NVIDIA Tegra Architecture

[Ailuros]

Well if we take Q1'15 and Q2'16 as the probable release dates, it would be 5 quarters, which is a bit more that the gap between the previous tegra chips afaik.

Why Q1 15 and a not a bit later? Unless we're picking at straws it makes little difference if between generations there are 11 or 13 months as just examples, it's more or less a yearly cadence.

Though another thing is I see Erista sticking around for quite a while even after its 16nm succesor is released. 16nm capacity will be expensive and availability would be limited initially. There is no significant increase in density from 20nm to 16nm so the configurations would largely be similar. There would be some gains in power/and or performance, but at considerably higher production costs. So Erista may suffice for a lot of customers as it would be priced significantly lower and would not trail behind in performance all that much. So it could have a reasonably long life cycle.

If a company is concentrating mostly on markets like the automotive it doesn't really need any cut throat roadmap in the end either. Even K1 is far ahead compared to anything else automotive that it's already a joke to make any comparisons. In other words there's nothing wrong with it if things are slowing down, especially if Erista proves as efficient as everyone expects it to be.

Agreed..but in this case it would be ~5-6 mm2 in total so its not all that high in the context of a ~100 mm2 SoC. And again I'll point you to my post above as to the reasons why I think it wont be completely useless. Given the timeframe, the features could very well be utilised towards the later part of its lifecycle.

The smaller the actual die estate of an SoC the higher the persentage of it those 5-6mm2 will be in the end. It's not the desktop market where you can still within boundaries throw around with transistors, area and burn a couple of watts more at worst.

 

[Ailuros]

If first silicon for Tegra M1 Erista was available in July 2014, then that would be ~ 1 year after first silicon for Tegra K1 Logan was available. So I would realistically expect to see Tegra M1 Erista in devices by Q2 2015. And if that first Tegra M1 variant has Cortex A57 + A53 cores, then I would expect to see a second Tegra M1 variant with Denver cores in devices by Q4 2015. And then the cycle would repeat in 2016 with Tegra M2 [Maxwell GPU], and in 2017 with Tegra P1 [Pascal GPU].

Just out of curiosity since there was never any Pascal mentioned on any roadmap or more precise nothing above Erista, what is Pascal as a GPU standing for in a SoC exactly? NV-link in a SoC or stacked ram?

 

[ams]

Just out of curiosity since there was never any Pascal mentioned on any roadmap or more precise nothing above Erista, what is Pascal as a GPU standing for in a SoC exactly? NV-link in a SoC or stacked ram?

I used Pascal simply to represent the name of NVIDIA's next generation GPU beyond Maxwell since "Volta" has apparently been pushed further out (the only thing new about Pascal that we really know is unified memory, 3D memory, NVLink, cache coherency, etc.). NVIDIA typically moves to a new GPU architecture every two years, so I expect to see some form of Maxwell GPU used in Tegra in 2015 and 2016.

 

[Ailuros]

It was an honest question; rumors so far indicate anyway that Pascal's ALUs to Maxwell's are very similar.

 

[Deleted member 13524]

Denver K1 confirmed for Google Nexus 9:
http://www.google.com/nexus/9/

Too bad for the screen ripped off from iPad Mini..

 

[ninelven]

Wow, it must be expensive to produce, buying all of those ipad minis and tearing the screens off them to use.

 

[trinibwoy]

Wow, it must be expensive to produce, buying all of those ipad minis and tearing the screens off them to use.

Lol.

Looks pretty sweet. When can we expect reviews?

 

[ams]

iPad Mini Retina Screen Size: 7.9"
Nexus 9 Screen Size: 8.9"

In other words, they are using two different screens that happen to have the same resolution

On a side note, Google has accidentally listed the Kepler GPU as "DX1"!!! http://www.google.com/nexus/9/

 

[Deleted member 13524]

iPad Mini Retina Screen Size: 7.9"
Nexus 9 Screen Size: 8.9"

In other words, they are using two different screens that happen to have the same resolution

On a side note, Google has accidentally listed the Kepler GPU as "DX1"!!! http://www.google.com/nexus/9/

Arrgh ok I assume: I'm totally butthurt that this is coming with a 4:3 screen.

I use my tablet so much for movies and series and I hope to use my tablet and future tablets also as streaming clients for games, that I'm a bit threatened by this ratio.

 

[Turbotab]

Looks good, can't wait for an in-depth analysis of Denver.
Noticed that the 2.3 GHz CPU frequency is slighly lower than Nvidia's clock target of 2.5 GHz
http://www.anandtech.com/show/7622/nvidia-tegra-k1/2

 

[ams]

I am impressed with how HTC and Google integrated the two front-firing stereo speakers in such a tasteful way: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYHY3MFiq1o

 

[Laurent06]

Arrgh ok I assume: I'm totally butthurt that this is coming with a 4:3 screen.

I use my tablet so much for movies and series and I hope to use my tablet and future tablets also as streaming clients for games, that I'm a bit threatened by this ratio.

I use my tablet mainly for browsing (vertical position) so I'm glad of the ratio. OTOH 2GB of RAM is disappointing.

 

[Alexko]

So when can we expect this tablet to be available to reviewers?

 

[wco81]

Woulnd't it be better for Nvidia if Google would continue the Nexus pricing?

If it was $100 less, they'd sell far more devices and Nvidia would have some volume out there.

 

[ams]

The old Nexus 10 had an MSRP of $399 with 2GB RAM and 16GB storage space, just like the new Nexus 9. Obviously the Nexus 9 is a much more powerful, much lighter, and much more polished device in comparison too (and it should be given how old the Nexus 10 is).

Google is able to provide CPU performance, GPU performance, screen quality, audio quality, OS quality, and aesthetics that are as good or better than the next gen iPad Air 2 for $100-$120 less money, so that is a pretty good accomplishment.

 

[trinibwoy]

Any theories on why Google is being so quiet about this launch?

 

[ams]

Any theories on why Google is being so quiet about this launch?

Apparently Google is still making some tweaks to the Android "L" OS software, so they didn't want to do a full hands-on reveal at this time for all of these showcase devices. Personally I think they should have done it anyway, just to showcase some of the hardware and software.

 

[Ailuros]

Any theories on why Google is being so quiet about this launch?

In order to keep us from waiting in lines for it since they probably can't cover the demand

Let me see....shipping is supposed to start early November...things should settle a bit right before Xmas....uhmmm hey Santa....

 

[TomK]

Probably Denver geekbench results:

http://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench3/1014788

Solid single core performance around 1800 and it is in 32bit mode. Looking forward 64bit tests.

 

[Xmas]

Arrgh ok I assume: I'm totally butthurt that this is coming with a 4:3 screen.

I use my tablet so much for movies and series and I hope to use my tablet and future tablets also as streaming clients for games, that I'm a bit threatened by this ratio.

There are plenty of wide aspect ratio tablets available, there will be plenty more. This one just fits someone else's requirements.