Smart Phones

Next-gen smartphones will be more powerful than PS3 and Xbox 360

Everybody is getting excited about the potential for the PS4 - based on what we've seen demonstrated already - and the Xbox 720 - based on what a bunch of people sitting in bedrooms have essentially made up. However, they're not the only devices that will replace the current generation of consoles in the hearts and mind of gamers. The next generation of smartphones and tablets will be significantly more powerful too.

Speaking to bit-tech.net, Tony Tamasi, the senior vice-president of Content at Nvidia, said that when Tegra 5 chips replace Tegra 4 in mobile devices the technological clout of the PS3 and Xbox 360 consoles will be surpassed.

"The PS3 and Xbox 360 are barely more powerful than mobile devices.The next click of mobile phones will outperform [them]," he said.

Currently, both the PS3 and Xbox 360 graphics chips run at around 200GFlops, while the Tegra 4 chip runs at 80GFlops. It is safe to assume from Tamasi's comments, therefore, that Nvidia's Tegra 5 chipset would offer more than twice the graphical power than the company's current generation.

It is unlikely to match the power of the PS4, however, which has a graphical chipset capable of around 1.8TFlops.

And then there's the battery implications. While modern chipsets have been far less battery sapping than those in the past, it is still likely that devices featuring Tegra 5 chips will need bigger battery capacity than is currently found on smartphones. Maybe a dedicated range of gaming mobile devices, that sacrifice svelte looks for functionality are planned? Watch this space.