How Fast Are They?

Marvell provided us with some performance figures to check out. First up is the File Explorer SPB test. In this test, Marvell compared the time it takes both a PXA300 and the older PXA270 processor to load a HTML file and a JPEG file.

If Marvell's results are right, the PXA300 loads HTML files about 48% faster and JPEG files 35% faster than the PXA270. Impressive results. But of course, these are synthetic test results provided by Marvell.

Marvell also ran a couple of real world tests. Let's take a look at those results.

In these tests, the PXA300 had its L2 cache disabled. The results of the PXA270 were also scaled by a factor of 10.

According to Marvell's results, the PXA300 is able to complete an internal database read about 2.36X faster than the PXA270, using 32% less energy. It also loads a JPEG image 1.72X faster and with 26% less energy used.

Probably the most impressive result is the image decompression result. The PXA300 is shown to be faster than the PXA270 by 2.56X in this task, and it uses 43% less energy.

Marvell emphasizes that a slower processor isn't necessarily good for battery life. They say it's better to have a fast processor that quickly completes a task and then power down. We will see more of that when we check out the PXA3xx's power efficiency.