

Nvidia Tegra 3 to Be One Full Generation Ahead of Competition - nextparadigms
http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/24/nvidia-tegra-3-equipped-with-1-5ghz-quad-core-madness-teased-b/

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georgemcbay
I'm a fan of Nvidia and their products but this claim is fairly meaningless.

Nvidia is often "ahead" of the competition when they announce something and
then right about in line with the rest of the industry once they get all of
their delays out of the way and finally release something.

See: Fermi, Tegra 2, et al.

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roc
Just to pile on: mobile processing generations are gated more by power
limitations and process technology. Unless nVidia chips are going to be
exclusively printed on a 'generation-ahead' process, have access to a
'generation-ahead' battery, and/or be paired with a 'generation-ahead'
display, they _can't_ be a 'generation-ahead' in general performance when they
wind up in a device. Extra bells and whistles that provide theoretical
performance, performance that the device ultimately can't leverage, are
routinely excised from shipping designs.

You don't have to look any further than the routine underclocking to see that
mobile chip roadmaps are simply not as relevant as desktop or even laptop chip
roadmaps.

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masklinn
Interesting piece on the roadmap: Tegra 3's maximum supported resolution
(1920x1200) will still be a notch lower than the (unlikely) rumored iPad 2
display.

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2bluesc
Not so sure about that, Freescale isn't far behind:
[http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/03/freescale-announces-i-
mx-...](http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/03/freescale-announces-i-
mx-6-processor-series-wants-quad-cores-in/)

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Rickasaurus
Yeah, seems like marketing bunk. Especially considering how their new shiny
Geforce 5xx line is only a 10-15% improvement over the last gen. Show me the
numbers!

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Tuna-Fish
5xx was conjured out of thin air like 9xxx, 1xx and 3xx. 580 and 570 use the
gf100b chip -- just a minor revision of the chip that powered 480 and 470.

I like NV products, but for some very weird reason their marketing likes to
boost the family number for no reason every 6 months.

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jra101
580 and 570 are actually based on the GF110 chip.

<http://www.anandtech.com/show/4008/nvidias-geforce-gtx-580>

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Tuna-Fish
GF110 is a marketing name. The chip was called gf100b in the fab and in the
chip rom.

[http://www.pcgameshardware.com/?menu=browser&article_id=...](http://www.pcgameshardware.com/?menu=browser&article_id=802354&image_id=1467215)

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protomyth
Isn't the A-15 core just around the corner?

