Nvidia brings high-end PC graphics tech to mobiles with new Tegra K1

At CES this week, Nvidia unveiled the Tegra K1 -- a mobile processor based on the same Kepler architecture as its top-of-the-line GeForce GTX 780 Ti desktop GPU. What this amounts to, according to Nvidia, is the ability to bring high-end PC game graphics to mobile devices. It also opens up more possibilities for cross-platform game development across a variety of platforms and devices. Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang said during a CES press briefing that the Android operating system, combined with mobile processor advancements such as the K1, are destined to disrupt markets, including the video game console market. Tegra K1 has 192 cores and is capable of running Epic Games' next-gen Unreal Engine 4 (see video below). The new processor is the follow-up to the Tegra 4 mobile processor, though Huang said because the K1 is based on different architecture, the advancement actually branches off from the original Tegra line. Nvidia says the processor offers the same graphics features as PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, and can provide faster graphics than Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. The K1 supports DX11, OpenGL 4.4 and tessellation, and also makes advancements in computational capabilities for speech recognition and video editing for mobile, according to Nvidia. The K1 comes in two versions -- 32-bit quad core and "64-bit dual Super Core" based on ARMv8 architecture. One of the main concerns with mobile processors is efficiency and battery life -- Nvidia said the K1 is more efficient than "any other mobile GPU at the same power level," but we won't get to see real results until these are available in devices. You can expect the 32-bit version of K1 in devices in the first half of this year, with 64-bit K1 devices coming in the second half. More information is available here.