NEW YORK: NVIDIA has thrown down the gauntlet to Apple in the mobile chip power stakes. While the A8X chip used in the iPad Air 2 has so far blown away the competition, NVIDIA has shown off benchmarks indicating that its new mobile superchip, the Tegra X1, leaves it standing.
The benchmark data shared with SlashGear were heavier on graphics than hard data, but appear to show that the chip significantly outperforms the A8X, with NVIDIA saying that it will offer “silky-smooth 60fps 4K video.” The one number the company did share is that when throttled back to match the GPU performance of the Apple chip, power efficiency was 1.7 times better.
It should be noted that NVIDIA is comparing actual A8X performance in the iPad Air 2 with its own chip bolted to a heatsink in order to simulate a tablet environment, but the power consumption of the Apple chip was measured by taking the iPad apart and isolating the GPU.
Apple will also continue to hold the mobile superchip crown for some time yet: the X1 is so far only in the manufacturer testing stages, and NVIDIA has so far said only that it is likely to appear in products sometime this year.
It has been reported that production of the A9 chip destined for next year’s iPhones is already underway, with suggestions that Samsung may get 100% of the orders thanks to its 14-nanometer process.
