ARM has introduced a new graphics core design which will offer ten times the performance available from the ARM Mali-T400 chips available today. In other words, you get a 1000% graphics performance boost over the chip in the Samsung Glaaxy S II, which is one of the fastest phones available today.
The new ARM Mali-T658 design is aimed at pones, tablets, and internet-connected televisions. The new design will be available in future ARM Cortex-A7 and Coretex A-15 processors. The chip designer says Fujitsu, LG, Samsung, and NuFront will support the new designs.
Since the graphics processor with up to 8 shader cores works independently from the CPU, future chips will be able to take advantage of the high performance graphics without running at full speed. In fact, Mali-T658 can work with ARM’s new big.LITTLE architecture, which means that you should be able to watch 3D or HD video or perform some other tasks while using a secondary low power processor core.
The Mali-T658 isn’t the only game in town though. NVIDIA’s new Tegra 3 chip features a quad-core CPU, a low-power companion CPU, and a 12-core graphics processor. The first device expected to ship with a Tegra 3 chip is the Asus Eee Pad Transformer, which is due out in December. Until devices with the next-generation Mali chip start shipping it’s tough to say which GPU will offer better graphics performance.
1000% sure sounds more impressive than 10x even though they are the same. Â It’s amazing how much they improve. Â It must be very difficult to increase the performance without increasing heat and power consumption since it’s for mobile devices.
10x SOUNDS impressive, but is normal progression in the industry.
My first PC had a 16 MHz CPU, my first HDD had 30 MB, my first 3D Graphics card had 4 MB of RAM…. hell, Phones today are higher clocked and have more RAM than Gaming PCs did 10 years ago!