At CES 2013, we’ve seen wild competition between mobile processor manufacturers. Yesterday we seen Nvidia intro the TEGRA 4 and today we seen the Qualcomm 800. Both of these chip architectures are capable of some amazing things. The mobile processors both house quad-core CPU processors and can push 4K video from a phone or tablet to a 4K TV.
In terms of speed, Nvidia claimed that the Tegra 4 was the World’s fastest mobile processor and for 24 hours that may have been true. According to Qualcomm they are ‘faster than the competition’, without benchmarks, we’ll have to take their word for now. Either way, these are both powered some impressive demos.
These mobile chips also battle it out over wireless technologies like 4G LTE and now the latest WiFi standard 802.11AC. In a cart-before-the-hourse move, we seen Gigabit AC routers arrive last year, but now 2012 is shaping up to be the year we get devices to take advantage of that extra speed.
Nvidia showed off their 72-GPU cores being put to good use with Computational Photography. This is live HDR on a device. While impressive for a phone, the Canon EOS M we recently reviewed essentially delivers the same pre-image result preview.
Qualcomm weren’t being outdone in the differentiation stakes by announcing partnerships with auto manufacturer Audi to turn cars into mobile hotspots. During the keynote, they actually talked about inductive charging in electric vehicles and even brought an electric converted Rolls Royce on-stage. While the concept of a connected car is incredibly inviting, but if it requires another mobile bill, you can forget that one.
Officially it’s only day one of CES 2013, but there’s been an amazing amount of announcements. The good news is, CES is alive and well, not on the way out as some had suggested. Whichever of these chips end up powering your next mobile device, you won’t be disappointed. Chips start shipping in the second half of this year.
