Early Tegra K1 comparisons did not establish a blanket CPU-and-GPU win over Snapdragon 800 and Apple A7. NVIDIA’s January 2014 claim was narrower: it said K1 was 1.5 times more power efficient in one GPU test, GFXBench 3.0 GL Gold Manhattan. That is a vendor-reported efficiency result—not proof of across-the-board higher performance.
What the early Tegra K1 comparisons measured
“Better performance” can mean several different things: CPU speed, GPU rendering speed, or performance per watt. Those measures are not interchangeable. NVIDIA’s launch announcement on January 5, 2014, compared GPU power efficiency in a named graphics workload; it did not claim that Tegra K1 beat both rivals in every CPU and GPU benchmark. NVIDIA’s announcement is the source for that launch-era claim.
Two Tegra K1 versions used different CPUs
Tegra K1 was a chip family with two CPU configurations, rather than one identical processor design tested everywhere. NVIDIA said both versions paired their CPU with the same 192-core Kepler GPU.
| Variant | CPU design | GPU |
|---|---|---|
| Initial K1 | Quad-core 32-bit ARM Cortex-A15 | 192-core Kepler |
| Later K1 | Dual-core 64-bit custom NVIDIA Denver | 192-core Kepler |
The distinction matters when interpreting CPU results: a benchmark on the Cortex-A15 version is not a direct test of Denver’s CPU performance. AnandTech’s January 6, 2014 architecture preview discussed both variants, but its chart values are not available here for reliable quotation. AnandTech’s architecture preview
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NVIDIA’s specific GPU efficiency claim
NVIDIA said Tegra K1 was 1.5 times more power efficient than Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 and Apple A7 in GFXBench 3.0 GL Gold, Manhattan. This was NVIDIA’s own 2014 comparison, not an independently verified universal result. It describes power efficiency in that particular GPU benchmark—not peak graphics speed in every workload, overall device performance, or CPU performance.
Efficiency also answers a different question from raw frame rate or rendering throughput: it relates performance to power consumed. Without accessible, comparable measurements and test conditions for each device, the figure should not be used to calculate a general performance lead.
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What later device testing adds—and what it cannot prove
A July 2014 AnandTech review of the SHIELD Tablet provides subsequent, device-level context. Its available summary describes Tegra K1 as generally ahead of Snapdragon 800 in CPU performance and reports strong GPU performance. Those outcomes depend on the workload, device, software, and test setup, so they do not verify every broad launch-era comparison. The review’s full charts and conditions are not established here. AnandTech’s SHIELD Tablet review
A tablet review also evaluates a complete device, not just an isolated chip. Results from different products can reflect more than the processor, and scores from unrelated benchmark suites should not be combined into a single ranking.
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How to read a Tegra K1 benchmark comparison
- Identify the metric. CPU scores, GPU rendering results, and performance per watt answer different questions.
- Name the workload. NVIDIA’s 1.5-times figure applies to GFXBench 3.0 GL Gold Manhattan.
- Check the K1 variant and device. Cortex-A15 and Denver are different CPU designs, and a device-level test includes its own test setup.
- Compare like with like. Benchmark version, software, conditions, and whether a graphics test is on-screen or off-screen can affect whether scores are meaningfully comparable.
The defensible conclusion is limited but useful: NVIDIA made a specific GPU-efficiency claim against Snapdragon 800 and Apple A7 in one 2014 Manhattan test; later SHIELD Tablet coverage offered broader performance context. The available evidence does not support claiming that early benchmarks proved Tegra K1 universally faster in both CPU and GPU performance.
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