Nvidia introduces Tegra 3 five-core CPU
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Nvidia introduces Tegra 3 five-core CPU
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Re: Nvidia introduces Tegra 3 five-core CPU
#2This is incredible in terms of helping push the technology envelope further, but I'm afraid it's just going to be used in the short term by Android handset OEMs as another selling point to tout in the spec wars. I wish that they would focus on the end-to-end user experience more, rather than putting their own brand of lipstick on Android and trying to win a pointless spec arms race.
Re: Nvidia introduces Tegra 3 five-core CPU
#3This is incredible in terms of helping push the technology envelope further, but I'm afraid it's just going to be used in the short term by Android handset OEMs as another selling point to tout in the spec wars. I wish that they would focus on the end-to-end user experience more, rather than putting their own brand of lipstick on Android and trying to win a pointless spec arms race.
Given that AMD has essentially lost their way as far as being competitive with Intel, I don't view the releases of new mobile products as being pointless processions in an ongoing spec war, but more as a necessity to ramp performance to a point that disruption of the desktop/server space becomes possible. ARM in your phone, tablet, desktop & powering the "cloud" isn't so far fetched. Right now I see ARM & OpenCL/CUDA as much bigger threats to Intel than AMD is.
Re: Nvidia introduces Tegra 3 five-core CPU
#4Quad Core and a GPU is a bit more accurate, but still an interesting system. I wonder when development boards will go on sale.
Re: Nvidia introduces Tegra 3 five-core CPU
#5Quad Core and a GPU is a bit more accurate, but still an interesting system. I wonder when development boards will go on sale.
Not according to Wikipedia :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nvidia_Tegra#Tegra_3_.28Kal-El....
The Tegra 3 is functionally a quad-core processor, but includes a fifth "companion" core. All cores are Cortex-A9s, but the companion core is manufactured with a special low power silicon process. This means it uses less power at low clock rates, but more at higher rates; hence it is limited to 500 MHz. There is also special logic to allow running state to be quickly transferred between the companion core and one of the normal cores. The goal is for a mobile phone or tablet to be able to power down all the normal cores and run on only the companion core, using comparatively little power, during standby mode or when otherwise using little CPU. According to Nvidia, this includes playing music or even video content.
Re: Nvidia introduces Tegra 3 five-core CPU
#6Quad Core and a GPU is a bit more accurate, but still an interesting system. I wonder when development boards will go on sale.
Not according to Wikipedia : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nvidia_Tegra#Tegra_3_.28Kal-El.... The Tegra 3 is functionally a quad-core processor, but includes a fifth "companion" core. All cores are Cortex-A9s, but the companion core is manufactured with a special low power silicon process. This means it uses less power at low clock rates, but more at higher rates; hence it is limited to 500 MHz. There is also special…
You're right, I was mistaken! I also found some more detail from this more technical explanation:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/5072/nvidias-tegra-3-launched-...
Re: Nvidia introduces Tegra 3 five-core CPU
#7What strikes me is that this could compete with current generation game consoles, so next gen consoles might be Tegra "Wayne" (from Wikipedia) :
Processor: quad- or octa-core ARM Cortex-A15 MPCore
Improved 24 (for the quad-core) and 32 to 64 (for the octa-core) GPU cores with support for Directx 11+, OpenGL 4.X, OpenCL 1.X, and Physx
28 nm[23]
About 10 times faster than Tegra 2
Re: Nvidia introduces Tegra 3 five-core CPU
#8Quad Core and a GPU is a bit more accurate, but still an interesting system. I wonder when development boards will go on sale.
Not according to Wikipedia : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nvidia_Tegra#Tegra_3_.28Kal-El.... The Tegra 3 is functionally a quad-core processor, but includes a fifth "companion" core. All cores are Cortex-A9s, but the companion core is manufactured with a special low power silicon process. This means it uses less power at low clock rates, but more at higher rates; hence it is limited to 500 MHz. There is also special…
To me this is the interesting feature, not the "more power than before", which was to be expected. Ironically, none of it is presented in the article nor videos.
I also find the "throw more power at it to get it smooth" argument quite appalling.
Re: Nvidia introduces Tegra 3 five-core CPU
#9This is incredible in terms of helping push the technology envelope further, but I'm afraid it's just going to be used in the short term by Android handset OEMs as another selling point to tout in the spec wars. I wish that they would focus on the end-to-end user experience more, rather than putting their own brand of lipstick on Android and trying to win a pointless spec arms race.
Why can't they do both?
Re: Nvidia introduces Tegra 3 five-core CPU
#10The faster Flash performance won't be much of a selling point now.