Guru3D.com
  • HOME
  • NEWS
    • Channels
    • Archive
  • DOWNLOADS
    • New Downloads
    • Categories
    • Archive
  • GAME REVIEWS
  • ARTICLES
    • Rig of the Month
    • Join ROTM
    • PC Buyers Guide
    • Guru3D VGA Charts
    • Editorials
    • Dated content
  • HARDWARE REVIEWS
    • Videocards
    • Processors
    • Audio
    • Motherboards
    • Memory and Flash
    • SSD Storage
    • Chassis
    • Media Players
    • Power Supply
    • Laptop and Mobile
    • Smartphone
    • Networking
    • Keyboard Mouse
    • Cooling
    • Search articles
    • Knowledgebase
    • More Categories
  • FORUMS
  • NEWSLETTER
  • CONTACT

New Reviews
Fractal Design Pop Air RGB Black TG review
Palit GeForce GTX 1630 4GB Dual review
FSP Dagger Pro (850W PSU) review
Razer Leviathan V2 gaming soundbar review
Guru3D NVMe Thermal Test - the heatsink vs. performance
EnGenius ECW220S 2x2 Cloud Access Point review
Alphacool Eisbaer Aurora HPE 360 LCS cooler review
Noctua NH-D12L CPU Cooler Review
Silicon Power XPOWER XS70 1TB NVMe SSD Review
Hyte Y60 chassis review

New Downloads
Prime95 download version 30.9 build 1
Intel ARC graphics Driver Download Version: 30.0.101.1743
AMD Radeon Software Adrenalin 22.6.1 WHQL driver download
GeForce 516.59 WHQL driver download
Media Player Classic - Home Cinema v1.9.22 Download
AMD Chipset Drivers Download v4.06.10.651
CrystalDiskInfo 8.17 Download
AMD Radeon Software Adrenalin 22.6.1 Windows 7 driver download
ReShade download v5.2.2
HWiNFO Download v7.26


New Forum Topics
Nvidia shows signs ... NVIDIA GeForce 516.59 WHQL driver download & Discussion AMD Might Release and Add Ryzen 5 5600X3D, Ryzen 9 5900X3D (X3D) procs Foundry TSMC states prices of graphics cards and processors will increase by 9% EK Launches PCIe 4.0 GPU Vertical Bracket NVIDIA GeForce 516.40 WHQL driver download & Discussion [3rd-Party Driver] Amernime Zone Radeon Insight 22.5.1 WHQL Driver Pack (Released) 525.14 Windows Insider drivers FSR Thread JIUSHARK Side-flow M.2 SSD cooler with 60mm fan cools up-to 50%




Guru3D.com » Review » NVIDIA Shield Android TV game console review » Page 2

NVIDIA Shield Android TV game console review - Shield Android TV

by Hilbert Hagedoorn on: 04/06/2016 09:10 AM [ 5] 37 comment(s)

Tweet

Shield Android TV

So what's it all about? Nvidia's SHIELD Android TV originally was tagged as SHIELD Console, it is an Android TV based set-top box that you can use for all kinds of home entertainment and gaming in your living-room.

Initially it was released by Nvidia at the end of May 2015 in the USA. Slowly but steadily we see the unit more and more supported in other countries, hence here in the Netherlands the unit was just introduced. The Shield Android TV is actually already the third-generation "SHIELD" gaming hardware device after the tablets which never grew to be a very popular product series, all based on a Tegra based SoC (System on Chip). That makes the Shield Android TV the first device from Nvidia to get an Android TV ecosystem. Next to that, it allows you to utilize Nvidia's GRID game streaming service in order to play PC games through SHIELD from the cloud.

Nvidia powers the SHIELD Android TV with a Tegra X1.
 

 

With the X1 new functions are opened up, one of the bigger advantages of the Shield Android TV is its ability to drive and output 4K resolution to a television at 60p and it also supports high definition audio. In the living room, Ultra HD is up and coming rapidly, HDMI 2.0 but also HDCP 2.2 are supported. Shield TV also offers pass through 7.1 and 5.1 surround sound streams. High-res audio output up to 24-bit/192KHz can be transmitted too. Specs wise Nvidia wasn't shy here either, you'll spot two USB 3.0 ports which can be used for even a keyboard and mouse, but likely you'll use them to charge your remote and controller or use it to connect external storage. There is also a Micro-USB 2.0 port for powering or charging the game controller. Also, if you need a little more storage, a microSD slot opens up possibilities for additional storage.

Tegra X1

The Shield Android TV unit is based upon an 8-core Tegra X1 SoC (64-bit) which is Nvidia's most powerful ARM SoC in the Tegra series to date.  It features what is called a BIGlittle setup that has been arranged as four ARM Cortex-A57 processor cores and then four ARM Cortex-A53 cores, quite plentyful for an Android OS based product. Not just that it is a hige step forward compared towards the last-gen Tegra K1.
 

 
NVIDIA Tegra GPU Specs Compared
  K1 X1
CUDA Cores 192 256
Texture Units 8 16
ROPs 4 16
GPU Clock 950MHz 1000MHz
Memory Clock 930MHz (LPDDR3) 1600MHz (LPDDR4)
Memory Bus Width 64-bit 64-bit
FP16 Peak 365 GFLOPS 1024 GFLOPS
FP32 Peak 365 GFLOPS 512 GFLOPS
Architecture Kepler Maxwell
Manufacturing Process TSMC 28nm TSMC 20nm SoC


The big A57 cores have more L2 cache (2MB) plus slightly bigger instruction and data-caches. 
The unit houses 256 shader/stream/cuda processors based on an all too familiar Maxwell architecture, the codename for the SoC is GM20B. If you look at the upper screenshot, you can literally count the 256 cores arranged in 32 sets of 8. So albeit it won't be high-end gaming, simple Android games will be plenty fast thanks to this design. Despite what many people think, it's not a 28nm fab but actually is one of the few products fabbed on 20nm, so while 20nm failed for the bigger GPUs, it did work out for the relatively small and simpler Tegra.

  • CPU: ARMv8 ARM Cortex-A57 (1.9 Ghz) quad-core + ARM Cortex-A53 quad-core (64-bit).
  • GPU: Maxwell-based 256 core GPU
  • MPEG-4 HEVC & VP9 encoding/decoding support
  • TSMC 20 nm process
  • Power consumption less than 10 Watts

As the specs imply, and pretty much all Android TV boxes utilize very little power, the Shield is rated at roughly 10 Watts.

For our measurements we didn't even reach 10 Watts. In sleep it mode the box consumes 3 Watts (which actually is on the high side for a product in sleep mode). Sitting and waiting in an idle mode roughly 4~5 watts, Kodi 4k movie playback while trasnferring its data over over NAS / Ethernet consumes roughly 7 Watts and GeForce Now game streaming give or take 8 Watts. Once you use the WIFI connection at say 5G add another 2 Watts to these numbers. If you power down the unit it draws less then 1 Watt. Overall these are normal numbers.




10 pages 1 2 3 4 next »



Related Articles
NVIDIA Shield Android TV 2019 review
Nvidia recently released the 2019 version of the NVIDIA Shield TV in an all-new design and remote. The Android TV box based unit is a little streaming box that allows for a multitude of functionality...

NVIDIA Star Wars TITAN Xp Collector Edition Review
In this article, we'll look if the force is strong with the new NVIDIA Star Wars TITAN Xp Collector Edition. The card is the fastest consumer graphics card on the globe and is available in a Dark...

NVIDIA Shield Android TV 2017 review
Nvidia have released an updated version of the NVIDIA Shield TV to the European Benelux market, the new 2017 model is smaller and houses a few new features. The Android TV box based unit it a little ...

NVIDIA Shield Android TV game console review
Nvidia released their NVIDIA Shield game console towards the European Benelux market, as such we finally have received a sample for review. The Android TV box based unit is a little gem as it proper...

© 2022