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Tegra 4: the tech specs
Although Nvidia didn’t supply the full spec sheet for the new Tegra 4, we compiled enough information to make a rather complete picture of the powerful new SoC.

The new Tegra 4 System on a Chip was just unveiled in Las Vegas, and we have the full rundown here. Along with the new SoC, Nvidia’s boss Jen-Hsun Huang also touted the Icera i500 baseband chip, a reprogrammable LTE chip that will run Tegra 4 devices run on a multitude of LTE networks, and the Shield, Nvidia’s first gaming handheld.
The biggest news of the night is, however, Tegra 4, a name that we are likely to hear a lot in the next year or so. Although Nvidia didn’t supply the full spec sheet for the new Tegra 4, we compiled enough information to make a rather complete picture of the powerful new SoC.
Tegra 4 specs
- Die-size: 80mm2
CPU
- Built by TSMC
- Cortex A15
- 28nm manufacturing process
- HPL – low-power with high-K metal gate
- Quad-core + companion core
- The four “power” cores will run at maximum 1.9Ghz
- Companion core will run at smaller frequencies and power, but is still a Cortex A15
- Companion core will not be visible to OS

GPU
- 72 cores
- 20x the performance of Tegra 2, 6x over Tegra 3
- Shaders are not unified
- Direct3D 11 and OpenGL 4.0

Memory
- Dual channel
- DDR3L, LP DDR2, LP DDR3
Video
- Full 1440p
- VP8 acceleration
- 2560 x 1440 encode/decode
Display
- 2560 x 1600 24b
- 1080 @ 120Hz
- 4K recording
- DSI 8 Lanes
- High-speed HDMI
- Dual display

Imaging
- Super speed imaging: >350MP/sec
IO
- USB 3.0
- UART, SDIO, I2S, I2C
- Designed for phones, smartphones, laptops
- dual-display output over HDMI