After publishing a benchmark comparison between Amlogic S905 and Rockchip RK3368 yesterday, I was asked to do the same with Amlogic S805 and Amlogic S905. Since I already had the data, I just went ahead to write this post. Bear in mind that Amlogic S805 TV boxes run Android 4.4, while Amlogic S905 devices all feature Android 5.1. So while the table below should give a good estimate of the actual performance improvement between the two generation devices, Amlogic S905 performance will be amplified thanks to optimizations in Android 5.1, for instance the use of ART runtime instead of Dalvik.
With that in mind here are the results comparing the results I got with Videostrong K1 Plus (Amlogic S905) and MXQ S85 (Amlogic S805) TV boxes.
| Amlogic S905 | Amlogic S805 | Ratio | |
| CPU | Quad core Cortex A53 @ 2.02 GHz | Quad core Cortex A5 @ 1.488 GHz | |
| GPU | ARM Mali-450MP | ARM Mali-450MP | |
| Antutu 5.x | |||
| Overall | 28,027 | 16,448 | 1.70 |
| Multitask | 4,260 | 2,967 | 1.44 |
| Runtime | 2,721 | 1,057 | 2.57 |
| RAM Ops | 1,960 | 1,392 | 1.41 |
| RAM Speed | 2,420 | 1,590 | 1.52 |
| CPU Integer (multi-thread) | 2,310 | 1,390 | 1.66 |
| CPU float-point (multi-thread) | 2,483 | 1,468 | 1.69 |
| CPU Integer (single thread) | 1,587 | 882 | 1.80 |
| CPU float-point (single thread) | 1,510 | 930 | 1.62 |
| 2D Graphics(1920×1080) | 1,374 | 904 | 1.52 |
| 3D Graphics (1920×1080) | 6,126 | 2,996 | 2.04 |
| Vellamo 3.x | |||
| Metal | 763 | 551 | 1.38 |
| Multicore | 1,572 | 1,319 | 1.19 |
| Browser* | 2,002 | 816 | 2.45 |
| 3DMark – Ice Storm Extreme v1.2 | |||
| Total score | 4,304 | 2,308 | 1.86 |
| Graphics score | 3,684 | 1,950 | 1.89 |
| Physics score | 10,468 | 6,471 | 1.62 |
*Vellamo 3.x browser benchmark had an issue that underreported Amlogic S805 performance.
A ratio greater than 1 means S905 is faster than S805, and the new processor outperforms in all categories. This is especially true for the runtime test that combines a faster processor with a better ART runtime. So If you plan to upgrade your Amlogic S805 mini PC to a Amlogic S905 mini PC you’ll notice an obviously performance boost with the new processor.
That for the performance. Price-wise the most cost effective Amlogic S805 TV boxes sell for about $30 (even lower with discounts or promotions), while equivalent Amlogic S905 devices go for around $42, so the price difference is only about $12. Having said that, S805 is a mature platform, and as I found out with Videostrong K1 Plus, the firmware may not be polished yet in S905 devices currently shipping with for instance, the Google Play Store not working very well, and no DRM at all.
That means Amlogic S905 definitely offers a better performance than Amlogic S805, but at this point (November 2015), there’s probably no rush to buy an Amlogic S905 TV box, unless you are ready to go through some bugs at first, and the lack of DRM – which might not be fixable by firmware updates – is no issue to you.
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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Hi, glad read this. Shall we talk about what kind of bugs may come out for Amlogic S905 against S805,
interested in the forecast…
im also interested in power consumption, since they are in develop by the same company, having similar configuration, same Manufacturing Process (28nm afaik) and difference between to soc segment (namely low and ultra low power design).
it will provide some insights into a35 power design that can be expected in consumer product
@milkboy
SoC power consumption is tricky to measure as it involves cutting some tracks on the PCB to measure current…
I could easily measure TV box power consumption, but this will differ greatly between manufacturers. Active power consumption should be similar (for a given SoC), and I did measure it for S812 and RK3288 @ http://www.cnx-software.com/2015/02/17/power-consumption-of-amlogic-s812-and-rockchip-rk3288-tv-boxes/, but power off and standby power consumption will vary a lot between the boards for the same SoC.
is this running a 64-bit or 32-bit kernel on the S905? I noticed that at least some Android machines based on Cortex-A53 (moto g3 in particular, but probably many more) are still entirely based on 32-bit software, and I would expect the 64-bit variant to be more efficient, mostly because of the larger register set.
@arnd
It shows Aarch64 kernel in Android tools, and Amlogic S905 source code will only build with a 64-bit ARM toolchain.
So it should definitely be a 64-bit kernel.
Can we get to the S905 hardware bug already?
@Gabe
I’ve talked about it in this very post…
Oh, now I get it. Lack of DRM certification is no biggie.
Cortex A53 should be much faster than A5 even at same clock speed.
So with +500MHz I would have expected at least a 2x increase in all cpu tests.
Normalizing the clock many tests provide a score like a Cortex A7.
But Arm declares the cortex A35 far faster than A7 at the same clock speed and so A53 all the more should be further faster
@Fabry
It seems as if the CPU might be throttling, the heatsink on the K1 is a tiny little ramsink.
is 905 design to passive cooling or need fan?
if it have the same open source as previous socs, i would like a dev board better than a stb, maybe HK will make odroid c2 with this chip.
but i’ve no info of any board with new amlogic socs.
@klein
no need fan, this depens on which device you choose,
905 Soc is total no problem for cooling. it’s lowest-power chips design
can You compare the new s905 with the s812 ?
features and performance ?
+1
I have seen two similar TV boxes from one manufacturer, one with s812 and other with s905. The manufacturer positions the second as more powerful version but I’m skeptical here, infact both are 20GHz and 4K whereas s812 has 8 GPUs versus 5 GPUs in s905. So it’s not obvious which is better.
+1
Please do a comparison between S905 and S812.
Thanks!
Very interesting to read your comparison reports. Will the increased processing speed in the upgrade to Amlogic S905 have any impact on buffering. Thank you.
@Malcolm
No. That is entirely dependent on network/port connection speed.
+1
Comparison between S905 and S812 is a must !
@Erez
@Federico
@vincenzo
OK. Done. S905 vs S812 -> http://www.cnx-software.com/2016/01/29/amlogic-s905-vs-s812-benchmarks-comparison/
@Furryvarmint
Good day, thank you for your reply. Going to have to try and get a higher speed internet connection. Kind regards. Malcolm
Does either of these cpu’s have usb HDD limitations…like reading 3-5TB HDDs?
I have an MX5 S805 box. The HDMI output pushed signal to my Samsung TV – perfect. The SPDIF Optical out pushes DTS5.1 to my Sony Surround Sound System. No problem.
I wanted to get a new S905/S905X box. I tried 2 boxes over the last 10 days. Neither box can play DTS through my SPDIF Optical output to my Sony Surround Sound System. Very disappointed. Will this one day come back again? Looks like I will need to hang on to my MX5 box for now and hope that perhaps one day a new box will come out that would support SPDIF Optical output tomy Surround Sound System.
@Len
Not all boxes support audio pass-through. You need to check reviews online to make sure.
Sometimes it’s fixed with a firmware update. I don’t know if you are using Kodi or not, but if you are then try SPMC instead.
Android and Kodi settings must also be configured correctly, but since you’ve had it working for MX5, I’d assume that’s not the issue.
What’s the minimum network/port connection speed you’d recommend in order to run either the S805 or S905 effectively?
@Shelley
Whatever is comfortably above the typical bitrate of the videos you are trying to watch.