Nvidia’s next-gen Tegra 3 “Kal-El” platform has been demoed a time or two before showcasing the brute force four cores will soon bring. The only thing — there’s five cores.
But before you start getting all glassy-eyed, it’s important to note a few things…
While Kal-El actually has ARM Cortex A9s with MPE located on each die, it actually takes a 4 + 1 approach. The traditional 4 cores we’ve been hearing about all work on one power plane, able to clock up or down individually but ultimately “being one”. The 5th “companion core” is a lower power variant that will only activate in low power situations (ie: when the screen is off) to keep data flowing. This companion core runs at a lower voltage and apparently will only clock up to 500 MHz.
The 4 + 1 setup Kal-El will employ should provide a healthy boost to battery life even with additional cores over Tegra 2′s dual-core arrangement. Excited yet?
Via: AnandTech
