Lo and Behold!!! The quad core devices are here and it's most definitely their year. While 2011 was a great year where we saw the tablets and smartphones graduating from using a single-core processor to a dual-core processor, 2012 will be the year when gadgets will start coming integrated with quad-cores which will perform much better as compared to their dual core counterparts.
ARM has been licensing its designs to companies like Nvidia and Samsung for a while now and these companies have been very successful in manufacturing the processors designed by ARM. This shows in the success of single-core 1 Ghz smartphones that companies like HTC, Samsung came out with and it had got reiterated with the success of dual-core smartphones. Now, Nvidia has started manufacturing quad-core processors with Samsung not far behind.
The HTC One X and the Samsung Galaxy S III are the most talked about devices currently each sporting a quad-core processor System on Chip, although these do have a different architecture compared to one aonther. The HTC One X sports an Nvidia Tegra 3 and the Samsung Galaxy S III sports an Exynos 4 Quad. While Tegra 3 is an evolution of Tegra 2, the Exynos 4 Quad is an evolution of Exynos 4 Dual.
The major highlight of Nvidia Tegra 3 is that it doesn't have 4 processors but it has 5! The extra 5th core is actually a companion core, clocked at a lesser frequency as compared to the other 4 cores, that takes over in the case of low intensive tasks that doesn't require running the other 4 processors. With this companion core, Nvidia Tegra 3 will make the device consume lesser battery and consequently make the device run much longer. Performance is obviously better than Nvidia Tegra 2 and that is pretty much expected
The Exynos 4 Quad also attempts to differentiate itself on the basis of the battery life factor. It is built using 32nm HKMG (High K Metal Gate) process that allows the device to consume battery at a much lesser rate than compared to Exynos 4 Dual which is built using the 45 nm process.
What is common to both the processors however is that both of them deliver excellent performance with enhanced graphics and superb processing power (The 4 cores in both the System on Chips are ARM Cortex A9s). Although, the initial reviews have suggested that Exynos 4 Quad has an edge as compared to Tegra 3 due to its 32nm process build. The Eyxnos 4 Quad also allows you to play most of the video formats thanks to the ARM Mali 400 MP GPU unit in it.
The Exynos 4 Quad has also impressed another company: Meizu. Meizu's MX Quad Core phone also uses the Exynos 4 Quad System on Chip and the initial benchmark tests on this device have rated it at the top of the current crop of android devices. While benchmark tests do not necessarily indicate real world performance it nevertheless indicates the level of performance one can expect.
So, going by the initial indications it seems that both the SoCs: Nvidia Tegra 3 and Exynos 4 Quad are highly capable of delivering excellent performance. We'll just have to wait for the devices and see the extent to which we are going to like them.
Stay Tuned..!!
Stay Tuned..!!
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