NVIDIA releases the SHIELD Tablet

Discussion in 'Off Topic' started by iMacmatician, Jul 29, 2014.

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What battery-powered gaming devices do you like?

  1. Laptop

    44.4%
  2. Phone

    44.4%
  3. Tablet

    11.1%
  4. [img]http://s3.gamefreaks.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Project-Shield-7.jpg[/img]

    11.1%
  5. [img] http://playerslink.la/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/portal-b.jpg[/img]

    44.4%
Multiple votes are allowed.
  1. iMacmatician

    iMacmatician Member

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    Last week, NVIDIA announced the SHIELD tablet, a tablet designed for gamers. It's also notable at being one of the first tablets to use NVIDIA's Tegra K1 chip (the Xiaomi MiPad was the first AFAIK). Some of the specs of the SHIELD tablet are as follows:
    • 8" 1920x1200 display
    • Tegra K1 (4x 2.2 GHz Cortex-A15 + 1 Kepler SMX)
    • 2 GB RAM
    • Dual front-facing speakers
    • $299 (16 GB, WiFi), $399 (32 GB, LTE)
    Some accessories are a stylus and game controller.

    The graphics benchmarks for the MiPad, easily at twice the performance of the iPad Air, were extremely impressive to me. The K1 in the SHIELD tablet appears to get slightly better scores, so it might be clocked higher and/or throttles less.

    [​IMG]

    Only the Surface Pros with Haswell are able to surpass the SHIELD tablet in that benchmark. It seems unlikely that the upcoming A8-based iPad Air will be able to beat it in GPU performance, and that chip is rumored to be on 20 nm. The SHIELD tablet's CPU performance is more modest but still manages to do well against the competition. I suspect that most people who will buy this tablet would focus more on the GPU though.

    The K1 uses 28 nm HPM as opposed to the 28 nm HP used in most GPUs at this node, which gives better speed and power consumption. However, all that GPU still uses up considerable power, which leads to a low battery life if strenuously used. Fortunately, NVIDIA has options to limit FPS, core count, and core frequency.

    [​IMG]

    While the K1's GPU is still far behind mainstream GPUs in terms of absolute performance, I expect a Tegra "M1" next year with a GPU consisting of 2 Maxwell SMMs to reduce the gap between Tegra and low-end mobile GPUs. NVIDIA claimed that a Maxwell (GM107) SMM has about 90% of the performance of a Kepler SMX. If that number holds true for Tegra, it could lead to the "M1" having considerably higher performance than K1 and gives the option of a smaller and lower-power "M1" variant with one SMM that has good performance. We may soon see tablets with similar graphics performance to many notebooks.

    Source: AnandTech.
     
    Last edited: Sep 8, 2015
  2. Space_Oddity

    Space_Oddity The Shitstorm

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    Why the fuck do they bother benchmarking the graphics of tablets?

    Why the fuck do people bother with tablets?
     
  3. BigTeef

    BigTeef Bootleg Headshot master

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  4. Space_Oddity

    Space_Oddity The Shitstorm

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  5. Lazybum

    Lazybum :D Staff Member Moderator

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    I got my little(read:rather large) 3ds if I want to play something on the go, which is not very often. So I am disappointed in this poll for not including a wider scope of battery powered devices to game on.
     
  6. McGyver

    McGyver Experimental Pedagogue

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    For an ARM chip that is pretty impressive graphics power, yes. It also gets 10h of browsing with a 20Wh battery.

    Altough tech news of the day was the MacBook Pro refresh.
     
  7. Grantrithor

    Grantrithor Member

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    If what I hear is right, the GPU isn't that necessary cause you can use it to stream your PC games.

    1. a) Tablets are good for programmers who want to get into mobile deployment and also at the same time learn about graphics and all that fun stuff.

    1. b) people will benchmark anything. You can probably find someone who's bench marked a hamster in a wheel.

    2. Luxury.
     
  8. Space_Oddity

    Space_Oddity The Shitstorm

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    There's this handy thing called a laptop. It has all the benefits of a tablet with more power, a keyboard, a mouse and better speakers.
     
    Last edited: Jul 30, 2014
  9. Grantrithor

    Grantrithor Member

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    now imagine owning two of those except one isn't that great.

    It's a luxury. This is modern day consumerism, buying things for no reason except to own it.

    That's the reason why someone would buy a tablet.
     
  10. Lazybum

    Lazybum :D Staff Member Moderator

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    Well there is also the fact you can doodle on them, well some of them are decent for it anyway. Which a laptop can't do. If you even think about saying something about those little drawing tablets you can use on a laptop I'm gonna slap you. There is a big difference between drawing where the pen is and where you think the cursor is.
     
  11. Fooshi

    Fooshi For fuck's sake Fooshi

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  12. flasche

    flasche Member Staff Member Moderator

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    if you buy it for drawing, youd better buy a wacom tablet. now slap me ;)

    f.e.
    http://www.wacom.com/en/de/creative/cintiq-13-hd
     
  13. Trickster

    Trickster Retired Developer

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    I sometimes use my tablet to play PS1 games when I'm stuck in the vehicle at work. It's pretty great to be able to do that.
     
  14. McGyver

    McGyver Experimental Pedagogue

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    A tablet is a luxury item (for people who already have a real PC). It allows for a much more comfortable web browsing experience in your bed, better than with a phone or with a laptop. It's also neat on vacation where you might only want to bring a minimum of tech gear with you.
     
  15. BigTeef

    BigTeef Bootleg Headshot master

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    Have you considered they are trying to make those things into the next laptop?

    Like im not debating a laptop is more powerful, but if people can have that stuff in a form of a sleek paper thin machine, chances are it will be more popular than big bulky rectangles.
     
  16. Lazybum

    Lazybum :D Staff Member Moderator

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    Oh no, those are cool. It is just that they cost just as much as a tablet. Also I don't think you can use it by itself, it needs to be connected to something to function. Which is another advantage that tablets have.

    I meant something like this or even this. The ones without the screen. There is also a bunch of china made ones that work pretty good from what I hear, but a lot cheaper.

    That said, most tablets tend to have a bit of input lag or can feel a bit imprecise. At least that is what artists who use them say. Most would probably work if you just want something to doodle on or just do it for a hobby. I think some people said the more pricy ones, the ones that come close to that cintiq you linked, work pretty good.

    And you know, you can play games or something when you don't feel like doodling anymore. Tablets have their uses.
     
  17. Space_Oddity

    Space_Oddity The Shitstorm

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    You can get touch screen laptops with a screen that swivels around into a tabletish style. Still far cheaper for the hardware. A real drawing tablet usually costs around 1-2k if you're actually making digital art. If you really are just doodling or taking notes then use a pen.

    [​IMG]

    Curious as to have this works, do you connect your PS3 controller or are there touch screen controls you can use?

    Genuinely don't see where you're coming from with this.


    It was meant to be a rhetorical question really. I'm aware people buy stupid shit for stupid reasons, I'm aware of consumerism and greed and I'm aware that my shitty phone does everything a tablet can do with the benefit of also being a phone. It was more of an expletive why.[/why]

    See: netbooks and ultrabooks
     
    Last edited: Jul 31, 2014
  18. BigTeef

    BigTeef Bootleg Headshot master

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    A tablet works better than those.
     
  19. Fooshi

    Fooshi For fuck's sake Fooshi

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    Fixed.
     
  20. BigTeef

    BigTeef Bootleg Headshot master

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    It looks exactly the same but bigger.
     

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