Harlan Ellison, August 2014

Harlan Ellison sharing the stage with Grace Lee Whitney at #STLV "I'm old not senile!" #startrek pic.twitter.com/30ZhsKQh7G

— Star Trek (@StarTrek) August 1, 2014

iFive Mini 4: iambillbil Performance Evaluation

At the IMP3Net forum, iambillbil concludes his coverage of the iFive Mini 4 engineering sample with a performance evaluation [Google Translate]. A portion of the post is locked, but some of that information is here.

As expected, most of its operation is smooth.

Where it falls down is in some video formats and large games.

iFive Mini 4: First AnTuTu V5 Beta 1 Score

According to a new thread at 5Fans forum, iFive Mini 4 scores [Google Translate]:

AnTuTu 4.x = 38,644 points

AnTuTu 5.x beta 1 = 35,701 points

Instead of increasing, it decreases! I wonder if it’s now taking into account the speed of RAM and its throughput?

Same-day update: AnTuTu screens added after the break.

iFive Mini 4: Some Big Games Stutter

Over at the IMP3Net forum, user 2222 — who revealed Rockchip cheating at AnTuTu — has tested several large games on the iFive Mini 4 and the RAM throughput defeats them [Google Translate].

I’ve copied full-size images since the test data would be too small to see reduced; click to enlarge. There are more images at the original post.

Real Racing 3 loads quickly, very smooth after entering the game. 3288 belongs to accelerate quickly CPU, after entering the game frequency stable at around 1.2G, heat stable at 40 degrees

That’s 40 degrees Celsius. Or a whopping 104 degrees Fahrenheit!

Rockchip Accused Of AnTuTu Cheating

Well, here we go.

Over at the IMP3Net forum, it’s been revealed that the typical speed of the Rockchip 3288 is 1.2GHz, not 1.8GHz [Google Translate]:

According to his [user 2222’s] actual [AnTuTu score], 3288 actual frequency 1.2G, even the big game occasionally 1.5G, overclocked to 1.8G entire security Bunny

In other words: A user with the handle 2222’s AnTuTu score — which was just 30,000-range — revealed that the 3288 achieves its full 1.8Ghz speed only when AnTuTu is running. It generally throttles down to 1.2GHz and will occasionally boost to 1.5GHz as needed for games.

So where do we really go with AnTuTu scores or any CPU benchmarks? Even the K1 in the Xiaomi MiPad will throttle back when it senses the temperature is getting high.

Do we measure by peak frequency or by typical frequency? And is peak frequency the actual peak — or just one momentarily used to fool AnTuTu?

How is it then possible to compare the iFive Mini 4 to the Xiaomi MiPad — two machines that, until now, were thought to have very similar overall AnTuTu scores?

iFive Mini 4: iambillbil Hardware Evaluation

Over at the IMP3Net forum, iambillbil has posted his hardware evaluation of the iFive Mini 4 engineering sample [Google Translate]. A portion of the post is locked, but some of that information is here.

There are several surprises in it!