NVIDIA got an early start on Sunday as it unveiled its next-generation mobile processor ahead of the CES 2013 rush. Dubbed Tegra 4, the follow-up to NVIDIA’s industry-leading Tegra 3 processor offers significant performance enhancements on a 28nm process. NVIDIA says its new chip provides four times the processing performance of its previous-generation Tegra processor, and it also includes integrated LTE capabilities.
The chip utilizes the same “4-plus-1” CPU core configuration as the Tegra 3, providing quad-core performance for heavy-duty applications and a single secondary core that cuts power consumption when quad-core processing is not needed. The new chipset also features 72 custom NVIDIA GeForce GPU cores, offering six times the graphics performance of the Tegra 3 chip — the Tegra 4 is capable of powering “ultra-high-def” 4K resolution displays.
Devices powered by NVIDIA’s new Tegra 4 chip will be unveiled during the CES 2013 trade show, and the first such device is NVIDIA’s own Project SHIELD portable gaming console. The device features a 5-inch, 1,280 x 720 HD “retinal multitouch display” with a pixel density of 294 dpi along with an HDMI-out port, a microSD slot, wireless streaming capabilities and the Android OS.
