Links on Android Authority may earn us a commission. Learn more. In fact, a number of smartphones and other small gadgets were once upon a time running on low-power Nvidia chipsets. The Tegra 2 held the Android performance crown for a few months, particularly against the commonplace single-core processors on the market. The Tegra 2 also powered a reasonably sized selection of other smartphones, tablets, and even the odd notebook from a variety of brands.
Nvidia followed up with the Tegra 3 in This next-gen chipset boasted a quad-core Cortex-A9 CPU setup with NEON extensions and a fifth ultra low power companion core, a more powerful Nvidia GeForce GPU, and a suite of video decoder technologies, making it a much more powerful multi-media machine than its predecessor. The Tegra 3 powered a small number of memorable Android smartphones.
It was also the brawn behind the ill-fated Ouya Android gaming console. The information we have on this so far comes straight from what Nvidia has released, so we'll be interested to put these claims to the test in our test labs, but the long and the short of it is that Nvidia is claiming a 40 per cent reduction in power when you compare a single 1GHz A9 processor running the same workload as the dual-core architecture.
This claim is based on the concept that to manage this sample workload, the two processors need only run at MHz each, and the combination of this requires 0.
Nvidia has written power-r management algorithms into Tegra 2 so that the processors dynamically adjust frequency based on the tasks at hand. While this example holds true for a majority of smartphone use, there will probably be times when both processors are required to run at high frequency and battery life may suffer.
As battery life is continuing to be one of the major sticking points for smartphone users, we'll be keeping a close eye on this area of performance when we get our hands on a device. Nvidia won't be in the dual-core game by itself. Potential customer Samsung is also developing a dual-core multiprocessor called Orion, the specs of which closely resemble the Tegra 2, but with a different graphics unit, among other differences.
Orion will also support multiple storage types including standard computer hard disks and solid-state storage, fuelling our curiosity about which devices these chips may ultimately power. Motorola Xoom : Motorola's unannounced inch Android tablet will be one of the first tablets to market showcasing Nvidia's chipset. LG tablet : LG will follow up its smartphone announcements with a tablet reveal in February. This device will run on Tegra 2. The Tegra 2's secret sauce is its graphic processor, an Nvidia-designed, ultra-low-power GeForce core.
This promises 3D gaming performance without a huge battery drain, and accelerated HD video decoding with a low CPU draw. I wrote a post sort of like this a while back. Actually, let me check—right, OK, it was in When the Tegra 2 was announced in , it arrived into a strange climate: The original Tegra hadn't really taken off, and people were still using terms like "smartbook" and "MID" unironically.
I said at the time:. Whatever happened to the Tegra, Nvidia doesn't want it to happen again. This time, they say, will be different. And I guess it has been different, sort of?
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