Video: NVIDIA Tegra's GPU gets busy with HD video and full-screen Flash -- Intel 945GSE shrugs, kicks dirt

If you didn't believe the Tegra hype -- 25 days audio, 10 hours of 1080p video on single charge -- already then pull up a stool, son, NVIDIA wants to tell your a story. TechVideoBlog sat down with Gordon Grigor, NVIDIA's Director of Mobile Software to see Tegra's little Atom smasher in action. So sit back while Gordon smoothly streams a 720p MSN HD trailer off the web (over WiFi) then switches over to Firefox to take Flash for a spin at full-screen. Gordon also clarifies earlier confusion over Tegra's ability to handle HD video; see, the Tegra 600 can do H.264 video at 720p while the Tegra 650 can decode 1080p. Gordon also gives some more insight into memory configurations. It seems that the OS (either Android or Windows CE in single or dual-boot configurations) will be embedded with minimal on-board storage like those early Eee PCs. RAM will also be limited to about 512MB on base units going as low as 256MB and as high as 1GB in future (unannounced) devices. A 512MB model limits Firefox to about 3-4 opened tabs at a time. All of this is meant to keep prices down below $200 (or less when subsidized by carriers). Also of note is how the Tegra's GPU assists in rendering pixels anytime they appear on the display. In other words fonts, Firefox pages, scrolling, and of course video playback all benefit from an extra boost by the GPU. Check the video after the break to hear Gordon make some not so subtle jabs at Intel's relatively power-hungry Atom processor.

Update: It's worth mentioning that the first Tegra smartbooks are expected to launch in October according to Gordon.

[Templarian @ Jun 4th 2009 9:10AM]

Impressive. Can't wait to try one of these laptops out myself.

(although tbh, mostly want to see some phones and more tablet devices using this chip)

[Shinigami @ Jun 4th 2009 9:14AM]

This was intended for low-power devices like phones from the start, and Ion was made for the "netbooks". But I do like the idea of "under $200 laptop" more than $500+ one.

[astrodemoniac @ Jun 4th 2009 9:37AM]

Same here. Can't wait for a WinMo based phone with this. One can only hope :-/

[Platinum_Skeet @ Jun 4th 2009 10:25AM]

This is cool and all but I still rather see this in a phone.

[Ernesttechuser @ Jun 4th 2009 11:29AM]

Note how all their presentations have shown almost nothing but media.

It's such a shame that they didn't use an ARM A8 or A9 Cortex processor instead of the long-in-the-tooth ARM11 CPU.

It's all well and good that it can do HD, but if it's an absolute dog for OpenOffice and internet browsing, then what's the point.

[NG @ Jun 4th 2009 12:40PM]

for 200 bucks, it's mine :D

[benhc911 @ Jun 4th 2009 4:07PM]

I can't wait to test the battery life out... if they are being honest about the 25 DAYS audio, or 10 hours hd video, I am sooooo sold. I need something small like this to balance out the monster I pretend is a laptop, but works more like a tower pc with a short UPS. Any body know what kind of productivity apps are planned? I'm assuming slide viewer and text editor wouldn't be unreasonable? Because this might become an appealing school computer for me in University

[Shinigami @ Jun 4th 2009 9:12AM]

"beats snapdragon"? Fine, where's my under-$200 winmobile phone based on Tegra?

[Ike Turner @ Jun 4th 2009 9:37AM]

Actualy SnapDragon's ARM CPU (with NEON instructions) whoops the shit out of the ARM CPU in Tegra chipset. And the GPU part of SnapDragon is just as good as the Tegra (only in video decoding Tegra is better with some codecs/profiles). But obviously nVidia is not going to tell you that...

[Shinigami @ Jun 4th 2009 11:01AM]

@Ike Turner
Snapdragon has one advantage I know if - a release date. We'll see how fast it is and how long it can last before overheating and before battery dies after it gets out. At the moment all I know comes from press-conferences, not live tests.

[Ike Turner @ Jun 4th 2009 11:42AM]

Well, the Toshiba TG01 is already available (or will be in a few days) in japan on DOCOMO unlike Tegra wich is only "vapor/demoware" so far. And as I said before, the ARM11 CPU of Tegra is the SUCK compared to the TIOMAP3 & SnapDragon's Cortex based ARM CPUs.

TG01 playing back Youtube HD video in the brower (IEmobile).. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nF3m2RD_GWE

Kinoma Playon TG01 : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfYZ-bC20eM

[loosely_coupled @ Jun 4th 2009 8:48PM]

All the responses are correct here..

While the GPU may be better than the custom one in Qualcomm's Snapdragon or the PowerVR SGX530 in T.I.'s OMAP3, the CPU in the Tegra is crap. The Tegra uses a dual-core ARM11 running between 600-750 Mhz. the high-end Snapdragon and OMAP 3 use a ~1000Mhz CPU based on the ARM Cortex-A8*. Despite only being single-core, a Cortex-A8 has about double the performance as the ARM11 clock-for-clock. So the 1000mhz Cortex A8 should be far faster than a dual-core 650Mhz ARM11 .


*(Snapdragon actually uses a custom implementation of ARMv7 which is similar to an Cortex-A8, but a bit faster).

[7of7 @ Jun 4th 2009 9:15AM]

The ZuneHD is based on Tegra, so it should be a really compelling platform for game developers.

[Erwos @ Jun 4th 2009 9:26AM]

Sort of. The Tegra that Engadget is writing about is a much different chip than the APX 2500/2600 in the Zune HD.

[poached @ Jun 4th 2009 9:15AM]

unfortunately for my non-tegra accelerated mini 9, the flash video is very choppy. :(

[rcarm @ Jun 4th 2009 9:21AM]

Now all it needs is a blu-ray drive to make it a portable blu-ray player!

[GRAMMAR POLICE @ Jun 4th 2009 9:27AM]

Wow, fascinating observation.

[paul smith @ Jun 4th 2009 9:22AM]

this may be a silly question, but when this says it plays FLASH with ease, does that mean things like the MLB.COM hi-def baseball streams would work on it? and on the top level

(for non MLB.com subscribers, they stream the games live from their site using FLASH, there is a slide bar for quality, but the only one i enjoy watching is the top level quality)

if it does work fine, then are there any plans for a motherboard or desktop unit being produced using tegra.

thanks.

[Templarian @ Jun 4th 2009 9:25AM]

"if it does work fine, then are there any plans for a motherboard or desktop unit being produced using tegra."
I really hope not.

Also don't know about the site you listed, but things like Hulu should run a lot smoother is the general idea.

[paul smith @ Jun 4th 2009 9:38AM]

I am not thinking for a main pc, just a small, low power media option. I already have 3 pc's of differing speeds and power requirements.
I was all ready to buy an atom board to create a low powered option for streaming TV, but then I found out that the atom was never going to be adequate to do that when FLASH was involved.
so I really do hope that they make a mini-itx board with this chipset on it, if it can be used as the base of a media pc.

[Fanfoot @ Jun 4th 2009 1:29PM]

If you watch the video, he does NOT show HD full screen flash video playback on the device. He goes to a site that uses flash as a programming language to run a Google Earth like application. That doesn't tell you anything about how it will perform running Hulu or MLB.com "HD" video full screen, which is the thing that gives Atom systems fits, even those with Nvidia Ion GPUs on them.

Now they're in Taiwan, and most of those sites probably aren't going to work, but it seems like he *could* have picked a Flash VIDEO site to demo, and he chose not to, and the interviewer didn't notice the difference, and didn't call him on it (kind of a fanboy approach he's taking there if you ask me, but maybe that's what it takes to get this sort of interview).

So for the moment I'm going to assume the Tegra CANNOT play HD flash full screen any better than Atom.

[Charbax @ Jun 4th 2009 1:43PM]

He confirmed me, for now 720p HD Youtube will NOT work on the current Tegra chipset. Only 480x270 High Quality and Normal Youtube modes. Something about Youtube HD 720p using a too high H264 encoding complexity profile.

[JimboJones @ Jun 4th 2009 9:50PM]

yeah dude, i am assuming it cannot play HD better than fricin MacBook. The point is that it costs less than $200 and can play video for 10 hours without using battery bigger than my ass

[Joshua @ Jun 4th 2009 9:23AM]

"...all these amazing embedded Super 3D and Super HD and all these things..."

lolwat

[GRAMMAR POLICE @ Jun 4th 2009 9:28AM]

*lolwut

[superhobo @ Jun 4th 2009 9:30AM]

Laughable indeed, what did he mean?

[Art @ Jun 4th 2009 9:33AM]

nvidia>intel.
nothing knew here, folks

[jimjobe @ Jun 4th 2009 10:30AM]

I new you were going to say that.

[Mel @ Jun 4th 2009 5:50PM]

I see what you did there.

[htd @ Jun 4th 2009 9:33AM]

how about this chip functions as phone chip so a window based phone can have 2 OS with good battery life?

[Smacksmackums @ Jun 4th 2009 9:38AM]

Sounds great, but have any phones or mainstream devices been announced that are using this? Seems like it will be another year before we see these in hand.

[TareX @ Jun 4th 2009 9:40AM]

Give me the hi-res handheld Tegra already, NVIDIA.

[sockatume @ Jun 4th 2009 9:46AM]

A netbook that can play 1080p video, but can only open four Firefox tabs at a time? Yeah, I'm sure that's what customers are lining up for. A glorified PMP the size of a small house.

[cowabungaCarl @ Jun 4th 2009 10:21AM]

When you are watching a show on the internet, how often do you have 3 other tabs open, doing other things? Maybe internet habits are different but if I'm watching a video I usually don't need a bunch of other tabs open.

[JimboJones @ Jun 4th 2009 9:43PM]

The video is done my the chip vs browser tabs are limited by memory. Who frickin needs more than4 tabsat the same time anyway?

[Josh @ Jun 4th 2009 9:48AM]

Gordon Gekko?

[OneLove @ Jun 4th 2009 10:18AM]

He said ..."you can stream the whole internet in HD". lol.

[Kris @ Jun 4th 2009 10:19AM]

Sorry but this line is bothering the hell out of me: "NVIDIA wants to tell your a story"

[sam @ Jun 4th 2009 3:49PM]

omg that dude looks the same as the interviewer sounds. LIKE A DOUCHEBAG.

doesnt he remind you of this?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYxu_MQSTTY

[codeh87 @ Jun 4th 2009 11:00AM]

I wish someone else had interviewed him, my mind just switched off everytime he uttered some words.

"Ermmm ermmm ermmm super HD ermmm ermmm an all these things"

[Mizzike @ Jun 4th 2009 11:12AM]

Did you just say 25 days of audio...

[Skorpius @ Jun 4th 2009 11:28AM]

Useless for me on a Netbook until it can emulate X86. Till then its just a novelty media device.

[wbblair3 @ Jun 4th 2009 11:52AM]

It's pretty damned sad when 1W chips can do graphics that run rings around a 35W Atom system. Intel _seriosuly_ needs more competition in the x86 architecture mobile devices category. And imagine what the CPU world would be like if AMD ever went TU. Progress would slow to whatever Intel wanted it to be and I suspect that would be pretty slow.

[marulk @ Jun 4th 2009 11:57AM]

Wow. Gordon Freeman works for Nvidia? Cool.

[Ian Dean @ Jun 4th 2009 4:32PM]

that guy is hot!

[fontendet24 @ Jun 5th 2009 9:34PM]

I also like him.
Every gay sees gay within a mile
he's gay 100% and feel some french in him

[paul-engadget @ Jun 4th 2009 12:57PM]

the atom processor is not particularly power hungry (at least not compared to the mainstream processors) - it's the lack of a decent support chipset. the Poulsbo (US15W) is low power but is only really any good for handheld devices.

the new intel 945GSE chipset should solve some of the problems:
http://www.intel.com/support/motherboards/desktop/D945GSEJT/sb/CS-030300.htm

however, intel are way behind in GPUs so the arm variants (buzzwords: snapdragon, tegra, cortex a8, omap 34xx) should for specific accelerated applications be able to leave atom in the dust.

[Bill @ Jun 4th 2009 1:49PM]

Being sold to "carriers". So that means the $200 device comes with a 2-year commitment to a data plan?

[James @ Jun 4th 2009 2:01PM]

The guy's not green,
He doesn't look like a frog,
I couldn't see Miss Piggy in the video...

But he sounds exactly like Kermit!

[loopyoyo @ Jun 4th 2009 2:31PM]

150 bucks..that'll be a cold day in hell before the consumer ever see's it at this price..expect 300 bucks is all i gotta say