After the 2015 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas got off to a blazing start, NVIDIA's CEO, Jen-Hsun Huang, was able to unveil what he calls the world's first superchip. According to the executive, the Tegra X1 chipset is able to deliver twice the graphics horsepower compared to its predecessor, the Tegra K1. The Tegra X1 is said to deliver a teraflop of processing power, which is equivalent to the same amount of processing power that the world's first supercomputer, the ASCI Red, was able to deliver.
The ASCI Red consumed over 500,000 watts to deliver the teraflop of processing power. The Tegra X1 can replicate the same feat while consuming less than 10 watts, and measuring the size of a thumbnail. According to the hardware specifications, the Tegra X1 features an octa-core, 64-bit capable processor, 4 GB of RAM and is armed with a 256 core Maxwell GPU. The earlier Tegra K1 chipset only featured a 192 core GPU that was based on the company's previous graphics architecture, Kepler.
In addition to delivering unparalleled processing power, the Tegra X1 is also capable of decoding videos with 4K resolution at a steady 60 frames per second, while providing lightning fast performance in mobile gaming applications.
According to a press release, the Tegra X1 will "begin appearing in the first half of the year."So far, NVIDIA has not commented on the chip's appearance in smartphones and tablets. However, the superchip will be incorporated into car computers, allowing vehicles to auto-park themselves using surveillance from 12 different camera feeds present in the car to provide it with a complete 360-degree view of the external surroundings.
The last product that featured NVIDIA's chip was the Nexus 9. NVIDIA's sales performance was thoroughly unsatisfactory as the firm was up against the likes of Qualcomm, MediaTek and Samsung's homegrown chips, resulting in the company pulling the plug on adding its chips to smartphones.
