After seeing benchmarks comparisons between Amlogic S905 and S805, as well as Amlogic S905 vs Rockchip RK3368, several people asked me to compare the older Amlogic S812 32-bit processor to the newer Amlogic S905 64-bit processor, so I’ve gone ahead and compared the results for several benchmarks obtained with WeTek Core and K1 Plus Android 5.1 TV boxes, respectively powered by Amlogic S812 and Amlogic S905.
A ratio greater than one means Amlogic S812 is the fastest, and I’ve highlighted the ratio with red or green colors so that red color is a plus for S905, and green color means S812 achieved a better result.
| Amlogic S905 | Amlogic S812 | Ratio | |
| CPU | Quad core Cortex A53 @ 2.02 GHz | Quad core Cortex A9 @ 1.99 GHz | |
| GPU | Penta-core ARM Mali-450MP | Octa-core ARM Mali-450MP | |
| Antutu 5.x | |||
| Overall | 28,027 | 33,953 | 1.21 |
| Multitask | 4,260 | 4,701 | 1.10 |
| Runtime | 2,721 | 3,383 | 1.24 |
| RAM Ops | 1,960 | 2,228 | 1.14 |
| RAM Speed | 2,420 | 2,181 | 0.90 |
| CPU Integer (multi-thread) | 2,310 | 2,393 | 1.04 |
| CPU float-point (multi-thread) | 2,483 | 2,687 | 1.08 |
| CPU Integer (single thread) | 1,587 | 1,735 | 1.09 |
| CPU float-point (single thread) | 1,510 | 1,483 | 0.98 |
| 2D Graphics(1920×1080) | 1,374 | 825 | 0.60 |
| 3D Graphics (1920×1080) | 6,126 | 10,942 | 1.79 |
| Vellamo 3.x | |||
| Metal | 763 | 735 | 0.96 |
| Multicore | 1,572 | 1,620 | 1.03 |
| Browser | 2,002 | 2,052 | 1.02 |
| 3DMark – Ice Storm Extreme v1.2 | |||
| Total score | 4,304 | 5,763 | 1.34 |
| Graphics score | 3,684 | 5,265 | 1.43 |
| Physics score | 10,468 | 8,616 | 0.82 |
The benchmarks basically match the theory that says Cortex A9 is slightly faster than Cortex A53 for integer performance, at a given CPU frequency, but overall the results are unlikely to be noticeable to the end user, except when it comes to 3D graphics where the octa-core GPU is faster then the penta-core core one, by 34% based on 3DMark, and 79% based on Antutu’s 3D graphics benchmark. For some reasons, 2D graphics appears to be significantly faster on Amlogic S905.
The main advantage of Amlogic S905 over S812 is support for HDMI 2.0 ports allowing 2160p @ 60 Hz video output, and 4K H.265 hardware video decoding up to 60 fps, while both are limited to 30 Hz on S812. Also bear in mind than most Amlogic S812 / S802 devices currently on the market are running Android 4.4, and will not perform quite as fast as Android 5.1 devices such as WeTek Core.
Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.
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And the A9 is slower than the Cortex A8. Which direction are we headed again, ARM?
@rektide
I think A9 should be faster than A8.
A higher number in the 32-bit (ARMv7) family means better performance per MHz
A higher number in the 64-bit (ARMv8) family also means better performance per MHz
But once you mix ARMv7 and ARMv8, then A53 will be slower than A9, A15 or A17, and A35 even slower.
Just did some testing myself (Antutu 5, latest version) on S905 but 64bit Android and kernel 3.14.58. Here are results of board with 2gb RAM (samsung), 16gb emmc:
Overall 29849
Multitask 5207
Runtime 2649
RAM Ops 1478
RAM Speed 1853
CPU Integer (multi-thread) 3680
CPU float-point (multi-thread) 2980
CPU Integer (single thread) 1546
CPU float-point (single thread) 1224
2D Graphics(1920×1080) 1444
3D Graphics (1920×1080) 6369
Vellamo results:
Browser – 2086
Metal – 929
Multicore – 1589
3DMark wont run for some reason
@Stane1983
So that means you’ve run Antutu 5.x 64-bit right?
Overall results are quite similar, except for CPU Integer (multi-thread) 3,680 vs 2,310, and to a lesser extend CPU float-point (multi-thread) 2980 vs 2,483, while single thread results are basically the same. Could it be because of some CPU throttling?
Vellamo metal score has improved too.
@cnxsoft
Yes, Antutu installed 64bit part on start. About CPU throttling, could be. I did not optimize nor my SDK or kernel yet. Only that kernel is merged with upstream 3.14.58 and system is 64bit. Everything else (cpu governor, scaling…) is still unchanged.
I won the M8S from cnx and I’m really surprised by the s812. I installed openelec on it from amlinux.ru (still wonder who does these ports) as I wasn’t impressed by the original android firmware. With openelec, this thing is really flying, much better then the ‘optimized’ openelec version for the odroid C1+. With the odroid C1+ I almost didn’t notice any speed improvements comparing the openelec for the rpi B+, in that manner I even switched back to the rpi as I had a lot of stuttering on the C1+ (I thought maybe it’s due to the sd-card altough I use a sandisk extreme pro). Not with the M8S, it plays everything I throw at it. Only a shame it doesn’t have a power button and there are the power issues cnx already reported about, altough when you power it through a usb-port it boots and runs fine as long you don’t plug in a usb device. When rebooting whit the usb device it works fine, so it is really the plugging and unplugging that delivers the power failure.
Manufacturer life-cycle span of these are interesting. That is, will Amlogic release firmware updates for the S812 as long as they will for S905?
Will they abandon the S812 before S905 even though the later is a low-end product. Will there be official SDK released from Amlogic for Android 6.0? and later Android 7.0?
I think and hope that more people are starting to realize that long-time support from the original SoC manufacturer is very important.
You can not always reply on the ommunity to make an release unofficial ports like CyanogenMod for products that the SoC manufacturer no longer maintain support for.
@Roel
That’s strange…. C1/C1+ are S805 boards and based on my experience it runs Linux very well (I’m not using OE but Buildroot based solution on my products).
Must be because of sdcard. Another trivial compare is that S805 with 1gb RAM and eMMC runs Lollipop 5.1.1 smoother than S802 with 2gb and NAND storage.
@Stane1983
If the emmc modules from hardkernel where not so expensive I would buy one and try the difference, although it shouldn’t be such a big difference as the sandisk µSD has 90Mb/s claimed read speed, what is almost the same as the emmc from hardkernel.
@Roel
I/Os per second is also important when you run an operating system on the card. I think it’s quite lower on SD cards compared to eMMC flash.
@cnxsoft
i think rektide juz being sarcastic and trying to make a point. lolz
@rektide
technically speaking Amlogic S812 is a cortex A9r4. so, many improvement have been made over its original release. i have heard that some newer cortex A7 perform better than old cortex-a9r0, there is also a case, where improvement on Cortex-A12 made it similar to A17 performance. so, improvement in cortex-A53 is to be expected in latter revisions. which should over take, cortex-A9
@Harley
Amlogic release new buildroots every few months. But attention look closer: Only the S905 use new kernels. The S8xx config still download and build old kernel, old GPU, old Wifi.
Untested if new kernel still build for S8xx. Maybe does not work with old Android?
Amlogic does not release complete Android SDK. You need to collect little pieces everywhere. Sad. They don’t realize still.
A53 cant be directly comparable with A9. A53 is direct evolution of A7 as they share same pipeline length, same alu unit, same cache size, and even same die size.
Its a quite big win for arm to push A53 performance, to the older A9 cpus and keep the same power consumption as A7 ones. Old A9 are more power hungry than A53.
You can compare it to A57 which is a successor of A17 which is a successor or A9’s 🙂
But A53 are still better option as they are cheaper then A57 and offer decent performance
Which would be better to run kodi for streaming videos?
Kofi on Android runs fine on a m8 mbox 2gb S802
@jason the build that that uses less resources
Why could not the player fashion 4k in Yhasat 52e sat in Amlogic S812
@reza
AFAIK, 4K DVB stream frame rate is 60 fps, and this is not supported in S812. So you need S905 for this.
Is in Pictures sd in sat The two together are different.Quality sd in Channel sat
@reza
I have not noticed video quality differences for SD resolution between S812 and S905.
Thank your answer. is 4.4.2 format supports
PARA KODI y rapidez en internet y si el sistema androi es 4.4 para el s812 y 7.1 para s905 …cual de los dos se quedarían ustedes?
@Roel
friend of which you both recommend me for kodi? the s812 or the s905 if they bring different android version?