Despite Arm claiming Cortex-A55 core would bring some performance improvements, we’ve recently seen actual Amlogic S905X3 benchmarks show the performance compared to Amlogic S905X2 Arm Cortex-A53 is almost identical (3% improvement for S905X3 CPU, 9% for the GPU).
So Amlogic S905X3 TV box processor must differentiate itself from its predecessor by its additional features, and while we published the detailed specifications of Amlogic S905X3 processor a few months ago, we did not provide a side-by-side comparison table just yet. So here’s one courtesy of SDMC (with some corrections).
| SoC | Amlogic S905X2 | Amlogic S905X3 |
| CPU | 4x Arm Cortex-A53 @ 1.80 GHz | 4x Arm Cortex-A55 @ 1.91 GHz |
| Neural Network Accelerator | N/A |
Optional 1.2 TOPS NNA |
| GPU | Mali-G31 MP2 with OpenGL ES 3.2, Vulkan 1.0, and OpenCL 2.0 | |
| Always-on MCU | Cortex-M3 & Cortex-M4 | (Optional ) Cortex-M3 & Cortex-M4 |
| DDR | DDR3-2133 /DDR3L-2133 / DDR4-2666 /LPDDR3-2133 /LPDDR4-3200 SDRAM up to 4G |
DDR3-2133 /DDR3L-2133 / DDR4-3200 /LPDDR3-2133 / LPDDR4-3200 SDRAM up to 4G |
| Video Decoding |
H.265, VP9, AVS2 up to 4Kp75 10bit H.264 4Kp30 | |
| HDMI Tx | HDMI 2.1 HDCP2.2 | |
| HDR | HLG/HDR10/ 10+ Dolby visonTCH PRIME | |
| Process | 12nm | |
| Mic Input | 8 x PDM | |
| USB3.0/PCIE | USB3.0/PCI-E V2 (multiplexed) | |
| Package | 14 x 14mm BGA | |
| Embedded Temperature Sensor | Yes | |
The Neural Processing Unit (NPU) / Neural Network Accelerator (NNA) is probably the most important change, as it should allow for better support for voice commands, language processing, or other workloads that would benefit from AI acceleration.
The higher maximum frequency for DDR4 memory (3,200 MHz vs 2,666 MHz) may explain the slightly better 3D graphics performance since I’ve noticed such benchmarks are sensitive to memory bandwidth, e.g. systems with dual-channel memory will have better graphics performance than the ones with single-channel memory. It may also help with some 4K HDR content (TBC).
But all-in-all Amlogic S905X2 and S905X3 are not that different.
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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