NVIDIA Reveals Tegra X1 Mobile Superchip: "Erasing the Lines Between Mobile and Desktop Devices"

At its pres conference at CES 2015 in Vegas Nvidia introduced the new Tegra X1 “Mobile Superchip” destined to succeed the cirrent K1, and providing twice as much performance, and providing great features and power for games.

[pgerv12]

Yes, but will I need to carry a backpack to power this thing for a few hours?

[Abriael]

remember not to cross the beams.

[ABizzel1]

Oh NVIDIA you and your overhype and unrealistic consumer expectations.

What clocks did you have this chip running at so you could achieve that 1 TFLOP of performance, because whatever it was it's not going to make it into any consumer products at those speeds.

Coming back to the real world the device is 50% - 100% more powerful than Tegra K1 and more efficient so it's around 300 - 400 GFLOPS in real world devices at clocks around 600 MHz. Now for a mobile chip that's completely B@D@$$, and puts this chip above PS360 and on par with Wii U and above it depending on the CPU and RAM attached to it (8-core mobile CPU + 3GB RAM, and you have a Wii U smashed into a tablet).

I don't understand why NVIDIA does these insane levels of hype, instead of real world showings (you see they haven't pulled this with GPUs in a while), because at the end of the day the tech is still above anything out there for these kind of chips, so they don't have to do all this false advertising. The only way this chip is reaching 1 TFLOP is with something large enough to have a cooling fan / supple over it, and something that can give it a constant power supply (something the size of a small computer case and larger).

On a side note, it just goes to show just how underpowered the Wii U was for this generation. Q3 / Q4 2015 Tablets are going to outperform it in raw hardware, that's ridiculous, and that's exactly why they should have went with the 6670. The good news is that the Nintendo 4DS-Fusion is going to be around the power of the PS360Wii U, so it should be a mighty little handheld.

[chaldo]

If you watched the live stream, it's actually mostly aimed for automobiles and mobile phones. I don't see any OEM using the X1 lol, same as the K1. I think the K1 was only used for the nexus 9 tablet, correct me if I am wrong.

[ABizzel1]

@LogicalReason

In max conditions K1 out powers Wii U, in consumer products (tablets / cellphones) the Wii U was still a bit ahead, and there are areas where the PS360 were still ahead of the K1.

Based on this informations the X1 has pretty much ended that, in raw GFLOPS it should be between 300 - 400 GFLOPS for mobile devices, and in some cases manufacturers might push clocks to the mobile limit and hit the 500 GFLOPS range. Now until we have the full details these are apple to oranges comparisons, but scaling from the K1 it all points to eh X1 being the better chip now doing nearly everything the Wii U does at a fraction of the TDP.

[ABizzel1]

@chaldo

I didn't see the live stream, but I read the post about them wanting to use them in cars, and everyday appliances / and in the world to make living better.

As for the K1, it was used in several devices. NVIDIA Shield, Xiaomi MiPad, Nexus 9, and several Chromebooks, and soon to be in a new Android gaming console by Snail Games called "Obox" (I swear I'm not joking) and an android phone made by the same company which looks like a PS Vita with 4 shoulder buttons (it's a Chinese company....hence the rip off, but if it works it works).

Now considering the X1 is more power friendly I expect it to be in a lot more things than the K1.

[chaldo]

@ABizzel1

Dude, I am so hoping more phone OEM's would use this chip lol. I am sick of hearing "qualcomm" every time. Nvidia makes some badass chips. OEM's just need to use them, but you know, it's all about the costs etc..

[livininsin]

@abizzel1
1GHz * 2 FP 16 * 2 FMA * 256 = 1 TFLOPs. When you layer in 64 more cuda cores, double the texture units, and four times the ROPs, a boost in clock from 950 to 1000mhz, and a maxwell based architecture using DDR4 based memory that's what you get and benchmarks are showing roughly double the performance of the A8X at 60% of the power consumption. 1TFLOP is nipping on the tails of 'next gen' consoles!

[ABizzel1]

@livininsin

And the problem is most mobile devices have their GPU cores only running at 500 MHz, because it leeches battery life. Having the most demanding part of a mobile device constantly running at those clocks cuts your battery life down to a fourth, and that's before attempting to play any games. And when you do play games prepare to play them with oven-mitts to prevent 1st and 2nd degree burning.

That's once again why I said this chip is not getting max potential unless it's in something large enough to house appropriate cooling, and provide a constant power source to keep it running at those clocks. A mobile device can't do that, even a laptop would be a bit problematic producing an uncomfortable amount of heat on your lap.

Thanks for posting all the other specs, because I didn't get to see it.

So it's 256 Cuda Cores, 4 CU's, 16 ROPs, 16 TMUs, 1 TFLOP (at 1.0 GHz) or 400 - 500 GFLOPS (at consumer 500 MHz).

Like I said this is a beastly little chip, but my entire comment was regarding it's role in mobile devices, and as a consumer product (1 GHz is not a consumer speed), which is the same stunt NVIDIA pulled with the Tegra K1 (using a 950MHz / 1GHz clock to show max performance, knowing that they would only be using half that speed in actual devices).

Do you know the GPixels and GTexels.

[Neo_Zeed]

Because they need insane levels of hype for this to thrive because there are no good real world showcases for this chip yet. I'm sure they have some tech demos but I don't see any mobile software on the horizon that will take full advantage of such a chip.

[livininsin]

@abizzel1
Fair enough on the tdp being limited to only 5 watts for mobile devices.

[AndrewLB]

It's almost as powerful as an Xbone and uses as much power as Apple's A8x chip.

http://tctechcrunch2011.fil...

It runs so cool the only heatsink required is a simple heat spreader like is found on most tablet chips.

ABizzel1- Considering it's benchmarking at roughly 2x the performance of the Tegra K1, yea... it's doing 1.0 tflop.

[ABizzel1]

That's peak performance via lab test, not in a retail mobile product, which is the same things they did with the Tegra K1. A 1GHz clock for max potential performance, then clocks were knocked down to 500 MHz for battery life in mobile devices.

[edqe]

http://www.hardwarezone.com...

I hope we will see some gaming devices using this new chip. It is amazing how fast things progress.

[Noctis]

Yes but will they actually come out with worthwhile products?

[KTF26]

I watched the live stream
nvidia CEO said it clearly
this is not for mobile phones
the keynote was about integrating this chip with automobiles
there wasn't anything about mobile phones or tablets

Edit:
also,
He said it's more power efficient
but he mentioned it consume about 10 watt
that's too much for a smartphones and tablets

power efficiency does NOT mean lower power consuming
it means better use of power
How much you can get from each watt consumed

[DragoonsScaleLegends]

I don't care how powerful a tablet, phone, or pc is. I will still buy the platforms with the best classics and game series. The best thing about my awesome PC is PS2, Wii, and GCN emulation. A powerful phone and tablet does not fix the issues of touch controls or tiny screens.

[traumadisaster]

I have found some slow paced strategy and turn based games recently that work better. Kotor, civilization, etc. So in a pinch better than nothing.

[DougLord]

The K1 is an amazing chip for gaming and has good battery life. Go check out the Shield Tablet. I have the original Shield portable with a Tegra 4. That thing lasts 10 hours easy. Hopefully we get a new Shield with this in it. This blows away most laptop GPUs. In fact we are already starting to creep up on the Xone and PS4.

As to the above comments, based on the specs and the K1, you will see roughly 500 Gflops in phones and 900 to 1,000 in tablet for depending on size. Devices with some heft like the Shield portable will deliver the full terraflop.

And Apple's next Ipad won't be far behind. This is why this is the last generation of physical consoles. In 2016 Tablets will be more powerful then PS4.

[Neo_Zeed]

It's too early to write off physical consoles as dead.

If you've been gaming PC and consoles as long as I have... you'll realize the fallacy of your statement. Consoles have always fallen behind in power. Yet it is PC gaming that nearly died. It's resurgence is due to console ports.

Should the mobile market eclipse the consoles in power... it will mean absolutely nothing. Apple created a problem for the mobile market by flooding the store with 99¢ apps. Untill they can shift that market into paying considerably more... nobody will make AAA titles for them. Untill then their potential power is irrelevant.

[Neo_Zeed]

Still waiting to see a PS2 quality mobile game that isn't a port.

The problem is that nobody makes AAA games for mobile devices.