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Nvidia Announces 192-Core Tegra K1 Chips, Bets On Android

Posted by samzenpus on from the get-it-while-it's-hot dept.

sfcrazy writes "Nvidia just announced Tegra K1, its first 192-core processor. NVIDIA CEO Jen-Hsun Huang made the announcement at CES 2014. He also said that Android will be the most important platform for gaming consoles. 'Why wouldn't you want to be open, connected to your TV and have access to your photos, music, gaming. It's just a matter of time before Android disrupts game consoles,' said Huang." Nvidia's marketing department created a crop circle to promote the chip after CEO Jen Hsun Huang declared that it was so advanced that "it's practically built by aliens."

9 of 128 comments (clear)

  1. "Android most important platform for gaming" by mrchaotica · · Score: 4, Informative

    Nvidia's just saying that because they lost the bid for all the consoles.

    (It doesn't mean it's not true, though.)

    --

    "[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz

    1. Re:"Android most important platform for gaming" by UnknowingFool · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Well maybe, but also there is the trend that most people are playing games on smart phones and not consoles. For everyone that bought a new game for PS4 or Xbox One, there are probably 10x as many consumers who bought Candy Crush Saga. Not everyone wants to spend hours in front of TV or monitor playing games. Some people just want a bit of downtime between doing other things.

      --
      Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
    2. Re:"Android most important platform for gaming" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Nobody wants to spend $300 dollars on a console that ties up your $500 TV while your using it and buy a few $60 games on top of it, when you can just download a game on your phone that you already have and spend $4 on it.

      Both of those things give entirely different experiences. There will be plenty of people who prefer casual games on a phone screen, there will be plenty who prefer high-resolution fancy graphics displayed on their big TV with a control system more flexible than a touch screen, and there will be many who enjoy both depending on what they're in the mood for.

      It's like arguing that nobody in their right mind would buy a $400 PC with a $150 monitor and $60 software packages on top of that when you can download an office app that lets you do spreadsheets and other office work on that phone you already have. People now have the option of using a phone when they want to which wasn't an option in the past, so of course some people will make that jump when it suits them, but it doesn't mean that console/PC systems are obsolete and have nothing to offer anymore.

  2. Re:"...powered by the 192-core NVIDIA Kepler GPU.. by PhrostyMcByte · · Score: 4, Informative

    The CPU in this has four 32-bit 2.3GHz Cortex A15 cores. A model will come out later with two 64-bit 2.5GHz "Denver" cores -- a CPU of NVidia's own making which they haven't released many details about but their benchmarks show as significantly faster.

    When I saw them marketing it as 192 cores I let out a sigh... because these kind of dumb tactics are so expected now.

  3. Practically built by Aliens? by Anarchduke · · Score: 4, Funny

    Why didn't they give this the code name Roswell?

    --
    who prays for Satan? Who in 18 centuries has had the humanity to pray for the 1 sinner that needed it most? ~Mark Twain
  4. Practically built by aliens by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    Better be careful with statements like "Practically built by aliens". Nvidia might be getting a visit from immigration control to make sure their aliens are not illegal.

  5. Re:"Practically built by aliens", huh ? by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I suppose that adds a cool, hip, sci-fi spin to the fact that we farmed out development to an outsourcing shop somewhere in ethniclashistan to save money...

  6. First? by gman003 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    To begin with, the summary and headline are being misleading - that's 192 GPU "cores" (really ALUs - there's only one scheduler on this entire GPU), so it's already inaccurate. But it's also hardly the first Nvidia chip with 192 "cores".

    First Tegra with a 192-core GPU, but it's not their first 192-core GPU. Their first was the GeForce 260, followed by the GeForce GTS 450, GTX550 Ti, GT630, and GT635.

    In fact, this is basically a GT630 with a smaller memory interface (64-bit LPDDR3 instead of 128-bit DDR3) and a few power optimizations.

    The sad thing is, they don't have to make up bullshit for marketing - they're bringing a full-fledged, full-featured GPU to mobile products, with all the modern features that entails. And even with just one SMX at low clocks, that's still a lot of horsepower - I run Crysis at 1080p on high with just two SMX units (660M). Putting that amount of power into a tablet would be impressive on its own, no lying about "cores" necessary.

    1. Re:First? by Nemyst · · Score: 3, Informative

      The problem is, you needed an entire paragraph to get your point across (and that's assuming people know what Crysis is, which is fine on PC but not so much on mobile). They need to make it sound impressive in five words or less, otherwise the fickle market has already turned their collective head elsewhere.