ARM's new Mali GPU promises 10x leap in performance
updated 11:20 pm EST, Wed November 9, 2011
Chip uses latest Midgard architecture
ARM has introduced a new graphics core, known as the Mali-T658, that promise to bring a significant leap in performance over its predecessor. The GPU is designed for mobile applications, working in conjunction with the company's Cortex-A15 and Cortex-A7 processors. The system is also compatible with a range of APIs such as OpenGL ES, OpenCL, OpenVG and DirectX 11.
The T658 utilizes the company's Midgard architecture that was first introduced with earlier designs. The new model brings twice as many shader cores and arithmetic pipelines per core, enabling the GPU to outperform the Mali-400, which is used in the Galaxy S II, by a factor of 10.
"On the compute side, Mali-T658 provides four times the processing power of Mali-T604 – that’s hundreds of GFLOPS on a mobile GPU," said ARM senior product manager Steve Steele.
Despite the Mali-400 GPU's presence in a range of devices, ARM's processor technology has proven more popular. The iPhone 4 utilizes an ARM Cortex-A8 CPU, however a PowerVR SGX chip handles the graphics processing.
ARM has yet to announce specific products that will take advantage of the T658's performance enhancements, however the company has listed Samsung, Fujitsu and LG as partners. Manufacturers will be able to scale the new GPU up to eight cores depending in the hardware.
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OS X on ARM? Guaranteed.
Manufacturers will be able to scale the new GPU up to eight cores depending in the hardware.
The new model brings twice as many shader cores and arithmetic pipelines per core, enabling the GPU to outperform the Mali-400 [...] by a factor of 10.
And there are still people out there who think that Apple will keep using Intel chips in Macs. Just a matter of time until the raw processing power is there.
What's that you say? "Won't run Windows?" Well guess what. Microsoft is planning an Intel-free future starting with Windows 8. Welcome to the 21st century.