Kal-el is coming... Quad A9s

Nvidia have been giving out more information on Project Denver. Here’s a link to an Anandtech article which has some video and explanation of the new architecture.

One rival to this is OMAP 5 from Texas Instruments.

Enjoy :)

;-) I guess Kal-el is nearly here… AFAICT it’s a quad core ARM processor with integrated Nvidia graphics. I’ve collated a number of links below for anyone that’s interested…

The first one demonstrates the tablet form factor @Engadget

Graphics & accelerometer demo – @Youtube

I’ve included the next link as it demonstrates some of the other ARM based form factors, Kal-el based, towards the end of the video – Partner Demo

I have to admit I’m stunned by the speed at which new ARM hardware is coming out….

:)

It’s all very impressive – the lighting looks great. The GTS450 in my PC always boggles the mind generating hugely complex scenes at 1920×1200 on two screens. It would be great in time to work with something where we get some access to the 3D acceleration. I think Mesa has some NVidia hardware support already as an example (although whether this uses another OS driver I don’t know). For now the BB XM is a great place to start learning the ropes.

I can see plenty of momentum in ARM powered tiny PCs as well as tablets. A tiny PC with SSD hard disc and a standard interface connector for a dock / monitor slot would have huge potential in Business – you don’t have to keep buying a new screen each time and can use a large desktop monitor which for many business apps is essential. Very few apps actually use all the horsepower of the latest Intel processors, so for many people all that power consumption is pointless. Of course you’d want to be able to drop in a phone / tablet into the slot(s) as well and use it as a desktop PC when sat at a desk.

Windows on ARM is there so the most major obstacle (“non standard”) will be gone.

My experience in running a significant business for the past 10 years is that storage systems and networks are most important from a hardware standpoint, and the quality and reliability of apps is most important to users. Finance like low power and low bills. Storage is changing radically now with SSD discs giving huge IOPS and will render data-centres full of discs a thing of the past in the next few years as capacities go through the 1TB level and beyond and prices plummet. The reliability of solid state can kill the need for RAID and moves this out to a SAN offsite replication level. The cloud will gain traction but many larger businesses will remain wary of pushing their data beyond the firewall.

While Intel will fight hard, momentum is a great thing to have in the world of business.

That’s gone a bit off topic but it is perhaps astonishing to even think that ARM powered hardware has all this potential now.

It might of course all turn out completely different and I’m talking rubbish! :-)

I take it you guys all read that Microsoft have a veto on acquiring Nvidia. OK, that’s "nothing new".

[Edit: Maybe that means getting RO on the likes of the Tegra3 Asus Eee Pad Transformer 2 could be even less possible.]