NVIDIA Tegra K1 Release Date, Tablets 2014: ‘World’s Fastest Chipset’ For Mobile Now Available In Xiaomi Mi Pad; Is This Better Than The Snapdragon 805?

NVIDIA Tegra K1 release date, tablets 2014: The Xiaomi Mi Pad, the very first tablet from the company called the “Apple of China” has the NVIDIA Tegra K1 processor under the hood. It’s the first device to sport the processor considered the “world’s fastest chipset” for mobile devices. This leads us to the question: Is this really better than the Snapdragon 805?

“They sell phones fast. They develop blazing fast devices. Its Tegra 4-powered Mi3 was the world’s fastest phone at launch. They’re growing fast, too: Xiaomi is now one of the world’s largest smartphone vendors,” according to an official blog post from NVIDIA.

The post adds, “And now, they’re the first to build a tablet with our out-of-this-world fast Tegra K1 mobile processor.”

A report by VR-Zone shows that based on some benchmarks, the Snapdragon 805 shows a “mighty performance margin” over the Snapdragon 805. But it notes that the “power draw” of the Tegra K1 keeps it from being a Qualcomm chipset killer.

According to Chinese-language blog Evolife, which managed to obtain a Tegra K1 running device, the unit based on all benchmarks has surpassed the Snapdragon’s performance in spades.

Considered the world’s fastest chipset, the 64-bit processor NVIDIA Tegra K1 is reported to be supporting DX12 API, according to a story by WCCF Tech. The website also noted that it will be coming with Denver support.

In an investor conference, NVIDIA announced that the 64-bit Denver Tegra K1 would hit the market during the second half of 2014.

The chip is said to actually come in two variants, the 32-bit version with a 4+1 ARM Cortex A15 configuration and the 64-bit version using dual NVIDIA-designed Denver CPU cores, the Motley Fool reports.

WCCF Tech noted that even though the NVIDIA Tegra K1 gets eventual hardware level support for DX 12, there are arguments against it too. One point of support is that it is NVIDIA’s flagship mobile processor, so empowering it is critical. In fact its presence in mobile devices is highly anticipated and tablets, especially the Microsoft Surface line, is rumored to have the Tegra K1 under the hood. An argument against it is that it almost finished its run on the assembly line, making it difficult (if not impossible) to add a brand new feature.

In a tweet by Usman Pirzada, he said that “#Nvidia #Tegrak1 SoC does support DX 12 API. Oh and Denver is still en-route too. https://wp.me/p1mv9m-lBm.”

In earlier reports, it has been confirmed that the NVIDIA Tegra K1 will have full support for DirectX 11, OpenGL 4.4 and ES 3.0. Although DirectX 12 API is supported Direct X12 is in many cases not there. The move has caused some confusion in the past, especially for the fact that current generation GPUs will support DX12 API but not the full blown DX 12.

WCCF Tech also reported that support for the DX12 will come in future architectures and even 20nm Maxwell in all probability. Users will not receive the full DX 12 features set on the current GPUs.

The NVIDIA Tegra K1 was released and gained great attention at the Consumer Electronics Show 2014 in Las Vegas. Benchmark tests have shown that the NVIDIA Tegra K1 has outperformed the latest and fastest chipsets of Qualcomm (Snapdragon 800), Apple (A7), and Intel (Haswell).

The launch of the Xiaomi MiPad will test if the Tegra K1 does deliver what it promises.