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Qualcomm: We're ready for quad-core 'ARM' race

Qualcomm is ready to take on all comers in the smartphone and tablet performance race, a company executive told CNET.

The company's newest Snapdragon S4 chip has appeared most prominently in the U.S. version of the HTC One X smartphone. And performance reviews have been positive.

But Qualcomm has yet to bring out a quad-core version like its silicon rivals Nvidia and Samsung. This recently got some attention when HTC announced a quad-core variant of its One X in Europe and a dual-core version in the U.S. -- the latter based on the Snapdragon S4.

Qualcomm claims … Read more

Qualcomm S4 chip renders Ice Cream Sandwich 'butter smooth'

Qualcomm's Snapdragon S4 chip is racking up benchmark numbers that make the Samsung Galaxy S II's performance seem so last-year while turning Ice Cream Sandwich into a dreamy experience, said a chip review site.

"Occasionally we'll see performance numbers that just make us laugh at their absurdity," said Anandtech. "[Snapdragon S4's] Linpack performance is no exception. The performance advantage here is insane. The MSM8960 is able to deliver more than twice the performance of any currently shipping SoC (system-on-a-chip)."

And what about that Adreno graphics processing unit? "From a compute standpoint … Read more

A quad-core iPad 3? Not so fast

Will Apple's next iPad reach performance nirvana with a monster quad-core chip? Nirvana, maybe, but not necessarily via quad-core.

But let's put aside whether Apple's latest chip will be quad-core for a minute and look at what others are doing. (See a post at The Verge on this topic too.)

One of the leading lights among ARM processor suppliers is Texas Instruments. They've made it clear that they're not going quad-core this year and not even next year (necessarily) with their first next-gen OMAP5 chips.

In a CES demo, TI showed off the next-gen OMAP5 … Read more