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Imagination Posts PowerVR Rogue Specification Summary
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Imagination Posts PowerVR Rogue Specification Summary

Being in the business of licensing out GPUs rather than building them directly, Imagination’s PowerVR group has always walked a fine line in how they communicate with their direct customers (SoC integrators) who build their products, the developers who program for their products, and the end users who use their products. The end result is that most of Imagination’s public-facing information is either geared towards their direct customers or geared towards developers, fulfilling Imagination’s immediate needs but leaving out other details in the process. A quick look at the PowerVR section of Imagination’s website further backs that point, as it contains only a very high level overview of their products that makes it more useful to SoC integrators than end users or even developers.

With that lack of detail in mind and as part of their continuing efforts to reach out to end users this year, Imagination has sent word this afternoon that they are setting up a new Rogue GPU specification summary page for end users and developers alike. With the Rogue architecture spanning over a dozen different GPU designs and being trifurcated over 3 product lines – Series6 (original), Series6XT, and Series6XE – there are subtle but important feature differences between the 3 product lines that Imagination wants to more clearly communicate, along with the more obvious performance implications of larger and smaller GPU designs.

Meanwhile Imagination also notes that this summary page will be kept up to date with information on newer GPUs. This is a not-so-subtle hint about the current in-development Series 7 GPUs, which although haven’t been announced are clearly illustrated in Imagination’s graphics IP roadmaps. And though not specifically announced here, Imagination’s specification summary also serves to confirm that all Rogue GPUs will support OpenGL 3.1, so long as the underlying OS and drivers have that functionality enabled.

Finally, while it’s not posted on Imagination’s summary page, in the press announcement Imagination also included a current list of publicly announced SoCs that are utilizing Rogue GPUs. Like the specification summary this isn’t secret information but isn’t normally information that Imagination keeps in one location, so it’s handy to have.

  • Allwinner UltraOcta A80 (PowerVR G6230) for tablets, set-top boxes, portable game consoles and many more
  • Intel Atom™ Z3460/Z3480 Merrifield (PowerVR G6400) and Z3560/Z3580 Moorefield (PowerVR G6430) for smartphones and tablets
  • LG H13 (PowerVR G6200) for smart TVs
  • MediaTek MT8135 (PowerVR G6200) for tablets and MT6595 (PowerVR G6200) for smartphones
  • Renesas R-Car H2 (PowerVR G6400) for automotive
Imagination Posts PowerVR Rogue Specification Summary
  • Comments are Closed

Imagination Posts PowerVR Rogue Specification Summary

Being in the business of licensing out GPUs rather than building them directly, Imagination’s PowerVR group has always walked a fine line in how they communicate with their direct customers (SoC integrators) who build their products, the developers who program for their products, and the end users who use their products. The end result is that most of Imagination’s public-facing information is either geared towards their direct customers or geared towards developers, fulfilling Imagination’s immediate needs but leaving out other details in the process. A quick look at the PowerVR section of Imagination’s website further backs that point, as it contains only a very high level overview of their products that makes it more useful to SoC integrators than end users or even developers.

With that lack of detail in mind and as part of their continuing efforts to reach out to end users this year, Imagination has sent word this afternoon that they are setting up a new Rogue GPU specification summary page for end users and developers alike. With the Rogue architecture spanning over a dozen different GPU designs and being trifurcated over 3 product lines – Series6 (original), Series6XT, and Series6XE – there are subtle but important feature differences between the 3 product lines that Imagination wants to more clearly communicate, along with the more obvious performance implications of larger and smaller GPU designs.

Meanwhile Imagination also notes that this summary page will be kept up to date with information on newer GPUs. This is a not-so-subtle hint about the current in-development Series 7 GPUs, which although haven’t been announced are clearly illustrated in Imagination’s graphics IP roadmaps. And though not specifically announced here, Imagination’s specification summary also serves to confirm that all Rogue GPUs will support OpenGL 3.1, so long as the underlying OS and drivers have that functionality enabled.

Finally, while it’s not posted on Imagination’s summary page, in the press announcement Imagination also included a current list of publicly announced SoCs that are utilizing Rogue GPUs. Like the specification summary this isn’t secret information but isn’t normally information that Imagination keeps in one location, so it’s handy to have.

  • Allwinner UltraOcta A80 (PowerVR G6230) for tablets, set-top boxes, portable game consoles and many more
  • Intel Atom™ Z3460/Z3480 Merrifield (PowerVR G6400) and Z3560/Z3580 Moorefield (PowerVR G6430) for smartphones and tablets
  • LG H13 (PowerVR G6200) for smart TVs
  • MediaTek MT8135 (PowerVR G6200) for tablets and MT6595 (PowerVR G6200) for smartphones
  • Renesas R-Car H2 (PowerVR G6400) for automotive
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MSI GE60 Review: Mainstream Mobile Maxwell

When NVIDIA launched their first Maxwell GPU, the GM107, back in February, they ushered in a new level of performance efficiency for desktop PCs. Given these improvements in efficiency, Maxwell appears to be perfect for modern mainstream gaming notebooks. With MSI’s GE60 in hand, we can now provide details on how the GTX 860M Maxwell variant performance when compared to other laptops, but the sum of a notebook is often much more than the raw performance. Read on for our look at GTX 860M as well as MSI’s GE60 mainstream gaming notebook.

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MSI GE60 Review: Mainstream Mobile Maxwell

When NVIDIA launched their first Maxwell GPU, the GM107, back in February, they ushered in a new level of performance efficiency for desktop PCs. Given these improvements in efficiency, Maxwell appears to be perfect for modern mainstream gaming notebooks. With MSI’s GE60 in hand, we can now provide details on how the GTX 860M Maxwell variant performance when compared to other laptops, but the sum of a notebook is often much more than the raw performance. Read on for our look at GTX 860M as well as MSI’s GE60 mainstream gaming notebook.

WiGig Startup Nitero Launches NT4600 802.11ad Solution for Mobile Platforms
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WiGig Startup Nitero Launches NT4600 802.11ad Solution for Mobile Platforms

We have looked at multiple 60 GHz 802.11ad solutions from Wilocity over the last couple of years. A couple of weeks back, this market area received a fillip as Wilocity was bought by Qualcomm for around $300 million. Wilocity’s chipsets are currently integrated inside a few business laptops from Dell, pointing to WiGig taking off after more than four years of development. With Qualcomm behind the technology now, it is quite likely that Wilocity’s latest mobile-usage targeted products will integrate into a future Snapdragon platform. In this market state, we have a new startup that is pitching its first solution for WiGig.

Nitero, a fabless semiconductor company, is launching the NT4600 802.11ad solution today. Instead of starting off with the PC as a target platform, Nitero has designed this in Samsung’s 28nm RF process to achieve 10x lower power consumption numbers compared to currently existing WiGig solutions for PCs. The implication is that the NT4600 can be directly used in tablets and smartphones.

The NT4600 supports TX/RX beamforming for operation even in non-line of sight conditions. It supports data rates up to 4.6 Gbps and provides a PCIe host interface for connecting to the app processor. Nitero also has Android drivers ready for their platform. The company is demonstrating the NT4600 to prospective customers now, with mass production expected in early 2015.