NVIDIA’s Tegra 3 introduced many of us to quad-core SoCs, but back before those chips ever even made it to smartphones, the company was already talking about the future. Over the following several months, we learned some new details on future Tegra-series chips thanks to a few leaks, including the tidbit that the company would be introducing two new components around the start of 2013, the next-gen Wayne and the LTE-capable Grey. Today, a new leak gives us a detailed look at the former, combining the Tegra 3′s 4+1-core layout with Cortex-A15 technology.
We’ve already seen what A15s can deliver with the Nexus 10, but Samsung’s chip was only a dual-core component; going quad core with the Tegra 4 Wayne should only make the A15′s enhanced performance all the more apparent.
The Tegra 4 will represent a big step up in graphics processing power over the Tegra 3, adding new pipelines and beefing things up to a massive 72-core GPU. That will enable the SoC to drive a 2560 x 1600 display, or a regular 1080p screen at high refresh rates.
Combined with all the other improvements in store for the Tegra 4, like support for the high-speed USB 3.0 interface, NVIDIA’s new chip sounds like it has the potential to impress. We’ve criticized NVIDIA in the past for rushing too fast into new technology, rather than taking the time to refine its approach, but the Tegra 4 sounds more like a highly improved Tegra 3 than something totally new; for that, we’re optimistic.
