Posted on Thursday, January 07 2010 @ 21:41 CET by Thomas De Maesschalck
NVIDIA introduced its Tegra 2 SoC at its CES press conference:
Consumers have been waiting for a truly portable, high-resolution, no-compromise Internet experience. NVIDIA's new Tegra processor delivers that by combining lightning-quick browsing, streaming 1080p video and Adobe® Flash® Player 10.1 acceleration with an immersive 3D user interface and days of battery life.
"Without question, 2010 is going to be year of the tablet," said Tim Bajarin, President, Creative Strategies, Inc. "The new NVIDIA Tegra processor has a unique feature set critical for tablets -- fast web browsing with fully rendered pages, uncompromised graphics, snappy user interface and HD video -- all with the battery life we've only seen with cell phones."
Key to Tegra's capabilities are eight independent processors, including the world's first dual core CPU for mobile applications. These processors are used together or independently to optimize power usage at all times. With its ultra low-power design, Tegra delivers over 16 hours of HD video or 140 hours of music -- on a single charge.(1)
Highlights / Key Facts:
Tegra is the power behind the new generation of tablets, offering:
o 3D touchscreen user interfaces
o Amazing battery life -- always-on and always-connected
o Adobe Flash Player 10.1 acceleration for streaming video and 3D mobile games
o Resolution ranging from four-to-eight times that of smartphones
o Form factors and screen sizes ranging from 5-15 inches
o Immersive gaming, vivid photos and video, and crystal-clear audio
Next Generation Tegra is a leap in mobile computing performance with:
o The world's first dual-core ARM Cortex A9 CPU running up to 1GHz
o Eight independent processors to handle web browsing, HD video encode and decode and mobile 3D gaming
o 10x faster than the processors used in smartphones today, and up to 4x the performance of the previous generation Tegra processor
o Advanced TSMC 40nm process with active power management
The Tech Report
was there and reports Epic Games' Tim Sweeney showed off a demo of Unreal Engine 3 running on a Tegra 2 based tablet:
Nvidia brought in Epic Games CEO and Founder Tim Sweeney, who said the new SoC was comparable in terms of specifications to both current high-end game consoles and high-end gaming PCs from two to four years ago. Sweeney proved his point by showing Unreal Engine 3, the game engine that powers Gears of War 2 and a host of other games, running on a Tegra 2 tablet. It was jarring to see it going through the motions on such a thin little device.
Tegra 2 could power some sweet little handheld gaming systems, then, but Nvidia sees it as a driver for what it calls the 2010 "tablet revolution." During the conference, Nvidia General Manager Mike Rayfield showed Tegra 2-powered tablet prototypes from Foxconn, MSI, and others. One of them had a 1024x600 display and was running Google's Android operating system. Another prototype featured a dual-mode display, which could be either backlit or front-lit—good for use as a Kindle-like reading device.
