Nvidia has lifted the curtain on their newest processor for mobile devices, the Tegra 3. The Tegra 3 is a considerable upgrade over the Tegra 2, boasting four cores and some clever ways of conserving power.
You definitely read that last sentence correctly, the Tegra 3 is in fact the first quad-core ARM A9 based mobile processor. That's a whole lot of power to pack into tablets and mobile phones. The Tegra 3 also has a 12-core GeForce graphics unit on board. Nvidia claims this processor will provide triple the performance of the dual-core Tegra 2 which means better multitasking and improved app performance.
The first device to use the Tegra 3 will be the Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime which is essentially a power boosted version of the Asus Eee Pad Transformer tablet. The Transformer Prime will include an updated camera (8 megapixels rear, 1.2 megapixels front) and more storage (32GB and 64GB options).
What's most interesting about this announcement is the discussion of battery life on the Transformer Prime. The first assumption everyone will make is that a quad-core processor will result in greatly reduced battery life. Nvidia and Asus claim this isn't true, going so far as to say the Transformer Prime will allow 12 hours of HD video on one battery charge.
How exactly are Nvidia and Asus making this battery magic happen? The answer lies in a fifth core on the Tegra 3. This fifth processor is a companion processor, only being used when processing load is low. So when you are reading a static page on the web or the tablet is sitting at idle the fifth processor will step in. When load is high the quad-core beast will take over allowing multitasking, web browsing, and game playing to be snappy and smooth.
Nvidia has stated that in order to really get the benefit of the Tegra 3, apps will need to be coded to properly use all four cores. The company is saying that by year end there will be about 40 games taking advantage of the new processor. Asus claims the Prime tablet is going to start at $500 for the 32GB version but hasn't offered up a release date yet. I would expect this to be out by year end if Nvidia is already talking about 40 games being available in that time period.
I'm definitely looking forward to seeing how the Transformer Prime performs when it hits the market. It'll also be interesting to see how the Tegra 3 is leveraged in mobile devices and what kind of battery specs are claimed for those devices utilizing it. Go Autobots!
