The Amlogic S905X5 may be first the Armv9 processor designed for set-top boxes (STB) and TV boxes, supports the latest AV1 and H.266 video codecs, and also comes with a 4 TOPS AI accelerator.
We don’t have the full details yet, and the news comes from a tease from SEI Robotics which is about to unveil an Amlogic S905X5 AI-SR (AI Super Resolution) Android TV box at IBC 2023.
Preliminary specifications for S905X5 SoC and SEI Robotics TV box:
- SoC – Amlogic S905X5
- CPU – Quad-core Armv9 CPU (likely Cortex-A510 cores) delivering 40K+ DMIPS
- GPU – Arm Mali-G310 V5 entry-level GPU clocked at 1 GHz for 4K HDR user interfaces
- VPU – Up to 2x 4Kp60 10-bit H.266/VCC and AV1 video codecs, and the usual VP9, AVS3, H.265/HEVC, H.264
- AI accelerator – 4 TOPS NPU enabling AI-SR
- Process – “Second generation” 6 nm process
- System Memory & Storage – TBD
- Video Output – HDMI 2.1 up to 4Kp60 with eARC (enhanced audio return channel), VRR (Variable Refresh Rate), QMS (Quick Media Switching)
- Audio – Support for Dolby, Dolby Atmos
- Networking – Ethernet port, likely WiFi and Bluetooth
- USB – 2x USB Type-A ports, 1x USB Type-C port
AI-SR (AI super-resolution) is just an upscaling method that leverages artificial intelligence to deliver a better image quality. For example, you can stream a 1080p60 video stream on a 4K TV close to the quality of a 4K video streaming providing the AI-SR upscaling works as expected.
It’s nice to see one of the first entry-level Armv9 processors soon come to market and it boasts some relatively uncommon features such as H.266 and Ai-SR. SEI Robotics did not say when the new Amlogic S905X5 “Ai-SR” Android TV box will come to market but I suspect that will be a 2024 story.
Via AndroidTVBox.eu
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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Sure it’s the Cortex A510 since it “40K+ DMIPS”?
The Amlogic S905X4 claimed 22K. I don’t think the A510 would be that great of an upgrade.
But maybe the better process (6nm vs 12nm) + arch improvement + clocking the shit out of it can do that?
This was just a guess because TV box SoCs don’t usually need high-performance CPU cores.
But based on the initial Arm’s press release the Cortex-A510 delivers up to 35% performance improvements over the Cortex-A55, so if the DMIPS numbers are indeed 22K vs 40K, that does seem to be a stretch as the S905X5 would then be clocked at 2.7 GHz.
could be cortex a520 instead of a510.
ARM only advertised 8% performance (at iso power) compared to the A510, so would still need to clock at +-2.5 ghz for 40k DMIPS with 4 cores. Maybe 2.4 ghz with a more liberal estimate.
Also weird to see a new ARM core appear that quickly in a cheap TV-box.
Perhaps a 1Big+3little configuration.
Might be 1+3 as the higher clock ArmV9 big core might be the brawn with the NPU for super resolution as a “Ai-SR” settop box is impressive. Would you jump to Arm9 just to employ little cores with likely lower cost IP avail on alternative big cores?
Interesting to see a ArmV9 Soc though as guess this means others will also be in the pipeline.
The NPU is interesting as “Ai-SR” is going to rquire some grunt whilst many say the RK3588 NPU ‘6tops’ is really 3 cores of 2 tops that don’t seem to scale all that well. Even then the 2 Tops rating is with weights and bias in a small reserved memory area, so likely ends up less than 2tops…
> could be cortex a520 instead of a510.
Could be -O3 instead of -O2 (Dhrystone is mostly a compiler benchmark 😉 )
And all this power is useless because it cannot play Netflix even in 720p…
This should be true for future random Amlogic S905X5 TV boxes you’ll find on Aliexpress, but companies like SEI Robotics and SDMC sell to operators and they usually get Netflix certification.
You ARE aware the the “Chromecast with Google TV (4K)” uses an Amlogic SX S905X3, right? Never mind that there’s still plenty of people using these things to watch stuff streamed from their Plex or whatnot.
Does it support Dolby Vision?
I want s928x not another release of s905
Why? S928X is advertised by Amlogic as ’36K+ DMIPS’ but this thing here gets the ’40K+ DMIPS’ label!
(needless to mention that Dhrystone MIPS are pure and utter BS for decades now, especially in this weird way Amlogic is doing it adding theoretical single-threaded DMIPS of individual cores to a ‘multi-threaded DMIPS’ BS number)
My bad..I was thinking that s905x5 was another version of old chip
But seems to be more powerful than s928x
So I was expecting more horse power cause I like Kodi and Cpu is important for large library scan etc
Is there any reason other than SoC segmentation to have that VPU not be capable of decoding 8K?
I just looked and found that 6th gen Intel can decode 8K H.265, and 7th gen can decode 8K VP9 (both 8-bit 4:2:0). By 11th gen, the iGPU is technically capable of decoding 16K H.265/VP9/AV1.
Licensing cost for the video decoder engine.
This is very very interesting news for the emulation world.
Cortex A510 is capable of emulating Gamecube and Wii without much trouble. If this SoC is intended for low cost android TV boxes, it can be the substitute of a Raspberry Pi 4 if the CPU clock is 2Ghz+.
With the addition of creating some low cost handheld retro consoles for 60-80€ that can emulate a console like a Wii, Saturn or N64 without any hiccups.
Today is a happy day for emulation 🙂
Not too bad. The pricing will determine it’s success though, so if entry level, needs an entry level pricing structure.
Would an android TV box be able to handle a powered hub with about half a dozen portable HDDs?
It depends on the power provided to the USB hub and what you mean by “able to handle”.
But provided there’s enough power, all 6 drives should work with the TV box considering all data would be going through a single USB 3.0 port (5Gbps).