

3DMark - Graphics Test 2

3DMark - Ice Storm (Extreme)

3DMark - Physics Score (Extreme)

3DMark - Graphics Score (Extreme)

3DMark - Graphics Test 1 (Extreme)

3DMark - Graphics Test 2 (Extreme)

Basemark X

Basemark X is a bit more GPU bound than 3DMark, and we also have iOS data here so we can put Bay Trail's performance in better perspective. Here Bay Trail is a bit slower than the iPad 4, and clearly Tegra 4 and Snapdragon 800. Intel's GPU in Android is measurably quicker than Adreno 320/S600 though.

Bay Trail's onscreen performance is penalized by the FFRD's extremely high native resolution.

Basemark X (Offscreen 1080p)

Basemark X (Onscreen)

GLBenchmark 2.7

The more interested GLBenchmark numbers, T-Rex HD, show Bay Trail just behind the iPad 4 in performance. It's definitely not bad at all but clearly not industry leading.

GLBenchmark 2.7 - Fill Test (Onscreen)

GLBenchmark 2.7 - Fill Test (Offscreen)

GLBenchmark 2.7 - Triangle Throughput (Onscreen)

GLBenchmark 2.7 - Triangle Throughput (Offscreen)

GLBenchmark 2.7 - Triangle Throughput, Fragment Lit (Onscreen)

GLBenchmark 2.7 - Triangle Throughput, Fragment Lit (Offscreen)

GLBenchmark 2.7 - Triangle Throughput, Vertex Lit (Onscreen)

GLBenchmark 2.7 - Triangle Throughput, Vertex Lit (Offscreen)

GLBenchmark 2.7 - T-Rex HD (Onscreen)

GLBenchmark 2.7 - T-Rex HD (Offscreen)

GLBenchmark 2.5 - Egypt HD (Onscreen)

GLBenchmark 2.5 - Egypt HD (Offscreen)

Windows 8 Performance Final Words
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  • hp79 - Wednesday, September 11, 2013 - link

    I had a terrible experience with those unstable Atom z2760 equipped Samsung XE500T. Although there are good sides, it's a nightmare dealing with all those driver bugs and battery drain. I even tried clean installing my own Windows on it. Eventually, I had to go back to using a older driver for couple things, and turn off the sound, and now it shows less battery drain than before. I don't even know if connected standby is working properly or not, it never really updates anything. It really sucks with intel's buggy drivers. I would wait and watch couple months to see how these work out, but wouldn't expect intel to get any better at their driver support.
  • lmcd - Wednesday, September 11, 2013 - link

    Intel get better? They were supporting PowerVR graphics (or their old GMAs) so come back when you've got a legitimate complaint.
  • damianrobertjones - Wednesday, September 11, 2013 - link

    I'm sorry but I do not believe you. I've owned two 500t tabs and now have a Dell Latitude 10. 'Initially' there were issues but not anymore.
  • Khato - Wednesday, September 11, 2013 - link

    Were any power consumption numbers observed while running 3D workloads? I'd imagine that it would be lower than the multi-threaded CPU benchmarks, but it'd be a nice data point to have rather than guessing.
  • ddriver - Wednesday, September 11, 2013 - link

    Nice launch date. Couldn't have picked a better one.
  • Homeles - Wednesday, September 11, 2013 - link

    9/11 happened over a decade ago.
  • Myrandex - Thursday, September 12, 2013 - link

    It occurs yearly...
  • Krysto - Wednesday, September 11, 2013 - link

    "Tablet SoC" = not efficient enough to be put in smartphones. My rule says if it's not a "smartphone chip", then it's not a "mobile chip". Wake me up when Intel actually launches a smartphone chip that's used in tablets, too.

    This will get away with it, because tablets have larger batteries, so they think we won't notice it's less efficient.
  • jeffkibuule - Wednesday, September 11, 2013 - link

    That rule makes no sense considering tablets and smartphones are NOT the same thing.
  • Flunk - Thursday, September 12, 2013 - link

    They pretty much are, if you look at current popular tablets. The only real difference is the screen size and if it supports mobile networks (some tablets even do that).

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