NVIDIA Shield Tablet with Tegra K1 and Controller announced

NVIDIA Shield Tablet with Tegra K1 SoC — NVIDIA Shield Tablet - Exploded view

NVIDIA officially unveiled the Shield tablet, a slate for gamers with a 8-inch full HD display that is powered by the new Tegra K1 SoC and comes loaded with Android KitKat.

Codrut Nistor / Klaus Hinum, Published 07/22/2014

The Shield Tablet is no replacement for the NVIDIA Shield handheld console, but more or less the successor of the Tegra Note 7. Instead of the Tegra 4, the Shield tablet gets the new Tegra K1 quad-core SoC with integrated 192 core Kepler graphics card. The build quality has improved as the whole tablet is now a gaming device aimed at the higher end market. The 8-inch 1920 x 1200 pixels screen offers more real estate and a finer resolution than the Note 7. Furthermore, the front camera is now improved to 5 MP, up from 0.3 MP.

As the name suggests, the Shield Tablet also inherited the features of the NVIDIA Shield console, like GameStream or GRID to stream games from the PC or from the cloud to the tablet. New features for the Shield line up include the ability to stream to Twitch via NVIDIA ShadowPlay. This is also the reason behind the upgrade of the front cam.

Thanks to the Tegra K1 SoC, the tablet now also supports Direct Stylus 2 and ships with a stylus that can be stowed in the tablet. A new drawing app called NVIDIA Dabbler is also preinstalled for realistic watercolor and 3D oil paintings.

As the Tegra K1 is OpenGL 4.4 capable, Nvidia states that it is relatively easy to port console and desktop games to devices powered by this chip. The Shield tablet is delivered with a full version of Trine 2 that was ported in only a few weeks according to Nvidia. Furthermore, there will be 11 optimized games for Tegra K1 at launch and some of them like Half Life 2 and Portal will get additional graphical features.

Nvidia also told us that the cooling system of the tablet is able to dissipate about twice the heat that conventional systems can handle. Therefore, the Tegra K1 used in the tablet will have a higher TDP than other tablet SoCs. The 20 WHr battery offers 10 hours of video playback and 2-3 hours of gaming, according to Nvidia.

Nvidia provided a demo system for a short period of time and some benchmarks. The (selected) tests showed impressive scores of the new Tegra K1. For example, the fast Snapdragon 801 in the LG G3 was left behind in every single test. The GPU performance looks way ahead of the current competition and even the Snapdragon 805 should be left behind. The CPU performance is also very good and ahead of the current high end devices. See the charts below for more details.

3DMark
2560x1440 Sling Shot OpenGL ES 3.0 Physics (sort by value)
LG G3	1308 Points
2560x1440 Sling Shot OpenGL ES 3.0 Graphics (sort by value)
LG G3	1143 Points
2560x1440 Sling Shot OpenGL ES 3.0 (sort by value)
LG G3	1176 Points
1280x720 offscreen Ice Storm Unlimited Physics (sort by value)
NVIDIA Shield Tablet P1761W	21086 Points
NVIDIA Shield	16579 Points -21%
Snapdragon 805 MDP/T	18000 Points -15%
LG G3	12939 Points -39%
Acer Liquid S2	12181 Points -42%
1280x720 offscreen Ice Storm Unlimited Graphics Score (sort by value)
NVIDIA Shield Tablet P1761W	39590 Points
NVIDIA Shield	19580 Points -51%
Snapdragon 805 MDP/T	20240 Points -49%
LG G3	17029 Points -57%
Acer Liquid S2	17112 Points -57%
1280x720 offscreen Ice Storm Unlimited Score (sort by value)
NVIDIA Shield Tablet P1761W	33129 Points
NVIDIA Shield	18823 Points -43%
Snapdragon 805 MDP/T	19700 Points -41%
LG G3	15911 Points -52%
Acer Liquid S2	15700 Points -53%

GFXBench (DX / GLBenchmark) 2.7
T-Rex Onscreen (sort by value)
NVIDIA Shield Tablet P1761W	57 fps
NVIDIA Shield	39 fps -32%
Snapdragon 805 MDP/T	31.4 fps -45%
LG G3	20.2 fps -65%
Acer Liquid S2	23 fps -60%
1920x1080 T-Rex Offscreen (sort by value)
NVIDIA Shield Tablet P1761W	66 fps
NVIDIA Shield	24 fps -64%
Snapdragon 805 MDP/T	40.7 fps -38%
LG G3	26.7 fps -60%
Acer Liquid S2	23 fps -65%

GFXBench 3.0
on screen Manhattan Onscreen OGL (sort by value)
NVIDIA Shield Tablet P1761W	29.8 fps
LG G3	7.3 fps -76%
1920x1080 1080p Manhattan Offscreen (sort by value)
NVIDIA Shield Tablet P1761W	31.2 fps
Snapdragon 805 MDP/T	17.7 fps -43%
LG G3	11.3 fps -64%

Basemark X 1.1
High Quality (sort by value)
NVIDIA Shield Tablet P1761W	28746 Points
NVIDIA Shield	10700 Points -63%
Snapdragon 805 MDP/T	18900 Points -34%
LG G3	11499 Points -60%
Acer Liquid S2	11443 Points -60%
Medium Quality (sort by value)
NVIDIA Shield Tablet P1761W	36584 Points
NVIDIA Shield	20980 Points -43%
Snapdragon 805 MDP/T	32200 Points -12%
LG G3	23234 Points -36%
Acer Liquid S2	21076 Points -42%

Lightmark - 1920x1080 1080p (sort by value)
NVIDIA Shield Tablet P1761W	24.6 fps
LG G3	7.2 fps -71%
Acer Liquid S2	6.1 fps -75%

Geekbench 3
32 Bit Multi-Core Score (sort by value)
NVIDIA Shield Tablet P1761W	3495 Points
NVIDIA Shield	2797 Points -20%
Snapdragon 805 MDP/T	2840 Points -19%
LG G3	2323 Points -34%
Acer Liquid S2	2539 Points -27%
32 Bit Single-Core Score (sort by value)
NVIDIA Shield Tablet P1761W	1127 Points
NVIDIA Shield	927 Points -18%
Snapdragon 805 MDP/T	1046 Points -7%
LG G3	941 Points -17%
Acer Liquid S2	872 Points -23%

Octane V2 - Total Score (sort by value)
NVIDIA Shield Tablet P1761W	6777 Points
NVIDIA Shield	5934 Points -12%
NVIDIA Shield	4847 Points -28%
Snapdragon 805 MDP/T	4060 Points -40%
LG G3	4345 Points -36%
LG G3	3892 Points -43%
Acer Liquid S2	3810 Points -44%

Mozilla Kraken 1.1 - Total (sort by value)
NVIDIA Shield Tablet P1761W	4286 ms *
NVIDIA Shield	8612 ms * -101%
NVIDIA Shield	5050 ms * -18%
Snapdragon 805 MDP/T	6760 ms * -58%
LG G3	7280 ms * -70%
LG G3	7163 ms * -67%
Acer Liquid S2	7220 ms * -68%

Sunspider
1.0 Total Score (sort by value)
NVIDIA Shield Tablet P1761W	525 ms *
NVIDIA Shield Tablet P1761W	458 ms * +13%
NVIDIA Shield	588 ms * -12%
Snapdragon 805 MDP/T	670 ms * -28%
LG G3	900 ms * -71%
LG G3	629 ms * -20%
Acer Liquid S2	739 ms * -41%
0.9.1 Total Score (sort by value)
NVIDIA Shield Tablet P1761W	532 ms *
LG G3	678 ms * -27%
Acer Liquid S2	758 ms * -42%

ANDEBench PRO
3D (sort by value)
NVIDIA Shield Tablet P1761W	53 fps
LG G3	24.7 fps -53%
Acer Liquid S2	22 fps -58%
Platform (sort by value)
NVIDIA Shield Tablet P1761W	248 Points
LG G3	149.3 Points -40%
Acer Liquid S2	96.2 Points -61%
Storage (sort by value)
NVIDIA Shield Tablet P1761W	7958 KB/s
LG G3	7714 KB/s -3%
Acer Liquid S2	5641 KB/s -29%
Memory Latency (sort by value)
NVIDIA Shield Tablet P1761W	7268 KOps/s
LG G3	6940 KOps/s -5%
Acer Liquid S2	7153 KOps/s -2%
Memory Bandwidth (sort by value)
NVIDIA Shield Tablet P1761W	6150 MB/s
LG G3	5031 MB/s -18%
Acer Liquid S2	5584 MB/s -9%
CoreMark-PRO/HPC (Base) (sort by value)
NVIDIA Shield Tablet P1761W	3509 Points
LG G3	2539 Points -28%
Acer Liquid S2	2481 Points -29%
Device Score (sort by value)
NVIDIA Shield Tablet P1761W	11211 Points
LG G3	7344 Points -34%
Acer Liquid S2	6247 Points -44%

Legend

NVIDIA Shield Tablet P1761W Nvidia Tegra K1, NVIDIA Tegra K1 Kepler GPU, 16 GB iNAND Flash

NVIDIA Shield Nvidia Tegra 4, NVIDIA GeForce Tegra 4, 16 GB eMMC Flash

Snapdragon 805 MDP/T Qualcomm Snapdragon 805 APQ8084, Qualcomm Adreno 420,

LG G3 Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 MSM8974AC, Qualcomm Adreno 330, 16 GB eMMC Flash

Acer Liquid S2 Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 MSM8974, Qualcomm Adreno 330, 16 GB eMMC Flash

* ... smaller is better

A novelty is the optional wireless gaming controller for the tablet. Nvidia wanted to create a high quality controller that suits both Android gaming and streamed PC games. It can be used to conect over a proprietary Wi-Fi direct connection or wired using a micro USB cable. The Shield wireless controller integrates a microphone and headphones port and a small triangle-shaped touchpad.

Nvidia opted for Wi-Fi connectivity to support more controllers and have enough bandwidth for audio streaming. The integrated battery should offer 40 hours of gaming to the controller on a single charge.

Key facts

8-inch 1920 x 1200 IPS display
NVIDIA Tegra K1 SoC with quad-core Cortex-A15 and 192 core Kepler graphics
Front facing stereo speakers with bass ports
Frame with integrated magnesium thermal shield (for better heat dissipation)
5MP front and back camera
DirectStylus 2 pen
2 GB RAM; 16 and 32 GB Flash versions, support for up to 128 GB SD cards
Android KitKat 4.4.3, L update promised
802.11a/b/g/n 2x2 MIMO (2.4GHz and 5GHz) WiFi (no ac support)
Bluetooth 4.0 LE, GPS with GLONASS, 9 axis (g-sensor, compass, gyro)
Acera LTE chip (same as in Tegra Note 7) - Micro-SIM
Height: 8.8in / 221mm Width: 5.0in / 126mm Depth: 0.36in / 9.2mm Weight: 13.7oz / 390g
10 hours video playback, 19,75 WHr battery
Mini HDMI 1.4a, Micro-USB 2.0, 3.5 mm headset
16 GB WiFi $299 USD / 299,99 EUR
32 GB LTE $399 USD / 379,99 EUR
optional Shield Controller with WiFi connection for $59 USD / 59,99 EUR
optional Shield Cover for $39 USD / 29,99 EUR

The tablet should should be available in US and Canada towards the end of July. Europe will follow in mid August and more regions are planned for fall 2014.

NVIDIA Shield Wireless Controller and Tablet

NVIDIA Shield Wireless Controller and Tablet, Trine 2

+ Show Press Release

Press Release

NVIDIA Launches World’s First Tablet Built for Gamers

SHIELD Family Expands as World’s Most Advanced Mobile Processor, 192-Core Tegra K1, Serves Up Unmatched Tablet Experience, Amazing Gaming

SANTA CLARA, Calif.—July 22, 2014—NVIDIA today launched the newest members of the NVIDIA® SHIELD TM family — the SHIELD tablet and the SHIELD wireless controller.

Designed and built by NVIDIA, SHIELD Tablet is the ultimate tablet for gamers, delivering unparalleled gaming performance made possible by the world’s most powerful mobile processor, the NVIDIA Tegra® K1, and frequent software updates that bring new features and improved performance.

The SHIELD tablet is built for gaming, featuring a bright, 8-inch, full HD display, booming front- facing speakers with rich sound, and an optional cover that both protects the screen and can be used as a stand to support the device. To transform the tablet form factor into a serious gaming machine, NVIDIA has built the SHIELD wireless controller, which provides the precision, low latency and ergonomics that serious gamers demand.

The SHIELD tablet offers optional LTE for gamers to take their online gaming anywhere. And to ensure the device delivers the richest gaming experience, NVIDIA will provide regular, over-the- air software updates.

“If you’re a gamer and you use a tablet, the NVIDIA SHIELD tablet was created specifically for you,” said Jen-Hsun Huang, president and chief executive officer at NVIDIA. “The SHIELD tablet delivers unique gaming capabilities to keep even the most avid gamer deeply immersed, anywhere they play.”

NVIDIA Launches World’s First Tablet Built for Gamers Page 2

As with the original member of the SHIELD family, the original SHIELD portable, the SHIELD tablet is the portal to compelling content that gamers will love, including over 400 SHIELD- optimized Android games, as well as the ability to wirelessly stream users’ PC gaming libraries.

The SHIELD tablet’s gaming capabilities are powered by its Tegra K1 mobile processor, with a 192-core GPU that taps into the same NVIDIA KeplerTM architecture that drives the most extreme gaming PCs.

String of World Firsts

The SHIELD tablet provides a range of firsts for a tablet:

PC Streaming: First to stream games from a PC desktop or notebook, from anywhere in the home – using NVIDIA GameStreamTM technology to stream from systems powered by an NVIDIA GeForce® GTX 6xx series or greater GPU.
Cloud Streaming: First to stream PC games from the cloud. Gamers can access the NVIDIA GRIDTM cloud gaming beta, available exclusively to SHIELD owners in Northern California, to instantly stream a library of high-quality PC games, and then save them in the cloud.
Twitch and NVIDIA ShadowPlayTM: First to feature Twitch – the leading video platform and community for gamers – which is also integrated with ShadowPlay, an advanced game-capture tool that lets users save and stream their greatest gaming moments. Gamers can stream titles from the SHIELD tablet to friends and foes worldwide. SHIELD Tablet also includes a 5MP front camera to enhance the image of the gamer overlaid on the Twitch gamecast.
Console Mode: First to feature NVIDIA Console Mode, which takes your tablet gameplay to your big screen TV. Console Mode transforms the device into a full living-room gaming and entertainment experience. Gamers can set up their SHIELD wireless controller, sit back on their couch and play Android games, browse the web and watch their favorite movies — all in native 1080p HD.

NVIDIA Launches World’s First Tablet Built for Gamers Page 3

Controller for Serious Gamers, with Ultra-Low Latency Wi-Fi

The SHIELD wireless controller is the most advanced device of its kind, allowing gamers to boost performance with ultra-low latency Wi-Fi Direct connectivity with up to four wireless controllers to game along with friends. It is the first precision controller designed for both PC gaming and Android, and features a gaming headset jack, built-in touch pad, volume control and revolutionary voice command and search.

Best Stylus

A stylus allows tablet experiences that touch-only tablets can’t match, and the NVIDIA DirectStylusTM 2 technology on the SHIELD tablet is a game-changer. Twice as responsive as its predecessor, DirectStylus 2 technology enables the first GPU-accelerated 3D painting experience, a new capability where pigment and paint mix and bleed physically, in real time, and the palette is naturally illuminated in 3D as the user adjusts the light source.

Aspiring artists can use DirectStylus 2 to capture the attitude of every stroke on the SHIELD tablet, take notes with the integrated apps and handwriting recognition, or get creative with the NVIDIA DabblerTM app’s hyper-realistic watercolor and 3D Paint oil painting.

Dynamic Sound

Ensuring that every game, song and podcast sounds incredibly crisp and clear, NVIDIA PureAudioTM technology delivers dynamic sound through front-facing stereo speakers and a dual-ported bass-reflex enclosure.

Versatile Cover

The sturdy, optional SHIELD tablet cover does more than just protect the tablet. It offers a variety of flexible stand positions to make gaming and entertainment more enjoyable.

Preloaded with NVIDIA SHIELD Hub and Trine 2
The SHIELD tablet comes preloaded with the NVIDIA SHIELD Hub app, the center of the gamer’s SHIELD experience. The app offers one-touch access to over 400 SHIELD-optimized Android

NVIDIA Launches World’s First Tablet Built for Gamers Page 4

game titles, along with Google Play, where gamers can download thousands of apps, including Netflix, Pandora and more.

Also bundled is the popular Frostbyte game Trine 2: Complete Story. Originally a huge hit on PlayStation, Xbox and Steam, the game is now optimized for great gameplay and graphics on the Tegra K1 processor.

Pricing, Availability and Accessories

The SHIELD tablet comes with either Wi-Fi connectivity, or Wi-Fi and LTE. It’s available in 16- and 32GB, with MicroSD (up to 128GB), starting at $299. The SHIELD wireless controller retails for $59. The SHIELD tablet cover retails for $39.

The SHIELD tablet, wireless controller and tablet cover are now available for preorder in the United States, Canada and select European countries. Preorders in the United States are available at shield.nvidia.com, Amazon, Best Buy, Fry’s Electronics, GameStop, Micro Center, Newegg and Tiger Direct, and in Canada at Canada Computers, Memory Express, NCIX and ThinkGeek.

More information, including product specifications, is available at shield.nvidia.com.

NVIDIA Shield Tablet with Tegra K1 and Controller announced

Key facts

Press Release

More articles related to this device

Related Articles