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Is it more powerful than the Nvidia Shield Pro ?
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Here is a side-by-side comparison of the A10X vs NVIDIA Tegra X1 with Geekbench 4:
gadgetversus.com
These are just benchmarks of course, and real world experience is depending on many other things.
That said, the benchmarks are not even remotely close. One could argue that the power of the A10X isn't really needed in a streaming box though.
Apple A10X Fusion vs Nvidia Tegra X1 T210 - GadgetVersus
Comparison between Apple A10X Fusion and Nvidia Tegra X1 T210 with the specifications of the processors, the number of cores, threads, cache memory, also the performance in benchmark platforms such as Geekbench, Passmark, Cinebench or AnTuTu.
These are just benchmarks of course, and real world experience is depending on many other things.
That said, the benchmarks are not even remotely close. One could argue that the power of the A10X isn't really needed in a streaming box though.
If it is still going to be primarily a streaming box, there really isn't a need for a new chipset, at least when it comes to power. Other factors that are not performance related could influence the change of a chipset.
There are some other things that could change that are not chipset related, like storage size, RAM, newer HDMI standard, etc.
Now, if Apple wants to compete with gaming consoles, then that would warrant a change for chipset. Having a A14X or M1 would make it a crazy powerful streamer, but a decent gaming machine.
Perhaps real world tests would mean a lot more such as a localized game and a network came and if all things being relatively even, figure frame rate, audio, latency etc.
Next - try music and movies. My guess is that the Nvidia Shield TV does far better because they have had time to match the hardware with the software with each upgrade.
I have played with both along with Roku (and more including Dune). By far, the Nvidia was preferred for movie playing local and network files as well as for streaming. I do believe however that Apple's offering along with Roku have nicer looking front ends. Consider file formats - Nvidia natively handles move file formats.
Most important - Nvidia is not the "you must join" to have anything club such as Apple. Yes you get an account but you can easily play all sorts of files from all sorts of sources.
Next - try music and movies. My guess is that the Nvidia Shield TV does far better because they have had time to match the hardware with the software with each upgrade.
I have played with both along with Roku (and more including Dune). By far, the Nvidia was preferred for movie playing local and network files as well as for streaming. I do believe however that Apple's offering along with Roku have nicer looking front ends. Consider file formats - Nvidia natively handles move file formats.
Most important - Nvidia is not the "you must join" to have anything club such as Apple. Yes you get an account but you can easily play all sorts of files from all sorts of sources.
Yes I'm also curious what direction they'll take. I hope a high-end and low-end option, one focussed on games one on streaming. This way they won't scare off customers who aren't looking for gaming or the best specs but can serve the people who do.
Raw power isn't very meaningful on these devices.
Both are capable at software decoding non-standard formats (such as hi10p H264 that many anime releases use) and everything else is able to be decoded by hardware.
It comes down to other things (if you are deciding between them as streaming solutions).
Once upon a time ATV supported Dolby Vision whereas Shield did not. Now they both do.
Shield will bitstream, and has optical out, whereas ATV will output only as LPCM and only supports HDMI.
ATV supports airplay, whereas Shield is a cast target.
ATV has Infuse, whereas Shield has Kodi. Both have MrMC (a Kodi fork).
It is easier to load non-store apps on Shield than it is on ATV.
I have both. Prefer the UI of ATV, but happy enough with Shield.
Both are capable at software decoding non-standard formats (such as hi10p H264 that many anime releases use) and everything else is able to be decoded by hardware.
It comes down to other things (if you are deciding between them as streaming solutions).
Once upon a time ATV supported Dolby Vision whereas Shield did not. Now they both do.
Shield will bitstream, and has optical out, whereas ATV will output only as LPCM and only supports HDMI.
ATV supports airplay, whereas Shield is a cast target.
ATV has Infuse, whereas Shield has Kodi. Both have MrMC (a Kodi fork).
It is easier to load non-store apps on Shield than it is on ATV.
I have both. Prefer the UI of ATV, but happy enough with Shield.
What model shield do you have?
AFAIK, none of the Nvidia Shield generations had optical audio.
Hey, you're 100% right. Just double checked the back. Been so long I misremembered. Thanks for the correction!