Nvidia is aiming to outgun competitors with its new weapon in the form of a mobile processor called Tegra K1. The device offers performance beyond that of the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, according to NVIDIA, which is quite an achievement for a mobile processor. However, that's only the tip of the iceberg. The chip, apparently, is more powerful than Apple's A7 chip, which powers iPhone 5s and the Snapdragon 800 chip, which powers Samsung Galaxy Note 3 as well as the LG Nexus 5, so far as benchmark tests go, though the new chip has yet to ship inside a product to prove how well it would perform in real world usage.
At the recently concluded CES 2014, Lenovo turned up with a new 4K ThinkVision 28 display/PC all-in-one device. According to Tom Hardware, the device is powered by the NVIDIA Tegra K1, and it managed to do some benchmarking on the chip. What Tom Hardware discovered was a chip with some serious performance capabilities and a whole lot of potential. What they didn't say though, is if the chip was able to outperform the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 in RAW computing power.
The version inside the Lenovo ThinkVision is underclocked to 2GHz; however, it is meant to perform at speeds up to 2.5GHz. Despite being underclocked, Tegra K1 manages to outperform the Snapdragon 800 chip and the A7 chip on benchmarks including 3DMark, GFXBench, and AnTuTu.
With every new chip design, one should expect the performance to be higher in every respect, but according to Tom Hardware, the performance difference here is HUGE. This is quite interesting, not to mention that the Tegra K1 itself is underpowered by 15 percent. Furthermore, the Lenovo All-In-One PC that is powered by the NVIDIA Tegra K1 has a 4K monitor, which should give an idea how powerful this chip is.
The big question is, will NVIDIA use the Tegra K1 in smartphones? We don't think so as it might be too powerful and might generate too much heat. However, NVIDIA might eventually release a version for smartphones that is capable of giving off a decent performance. For the time being though, the NVIDIA Tegra K1 is aimed at tablets and PCs, which is a territory controlled by Intel and AMD.
