The 10 Coolest CPUs, GPUs Of 2012 (So Far)

Nvidia Tegra 3

Meanwhile, Microsoft's Surface for Windows RT will be built to impress. It will incorporate Nvidia's Tegra 3 quad-core system-on-chip. The Tegra 3 casts four 1.4 GHz Cortex-A9 cores on the die along with a GeForce GPU with 12 graphics processor cores and support for a maximum resolution of 2,560 x 1,600 pixels. Google's Android-based Nexus 7 tablet also will feature the Tegra 3 SoC.

There's a five-core version of the innovative Tegra 3 SoC with four high-speed cores to do the primary work and a fifth low-speed, low-power core to handle stand-by duties. It's unclear whether Microsoft or Google will use this model in its design, but it seems a logical fit for features such as connected stand-by and other sleep-bound tasks that are part of Android and are expected to come with Windows 8.