Marvell goes Snapdragon hunting, announces Armada 610 mobile processor
By Tim Stevens 
posted January 5th 2010 12:09PM
posted January 5th 2010 12:09PM
Qualcomm's Snapdragon is king of the mobile hill right now, but you just knew that wouldn't last long, right? Marvell is now after its throne, announcing the Armada 610. It's a "gigahertz class" mobile CPU that can not only do 1080p decoding but can handle encoding too, even able to pump pixels to four high-res (2,000 x 2,000) displays at once -- you know, just in case you have a pocket full of pico projectors. Open GL ES 2.0 is on tap, so 3D gaming should be a cinch, and while there's no specific specs given, the chip is said to need "extremely low power." It certainly sounds like a good combo to us, and that the chip is now shipping in limited samples to OEMs is even better news.
Wouldnt the graphic be more appropriate with a bunch of Spanish War Galleons?
Or hell, even a Nissan Armada would do...
@Rick James
No because they are going dragon hunting.
@Rick James
How do you figure spanish war galleons? I'm just curious how you came up with that one.
@livewire
Well you could still go dragon hunting with a bunch of Spanish War Galleons...
Besides, if we want to get technical, they should be snapdragon picking--and last time I checked snapdragons are a flower in the Scrophulariaceae family...
@dez
Spanish Armada? Perhaps? Just an idea...
@dez http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Armada
this makes me happy in the pants
I have a Nissan Armada
@TonyMontana2367
downranked.
@dez *fucked in the face*
@TonyMontana2367
Sorry to hear that, dude.
Finally, another choice beside Qualcomm
@phone lover There is already other choices besides Qualcomm, (Texas Instruments, Nvidia) it's just that there not as cheap.
@1ofdakoolkidz I know, that's why i go for the Droid. However, for the 1 Ghz chip-set on smart-phone platform, there's only Snapdragon available in the market for now.
@Ike Turner tell me about it. Nvidia Tegra took friggin forever as well. But it's nice to know what's coming down the line 5 years from now!
Snapdragon was never king of the hill...the Omap3 series owns it, and OMAP4 will reign as king.
@(Unverified)
Snapdragon is king of the hill when it comes to sheer power, yes, the OMAP3 platform may have more devices that use it, but that doesn't make it any better...
@TT Snapdragon is not the king of the hill - it barely beats out almost 2 year old OMAP3 designs, and is no match for new 45nm OMAP3 or OMAP4 devices.
The only advantage it has is that it contains Qualcomm's 3G baseband on-chip meaning mobile solutions can be made smaller and cheaper. That's a big advantage and the advantage it should be touted for. For some reason, Engadget insists on continuing the MHz-myth and playing CPU clock speed as the only factor in system performance.
@limaxray
I know right, since when did MHZ ever matter with RISC cpus anyways? Just something to advertise so the inept public can say "I have a 1ghz phone!"
Output to up to four monitors?! Droll....
Dear Research In Motion,
I know you have a hard-on for Marvell processors, put this in your new upcoming Bold replacement the Magnum, and i make love to you long time ok?
Kthnxbai
Should work well with the new projector phones coming....2010 will be very interesting.