Tegra 3 – First specs released
Seems as if NVidia always drags out another ace when it comes to processor
power. The brandnew Tegra 3 is a special processor indeed. dualcore, tricore
quadcore, hexacore, octocore. All sounds impressive. But ever heard of a
pentacore? No? Me neither. But it seems, NVidia has found another way…
to save power on tablets and probably cellphones. Yet there’s processor power when you really need it. and not only dualcore power, no, quadcore power to the max!
So what does the fifth core do then? According to this graphic it is for background tasks such as push messaging, email, basic cell phone tasks and the like. The background tasks, the user does mostly not notify anyways!
And the other cores? Are they all on simultaneously? Nope! As the graphic shows, the system may scale the number of cores according to the task(s) currently running. So heavy-duty tasks such as 3D-Gaming and the like may benefit from extreme power but do also lower the runtime significantly.
If you onlyuse the Internet with Flash, which is known for its cpu-hogging, then the system may scale down to 2 cores thus saving some more power yet delivering fluid Flash content and jerk-free internet experience. Sound good so far and may for sure offer more possibilities!
When you do just some plain EMail or lightweight 2D games or simply using the web with basic content, then the system may clock down to a single core and thus save up to 61% of power needed. Could be fine! The fact that HD video playback will also only use two cores gives an idea, how powerful the next-gen processor might be.
So when the system finally is idle, it activates the Core1 companion and uses the least power possible, enabling an excellent overall standby time! Maybe even tablets can reach a full day usage without loosing much power. THAT means independency on the road and might give an alternative idea for Ultra-Notebooks based on Android and ARM-processor architecture. And as Windows 8 is also going to support tablets fully and even on ARM architecture, the future looks a bit brighter again for Microsoft also…
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