ARM's eight-core Mali GPUs promise 'dramatic' boost to mobile graphics

[![ARM answers call for even more powerful eightcore mobile graphics ][1] ][2]

The current flagship for ARM's mobile graphics technology is undoubtedly the [Galaxy S III][3], which contains a quad-core Mali 400 GPU and delivers some wild benchmark scores. By the end of this year though, we should see a whole new generation of Malis -- not just a [Mali 450][4] for mid-range handsets, but also the quad-core [T604][5] and the eight-core [T658][6], which are based on ARM's Midgard architecture and are taking _forever _to come to market. Now, to whet our appetites even further, ARM has just added three more variants of the chip to its roster, which can almost be considered the next-next-generation: the quad-core T624, and the T628 and T678, which are both scalable up to eight cores.

The trio's headline feature is that they promise to deliver at least 50 percent more performance with the same silicon area and power draw, with the explicit aim of delivering "console-class gaming," [4K][7] and even [8K][8] video workloads, as well as [buttery][9] 60fps user interfaces in phones, tablets and smart TVs. The premium T678 is aimed at tablets specifically, and in addition to allowing up to eight cores also doubles the number of math-crunching ALUs per core, which means that its compute performance (measured in gigaflops) is actually quadrupled compared to the T624. However, there's one other, subtler change which could turn out to be equally important -- read on for more.

[Continue reading _ARM's eight-core Mali GPUs promise 'dramatic' boost to mobile graphics_][2]

Filed under: [Cellphones][10], [Home Entertainment][11], [Tablet PCs][12]

[ARM's eight-core Mali GPUs promise 'dramatic' boost to mobile graphics][2] originally appeared on [Engadget][13] on Mon, 06 Aug 2012 11:00:00 EDT. Please see our [terms for use of feeds][14].

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[1]: http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2012/08/arm-mali-tablet.jpg
[2]: http://www.engadget.com/2012/08/06/arm-second-gen-mali-t600-gpus/
[3]: http://www.engadget.com/2012/05/25/samsung-galaxy-s-iii-review/
[4]: http://www.engadget.com/2012/06/13/arm-vows-mali-450-graphics-will-liven-up-mid-range-smartphones/
[5]: http://www.engadget.com/2010/11/10/arm-intros-next-gen-mali-t604-embedded-gpu-samsung-first-to-get/
[6]: http://www.engadget.com/2011/11/10/arms-mali-t658-gpu-aims-to-beat-the-world-in-2013-president-tu/
[7]: http://www.engadget.com/tag/4k
[8]: http://www.engadget.com/2012/07/31/super-hi-vision-eyes-on/
[9]: http://www.engadget.com/2012/06/27/project-butter-improves-android-4-1s-speed/
[10]: http://www.engadget.com/category/cellphones/
[11]: http://www.engadget.com/category/homeentertainment/
[12]: http://www.engadget.com/category/tabletpcs/
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