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  • High-powered graphics chips are coming to cheap smartphones

    by 
    Daniel Cooper
    Daniel Cooper
    02.22.2016

    The company that created the iPhone's graphics chip wants to bring its pixel-crunching expertise to dirt-cheap smartphones. Imagination Technologies is launching the PowerVR 8XE, a new series of chips that offer vastly better graphics for far less cash. The hardware's designed to support the new Vulkan API, which promises graphically intensive mobile games without the usual jerkiness or slowdowns. Imagination's pitch is that rather than just building ever-bigger slices of silicon, it's learning to do a lot more with a lot less. In addition to dirt-cheap smartphones, the chips will be used in cheapie set-top boxes and cars.