It’s that time of year when the industrial behemoth Arm unveils its new line of CPUs and GPUs that will power next year’s smartphones. Last year, Arm unveiled CPUs based on the Armv9 architecture and the rebranded Mali GPU lineup. So what does the company have in store this time? And what does this mean for the smartphones of 2023? There’s plenty to look at, so join us as we split things up.
Arm’s second-generation Armv9 CPUs
Arm has announced a new generation of Armv9 CPUs, namely the Cortex-X3 and the Cortex-A715. The company also announced a “renewed” Cortex-A510, but more on that later. Starting with the most capable CPU core, the Cortex-X3 picks up where the Cortex-X2 left off. It’s a performance core, with Arm claiming a 22% performance improvement over the latest flagship Android phones with the Cortex-X2. Arm says he expects a 34% performance improvement over the latest “mainstream” laptop, albeit with an Intel Core i7 1260p (at 28 watts) rather than a Cortex-X1 or X2. However, the chip designer also notes an 11% IPC boost compared to a Cortex-X2 that uses the same process.
Interestingly, Arm made no specific claims for efficiency gains. However, it shared a chart showing that in most cases, the Cortex-X3 uses less power than the Cortex-X2, although a maxed-out Cortex-X3 still uses more energy (albeit with understandably higher performance as well). Check out the chart below. The second new CPU core announced was the Cortex-A715, picking up where the Cortex-A710 left off. This will act as the medium core in CPU configurations with three power domains, where a healthy balance of power and efficiency is required. Importantly, the Cortex-A715 is now 64-bit only, while the previous A710 model retained 32-bit support.
Arm says the Cortex-A715 enjoys a 5% performance improvement over the Cortex-A710 at the same power level and manufacturing process. This is a much more modest gain than the touted 10% boost of the Cortex-A710 over the Cortex-A78 on the same manufacturing process. Fortunately, the chip designer also claims a more impressive 20% efficiency gain, translating into a big win for battery life. Despite the seemingly modest performance boost at first glance, Arm claims the Cortex-A715 can reach the same level of performance as the Cortex-X1 – introduced as the heavyweight core in 2020 and currently powering the Google Tensor SoC. Finally, Arm also announced a “redesigned” Cortex-A510 small CPU core. This is identical to last year’s Cortex-A510, except for a 5% efficiency gain on the same process and optional 32-bit support. However, this is a change from the previous generation, when the small core was only 64-bit.
Immortalis: Arm’s first GPU with ray tracing
Arm also had a few GPU-related announcements, starting with a new flagship GPU called the Immortalis-G715. The addition of the Immortalis name may be warranted, however, as it is Arm’s first graphics core to offer hardware-enabled ray-tracing capabilities. For the uninitiated, ray tracing is a graphics rendering technique used to simulate better how light illuminates a scene. The PS5 and Xbox series consoles and gaming PCs use hardware-enabled ray tracing to deliver better-looking shadows, reflections, and lighting in video games.
Arm says the ray-tracing block on the Immortalis GPU only requires about 4% of the shader core area but delivers a claimed 300% improvement over much slower software-based ray tracing. Otherwise, the new flagship GPU is a Valhall-based part of the fourth generation, providing a 15% performance improvement and a 15% efficiency gain over the previous-generation Mali-G710. Arm also claims a more impressive twofold improvement in machine learning over last year’s GPU, pointing to improvements for tasks like computational photography and image enhancement. It sounds like this feature doesn’t come with significant surface costs.
The Immortalis-G715 is available with 10 to 16 shader cores, compared to the Mali-G710, which has seven to 16 shader cores. Otherwise, the GPU will be shadowed with variable speed for the first time, following in the footsteps of rival Qualcomm. Arm also offers the Mali-G715 GPU (without the Immortalis branding) for upper-midrange use. This is the Immortalis GPU with no ray tracing and seven to nine shader cores. We’ve seen a similar trend from the company before, as the more recent mid-range GPUs were identical to their flagship counterparts, except they had fewer shader cores.
Arm 4th Gen Valhall GPUsImmortalis-G715Mali-G715Mali-G615 Arm 4th Gen Valhall GPUs
Hardware ray tracing?
Immortalis-G715
Yes
Mali-G715
no
Mali-G615
no
Poor 4th Gen Valhall GPUs
Variable rate shading?
Immortalis-G715
Yes
Mali-G715
Yes
Mali-G615
Yes
Poor 4th Gen Valhall GPUs
Execution Engine Evolution
Immortalis-G715
Yes
Mali-G715
Yes
Mali-G615
Yes
Poor 4th Gen Valhall GPUs
Number of Cores Shader
Immortalis-G715
10-16 cores
Mali-G715
7-9 cores
Mali-G615
1-6 cores
Poor 4th Gen Valhall GPUs
L2 cache disks (up to 1,024 kb)
Immortalis-G715
2 or 4
Mali-G715
2 or 4
Mali-G615
1, 2 or 4
The company doesn’t stop there either, as it has also announced the Mali-G615 GPU. This continues the downward trend with one to six shader cores but offers variable speed shade and other associated performance/efficiency benefits.
What does this mean for the 2023 flagship phones?
We expect these new CPU cores to power Qualcomm, Samsung, and MediaTek’s flagship processors by the end of 2022/2023, namely the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, Exynos 2300, and whatever the next-generation Dimensity 9000 is called. We wouldn’t bet, however, that the Cortex-X3 will arrive in mid-range processors, as these chipsets traditionally only used medium and small cores. Qualcomm is the only one to announce a mid-range chipset with the current generation A710 and A510 CPU cores (the Snapdragon 7 Gen 1). So we wouldn’t bet that the Cortex-A715 will appear in mid-range processors anytime soon, as chipmakers opt for older designs instead.
Nevertheless, Arm’s claim that the Cortex-A715 has Cortex-X1 performance levels bodes well for chipmakers who will eventually use it for mid-range processors. These SoCs can potentially provide a major boost in CPU performance without a corresponding increase in power consumption, as we’ve seen with recent flagship processors. As for the Immortalis-G715 GPU? Samsung and Mediatek use Arm GPUs in their mid-range processors, so we’ll have to wait and see if the two companies use the Mali-G715 or Mali-G615 in their cheaper SoCs next year. Qualcomm and Samsung offer exclusive GPUs in their Adreno and AMD Eclipse parts, respectively. However, Mediatek still relies on Arm GPUs for its high-end chipsets, meaning we fully expect the company’s flagship SoC to have the Immortalis GPU by 2023.
Should we expect only 64-bit phones next year?
In October 2020, Arm announced that Arm CPUs wouldn’t go 64-bit until 2022. Well, we are in 2022, and that is indeed technically true. The Cortex-X3 and Cortex-A715 are 64-bit designs only, while the Cortex-A510 is technically only a 64-bit component with optional 32-bit support for IoT and legacy use cases. The pieces come together to enable a 64-bit-only future, with the Google Play Store requiring all submitted apps to have 64-bit support. In contrast, a Xiaomi/Oppo/Vivo app store alliance in China has announced that submitted apps must have 64-bit support.
We’re closer than ever to 64-bit Android-only phones being a reality, but this could cause issues for a few older apps. However, a few obstacles are in the way of a 64-bit Android experience. First, there may still be a few 32-bit apps unavailable on the Play Store that haven’t switched to 64-bit yet. A decision to only offer 64-bit phones by 2023 would mean these outlier apps wouldn’t work. This probably won’t affect most users, but those who rely on old apps from third-party app repositories may encounter problems. Nevertheless, it certainly seems like a given that we will see Android switch to only 64-bit in the coming years, especially after iOS did the same in 2017. On the other hand, Google does not exercise the same level of control over Android globally as Apple does over iOS.
Ray tracing to be a real-world thing, finally?
It’s been the domain of desktop computers and the latest game consoles for a few years, but hardware-accelerated ray tracing is slowly becoming a reality on mobile. Samsung’s Exynos 2200, released earlier this year, was the first to support this graphics feature, making the Immortalis-G715 the second GPU to offer this capability and Arm’s first mobile GPU with this technology. Hardware-based ray tracing should improve lighting, shadows, and reflections in supported titles. However, the real question is whether we will see mobile games with this feature. We haven’t seen any supported games that can use the Galaxy S22 series, despite the Exynos 2200 variant offering hardware-based ray tracing.
Samsung and Mediatek will likely offer hardware-enabled ray tracing next year, but Qualcomm needs to provide this feature for wider adoption. We expect Mediatek’s next flagship processor and Samsung’s 2023 silicon to support ray tracing. That said, Samsung and Mediatek’s share of the $500+ market is relatively small, as Qualcomm reportedly accounts for the bulk of this segment globally. So Qualcomm needs to offer hardware-based ray tracing if we want to see meaningful adoption between devices and games in the Android space. Apple may even support hardware-accelerated ray tracing before the technology sees wider adoption on mobile in general.
It should also be said that ray tracing generally involves a performance loss on consoles, forcing developers to scale back other areas such as resolution, frame rate, anti-aliasing, and more. You should therefore expect the same compromises on mobile games as ray tracing hardware becomes popular on phones. There’s also an argument that sustained performance is a higher priority nontransferable right now, as the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 and Exynos 2200 both see massive drops in GPU performance during extreme stress tests.
2023 may not be as big for Arm as the CPU architecture change in 2022, but the company’s vision for a 64-bit Android-only future is taking shape. However, 2023 certainly looks like a big year for Arm regarding its GPU efforts, thanks to major improvements such as variable speed shading, efficiency gains, and ray tracing. The choice of chipset for mobile gamers will undoubtedly become more difficult next year.
