Need this for new games

Of course, it isnt only about console quality 3D games and slicker graphics. Improvements in CPU and GPU power will also change the way we interact with our devices. Stam talks of having more processing power to manage more natural language recognition. Right now you have Siri, he says, which is back end processing, and Google Voice, which is back end processing, but youll be able to do more stuff locally also as at the back end. The phone or the tablet will be that more intelligent and contextually aware. Meanwhile, Imaginations Harold describes how PowerVRs Series6 GPUs could benefit GPU compute. We measure that performance in gigaFLOPS, not polygons, he says. Thats a measure of the way GPU compute is changing how people think about GPUs. Theyre no longer just for putting pixels onscreen, with APIs like OpenCL you can use our GPUs to do game physics, augmented reality, image enhancement and more. ARMs Bryant concurs that you can calculate parallel tasks like image processing tasks on GPU, again because thats all about efficiency, power intake and throughput. For Bryant, more highperformance, economical processing capability on mobile devices, joint with the software ecosystem and high performance LTE networks, will change the landscape for good. I really think were looking at the future of computing being mobile. A mobile revolution For ARM, this is important. I think were most likely to get to the point, if not at that point, where buyers are already reaching for their mobile devices 1st, says Bryant, because thats the user experience they want. In ARMs view, devices with tailored apps that are generally there, always connected and generally updating, will win over more conventional PCs, and wireless connectivity and cloud based services are changing the form of computing. Its really convergence. I really believe that were living through this experience where youll start to do computing on whatever screen is in front of you. Nvidias Stam agrees. Were going to be in a space where your mobile device will be your most important device, and will be able to do 95 of everything you want to do. Stam makes it clear that the desktop PC wont go away, and that Nvidias business there is still a big concentrate. but, he also talks of a future where youll sit your device down beside whatever screen or monitor you want to use, and it will talk wirelessly and thats it. Thats your gaming rig, thats your system. Not everyone sees the future in smartphones and tablets. An Intel spokesperson noted that the smartphone market offered Intel an unbelievable opportunity, but added that Ultrabooks continue to build momentum and that were really pleased with the level of novelty and invention being brought into this category. Nor should we forget the Intel based servers running all the back end stuff. but, this leads us to a turn in the mobile processor tale. As ARM based processors grow more powerful and better tuned to sophisticated multicore arrangements, so ARMs partners are wanting to take them up to the laptop, the desktop and beyond. A number of businesses are already producing ARM based servers, and the companys own literature targets the Cortex A15 at low power all in one PCs and nettops. Nvidia, In the meantime, is hard at work on Project Denver, its own high performance, ARM based CPU/GPU, which it claims will provide the heterogeneous computing platform of the future, by combining a standard architecture with awesome performance and energy efficiency.

According to Stam, Project Denver will have the capability to procedure up and down the chain, from mobile devices to supercomputers. Hes reticent on where it'll appear first, but insists it's what our customers demand, and what we think seems right, because the efficiency of the ARM architecture plays into that whole performance per watt equation really well, both up and down the processor spectrum. In other words, the future of mobile processors may turn out to be the future of computing. Its an arena where new competitors will fight it out, and where Atom may still end up being a more important technology than Core. Whatever the future holds, were seeing advances now that will transform the devices we use and the way we use them in our everyday lives.