Nvidia reveals Tegra X1 mobile graphics chip, 'exact same GPU' as desktop Maxwell

Nvidia's Jen-Hsun Huang opened the company's CES press briefing with the announcement of a new mobile graphics chipset, dubbed the "Tegra X1." Based on the company's energy efficient Maxwell desktop GPU — it's the "exact same GPU," says Huang — the X1 has 256 CUDA processor cores and 8 CPU cores. Huang pointed out that it handles 4K video at 60 Hz, suggesting there's "nothing like it in the world."

Huang said that the Elemental demo of Unreal Engine used to consume over 300W of power just two and a half years ago, then 100W on the Xbox One just one year ago, and now only 10W with the Tegra X1. The demo Nvidia played appeared to run at a notably reduced framerate compared to those previous efforts, and the visual fidelity appeared notably reduced, so it's not clear what the demo was intended to prove.

There was no announcement on a release date for laptops, though Huang spent a considerable amount of time showing off the Tegra X1 inside of an in-car dashboard technology, a far cry from the gaming promise of Epic's Elemental demo.