Nvidia officially announces quad-core Tegra 3 - faster and less power intensive than Tegra 2
Asus Transformer Prime confirmed as first machine to use new chip
Nvidia has officially lifted the lid on the Tegra 3 (previously called Kal-El by no one but Nvidia), with the news that the upcoming Asus Transformer Prime will be the first machine to come with the new mobile chip.
The Tegra 3 is a quad-core processor based on the ARM7 design with an extra ‘companion’ core (it will not judge you) to operate low-power activities such as videos and music playback, and dynamically shift operations in order to reduce power consumption.
This, according to Nvidia, means that while the speed has increased, overall power consumption is lower than the Tegra 2's (depending on the operation), and no extra coding or alterations need to take place to existing software to take advantage of this feature.
Power and controlOn the GPU side of the chip, Tegra 3 comes with 12 cores (four up from Tegra 2), which - thanks to a variety of factors including software optimisation and better manufacturing - should result in a 300 per cent gain in performance over the previous chip.
The chips have been focused on the pixel-shading part of the unit - something that has been born from communications with developers, meaning a lot more fancy effects (real-time reflections and the like) can be performed without dropping speed.
Nvidia has demonstrated these changes with a number of comparative slides showing the differences between Tegra versions of Shadowgun, Sprinkle, and other titles that have had their effects ‘spruced up’ (including, in the case of the former, re-designed levels).
Another feature Nvidia is keen to stress is the integrated support for many more forms of controllers built into the system - including Wii, PS3, Xbox 360, and PC gamepads - as well as integration of the company’s PC 3D software, ‘3D Vision’.
The first Tegra 3 chips will appear in the upcoming Asus Transformer Prime tablet (details of which also leaked out before the 'official' announcement), but Nvidia has said that it has ‘lots’ of other manufacturers signed on to use its new processor in the future.
Alas, the company isn’t keen on revealing who has signed up just yet.
We'll no doubt find out what the first phone to use the chip will be in the coming months.
