Quad-Core Phones on the Horizon

[JohnDroid]

If you are excited by the prospect of owning one of the new NVIDIA Tegra 2 powered smart-phones coming out soon, like the LG Star we reported on here a couple days ago, then prepare to get enthused to the power of four! According to public comments recently from NVIDIA's CEO Jen-Hsun Huang and info gathered from some white papers on NVIDIA's website, they are already almost finished with Tegra 3 and are working hard on Tegra 4. You can read a bit more over at Phandroid.

Next year will probably be the banner year for dual-core phones, but it's possible that 2012 will be the banner year for quad-core phones. Interestingly, most folks assume that dual-core and quad-core chips in phones will kill battery life, but actually if you dig deeper into the technology you find that moving to multi-core designs actually improves battery life. This is because the 'multi-brained' chips can process more information at lower clock speeds, and lower clock speeds means less power consumption.

By dgstorm

 

[barski]

that's a lot of power under the hood of a phone. hopefully the size stays around 4.3".

 

[Detonation]

My PC doesn't even have a quad core in it...

 

[Martin030908]

I just recently upgraded to a quad-core PC!!

technology moves so fast!

 

[cereal killer]

I just recently upgraded to a quad-core PC!!

technology moves so fast!

Only a Quad-Core?.....I have six of em : )

Back to the topic at hand. I wouldn't doubt that we will see the Quad Cores by the end of summer 2012. Just a hunch.

Regardless, I'm looking forward to running the T2 first and then advancing onto nvidia's T3 and T4.


Sent from my Droid

 

[Martin030908]

I just recently upgraded to a quad-core PC!!

technology moves so fast!

Only a Quad-Core?.....I have six of em : )

Back to the topic at hand. I wouldn't doubt that we will see the Quad Cores by the end of summer 2012. Just a hunch.

Regardless, I'm looking forward to running the T2 first and then advancing onto nvidia's T3 and T4.


Sent from my Droid

I used to always have the top of the line PC's until I gave up on PC gaming and dedicated gaming to my Xbox 360.

... a quad-core fits just right for me since I only use my PC for music and the web

 

[Martin030908]

back on topic.... I wanna see a dual core in my hand.... quad-core makes me think I should hold off on getting a dual... :icon_ devil:

 

[shiccy]

After having my Droid 1 and using my parents Droid 2 for a few minutes, it excites me to no end to be able to have something less power hungry and more processor intensive in my hands. Definitely looking forward to large advances in this tech!

I sit here wondering whether or not the HDMI out on some of the current phones will have more of a common every day occurrence soon with these new handsets since more phones will be technologically capable of having that output.

 

[Stevessvt]

Isnt this like when desktop computing started to use multi cores with Win XP, to be most efficient, both the OS and app need to be written to take advantage of multiple cores, otherwise for the most part 1 core is being maxed most of the time while the second sits in wait.

 

[furbearingmammal]

back on topic.... I wanna see a dual core in my hand.... quad-core makes me think I should hold off on getting a dual... :icon_ devil:

At some point you have to take the plunge -- unless you're using your phone to play Crysis 2 I doubt you'll need a quad.

On the other hand, until they thread the apps and OS code the only benefit for a multi-core processor is if you're running multiple apps at the same time.

 

[carlz28]

Isnt this like when desktop computing started to use multi cores with Win XP, to be most efficient, both the OS and app need to be written to take advantage of multiple cores, otherwise for the most part 1 core is being maxed most of the time while the second sits in wait.

I certainly remember this dilemma with PCs. Hopefully Google's next few releases will incorporate this kind of technological possibility. But it makes you wonder if it's already possible since dual-cores are a mere few months away. I'm not very knowledgeable on the way CPUs an OS' handle this stuff, but maybe it won't be thank difficult after all. Now writing apps to utilize multi-core phones, that could be a whole different ball game.

 

[kodiak799]

I have a quad core laptop (actually 8 processors)....Thing runs hot enough to burn you at times. Hard to imagine that tech being viable in a phone. I guess the processors themselves would have a much lower clock speed so not nearly as much heat, but still.

That's the future and these phones replace netbooks and tablets. Just hook up an lcd screen (maybe with bluetooth technology) and you're good to go. That'd be a lot of power in a phone, capable of replacing probably 90% of PC's for people at home AND work.

 

[kodiak799]

I certainly remember this dilemma with PCs. Hopefully Google's next few releases will incorporate this kind of technological possibility. But it makes you wonder if it's already possible since dual-cores are a mere few months away. I'm not very knowledgeable on the way CPUs an OS' handle this stuff, but maybe it won't be thank difficult after all. Now writing apps to utilize multi-core phones, that could be a whole different ball game.

Yes, applications have to be coded to utilize multi-thread processors. But maybe Win7 resolved that issue.

 

[cereal killer]

Isnt this like when desktop computing started to use multi cores with Win XP, to be most efficient, both the OS and app need to be written to take advantage of multiple cores, otherwise for the most part 1 core is being maxed most of the time while the second sits in wait.

Great observation and excellent point. From my understanding Gingerbread is being optimized for the Dual-Core Tegra2. Nvidia and Google are working hand in hand.

The early video of the LG Star is not a good barometer of how well the Tegra will perform because it's running on 2.2. Once Gingerbread drops it will be a whole other thing.

 

[johnomaz]

Dont' forget, the quadcore in a phone will be nothing like a quadcore in a PC. I can see each core doing a specific task and when that task isn't being done, its not in use. That would be a huge battery life advancement. At the same time though, who cares. I am a huge tech nerd and frankly, phones don't excite me that much. I love my DroidX, but really, it is just a phone. quad core phones are just a selling point.