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In my previous post on Nvidia’s Processors I looked into the general capabilities of the two processors. Today I will be giving more emphasis into the Nvidia Tegra Processor. As we already know, the processor renders both 720p and 1080p high definition signals. The Tegra processor is also known for good power consumption considering the processor will run 720p HD for 26 hours compared to Intels 1 hour.

The Tegra 650 Specs:

• Processing ARM11 MPCore @ 800Mhz,16/32-bit LP-DDR NAND Flash support
• Audio/ Video Processing:1080p H.264 decode, 720p H.264 encode
  Supports multi-standard audio formats, including AAC, AMR, WMA and MP3. JPEG encode and decode acceleration
• Imaging Up to 12 megapixel camera sensor support, Integrated ISP, Advanced imaging features
• True dual-display support
  Maximum display resolutions supports:
  - 1080p (1920×1080) HDMI 1.3
  - WSXGA+ (1680×1050) LCD
  - SXGA (1280×1024) CRT
  - NTSC/PAL TV output

Tegra 600

• Processor ARM11 MPCore @ 700Mhz, 16/32-bit LP-DDR, NAND Flash support
• Audo/ Video Processing 720p H.264 and VC-1/WMV9 decode, 720p H.264 encode, Supports multi-standard audio formats, including AAC, AMR, WMA and MP3, JPEG encode and decode acceleration
• Imaging Up to 12 megapixel camera sensor support, Integrated ISP, Advanced imaging features
• True dual-display support
  Maximum display resolutions supports:
  - 720p (1280×720) HDMI 1.3
  - SXGA (1280×1024) LCD
  - SXGA (1280×1024) CRT
  - NTSC/PAL TV output

Even though the processor seems impressive Intel’s Atom processor uses the x86 architecture and so will be used on multiple of platforms within a mobile scope. The processor used is a ARM11 32 bit RISC which is usually used in mobile phone hardware. I’m still interested in where this processor will be used compared to Intels version.

I would put the Atom against the Tegra processor as such but you could say the Nvidia processor will be great for HD video but if Intel’s Atom processor can perform around the same level then Nvidia sales could be effected.

On the other hand, I will be interested in seeing what Nvidia will offer in the future. The Head man at Nvidia said the processor was created from the bottom up. The processor has no limit to its future because the architecture is new.

Hopefully I will have much more to talk about regarding the latest technology’s. Now that Intel and Nvidia are at war over more than GPUS where will they venture next?

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The first online retailer to release Intel’s Atom powered motherboards was announced today. The UK based firm Tranquil PC are selling the units ten pounds cheaper than the estimated retail price. The company have stated that the boards will start shipping within the first week of June.

The Intel D945GCLF mini-itx main board yes ITX not ATX. The system uses the 1.6 GHz Atom 230 processor. The impressive package can run Vista Home Media Center which in my opinion must be a fairy good system to tackle to-days multimedia requirements.

Intel have decided to adopt their latest 45nm procedure, the processor as mentioned before runs at 1.6Ghz uses 512Kb of L2 Cache, now consider a single core AMD/ Intel processor this little machine is on par with my old 3200XP machine, actually this board is faster! The Motherboard uses the Intel 945GC/ ICH7 Intel Chipset. This means the little machine has a in-built 10/100 LAN,PCI, SATA2 (3GB/s) and DDR2 533/ 667 Mhz memory.

Did I mention the motherboard is only 17cm by 17cm. For such a little package its a brilliant starter P.C but the system is so robust that the system could even be used as a bare-bone web server.

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Cray has decided to develop its future HPC around Intel’s silicon. This has become a problem for AMD. Cray did in fact have fabrications from AMD which included XT3, XT4 and XT5. Unfortunately for AMD the organisation was hoping that Cray would strike a 5 year deal with the company securing their current status in the market. Cray have now made a 5 year deal with Intel for HPC which is a massive blow for AMD.

Crays development has been centred round building custom interconnects supporting multiple AMD chips through hypertransport (AMD interconnect). Intel has a rival technology called quickpath possible for their new Larrabee and Nehalem products.

Cray are hoping to combine their efforts. Cray will be using Intels Quickpath along with their own high-bandwidth memory subsystems. They are hoping this will give them a significant leap forward in high performance computational tasks. The result? an exaflop! One quadrillion operations a second, I’ve only heard of TeraFlops!

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