Nvidia Tegra--the one that's suitable for MIDs

CNET Taiwan staff | Jun 03, 2008

At the pre-Computex press launch, Nvidia unexpectedly announced its Tegra processor targeted at handheld devices. Its closest competitor? Intel's Atom.

That tiny chip with the green logo in the center of the circuit board? That's Tegra.

A side-by-side comparison of the Atom and Tegra.

Tegra's architecture. Nvidia's Tegra--dubbed Computer-on-a-Chip--integrates the CPU, GPU and image processor onto a tiny chip, effectively reducing the size of the circuit board.

Besides the advantage it has in terms of size, the highlight of Tegra is its low power consumption. According to the presentation slide, battery consumption for video playback and Web browsing is 20 times more efficient on Tegra compared with Atom. Do note that the tests were done separately with ARM running on Win CE.

Tegra may be energy-efficient but is no slouch when it comes to performance. General manager of the Handheld GPU group at Nvidia, Michael Rayfield, showcased the Tegra processor on a handheld device at the event. Its performance and 3D graphics were amazing. Image shows a model holding a concept device.

Flashy user interface on the device.

Picture shows a model using the handheld device to play 1080p movies on a larger display via HDMI.

Nvidia was able to showcase a few features of the Tegra on a handheld device running on Win CE, including the ability to render 3D street images and provide directions to the user, similar to Google Android's Street View.

Going by the battery consumption of the core processor, Tegra's CPU is able to beat the Atom in both hibernation and processing states even though it's based on the older ARM11 CPU.

Nvidia says Tegra will bring about the second PC revolution with its powerful processing capabilities, tiny size and efficient battery consumption.

Interestingly, when Intel introduced the MID at last year's Intel Developer Forum, it poked fun at ARM's lackluster performance in reading Web pages (ARM fought back and said that wasn't the case). Now, Nvidia's coming up with Tegra based on the same ARM architecture.

"Compared with Tegra, Intel Atom processor is not suitable for MID," Rayfield said.

Translated by Damian Koh, CNET Asia | Picture credit: CNET Taiwan

Filed under: Handhelds, Mobile Phones, Notebooks
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