Nvidia’s transition from the PC-grade to mobile phones (Tegra X1)

Jen-Hsun Huang, CEO of Nvidia, one of the world’s largest manufacturers of GeForce graphics processing unit (GPUs), and system-on-a-chip units (SOCs) recently announced at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas that the company wants to make the gaming experience on your mobile phone richer by bringing out a chip which enables you to feel the experience of your Xbox on your mobile phones. This chip, Tegra X1 is the latest addition to the family of Tegra chips. The processor runs on Maxwell, which is a 256-core GPU along with an Octacore central processing unit. Or put it in simpler words, what Nvidia plans to do is bring in a system that is not only extremely energy efficient but is powerful enough to bring PC-grade graphics into the comfort of the customer’s mobile phones without compromising on the standards.

Nvidia is trying it’s best to make a smooth shift from PC-grade technology into the mobile technology. This X1 is a step in the same process. The previous year saw the introduction of Kepler, which was the preceding generation to Maxwell to Nvidia Shield gaming handheld. This made use of Tegra K1 chip for the same process. The difference between X1 and K1 is that the former is twice as powerful as the latter. This makes it easier for smooth running of any application that was previously running on Maxwell on PCs. They demonstrated this with a video-“Elemental” which was in real time which was put together using Unreal Engine 4. Nvidia also plans to make all the games which are on PC-grade technology made by Epic to soon be available to be experienced on your mobile phones and tablets. This will be made possible by using the Tegra chip. It would also be interesting to note that Epic is one of the most competent and successful makers of game building tools.

Nvidia is also one of the main suppliers of gaming consoles of many companies like Microsoft and Sony. Qualcomm by Snapdragon is the leading supplier of mobile chips. Now Nvidia has a tough journey to beat Qualcomm and find acceptance among gamers. However the teraflop of computational power by Tegra X1 is more than what the present day’s mobile phones can handle.

The conference also saw a lot of time spent discussing its latest products like Drive PX and Drive CX products. Drive PX makes use of Tegra X1 to provide self-driving software and auto pilot to provide computer vision for automobiles and also for the next-generation cars. Drive CX can now be used for the navigation of cars’ center and also for driver monitoring among many other functions.

About Nvidia:

Nvidia Corporation is an American global technology company based in Santa Clara, California. Nvidia manufactures graphics processing units (GPUs), as well as system-on-a-chip units (SOCs) for the mobile computing market. Nvidia’s primary GPU product line, labeled “GeForce”, is in direct competition with AMD’s “Radeon” products. Nvidia also joined the gaming industry with its handheld Shield Portable and Shield Tablet, as well as the tablet market with the Tegra Note 7. Read more on Wikipedia.

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