Handy leak
It could well be a coincidence, but with many of our own inferences and guesses from our Tegra exclusive last week being re-reported as fact, a couple of websites have got hold of what looks like a credible Tegra roadmap slide that, if accurate, sheds more light on what we can expect from NVIDIA over the next year.
The first to report on it was Tech Eye, which referred to only one cropped-out part of the roadmap. This referred to a part scheduled to launch at MWC 2011, but not the Tegra 3 part we had assumed. Instead it's called Tegra 2 3D, and it appears to be a higher-clocked Tegra 2 with 3D display compatibility.
Then Bright Side of News published the full slide, from which the Tech Eye crop seems to have been derived. We've reproduced it below and, as you can see, it also features Tegra 3, which is due to be in devices by autumn this year.
Seeing as this slide is claimed to be part of a presentation intended for MWC, this confirms our assertion that Tegra 3 will be officially launched at the show. Samples are apparently already with customers, but we'ce still be surprised to see Tegra 3 devices much before the end of the year. The slide also confirms it's a quad-core chip, albeit with the option of sticking at dual-core.
The Tegra 2 3D part looks as much like a marketing-led launch as a genuinely new chip to us. The new features over vanilla Tegra 2 are minimal and the tech industry just can't stop banging on about 3D these days. But it is a bit faster too.
As for whether this was a controlled leak to correct the speculation catalysed by our story, we'll probably never know. But as well as the two stories being published on sites owned by ex-Inquirer alumni, they both also feature interviews with Roy Taylor of Master Image. Not only does Master Image -a 3D display specialist - stand to benefit directly from any 3D hype, but Taylor himself is a former executive at, you guessed it, NVIDIA. Hmmmm.
