Imagination unveils PowerVR 7XT and 7XE GPUs

Imagination is the maker behind the PowerVR GPUs best known from Apple's line of iOS devices, but have also been used in Exynos, MediaTek and other chipsets. Today the company unveiled the Series7 GPUs that span two branches aimed at anything from wearables to desktop-class computing.

Both branches – 7XT and 7XE – support Android Expansion Pack (AEP), virtualization, high-quality texture compression and full OpenGL ES 3.1.

AEP was introduced with Android 5.0 Lollipop for "desktop-quality graphics." Virtualization is important for keeping different apps separate and adding a layer between them and the hardware to improve security. Tessellation increases the detail of the 3D model for improved results.

PowerVR 7XT is the new top dog, announced not even a year after the 6XT series. It covers mid-range phones to flagships and is also intended for high-end entertainment systems in Smart TVs and cars. This branch focuses on performance and delivers 60% more power clock for clock compared to an equivalent 6XT GPU.

The top-spec'd GPU in the series offers up to 1 TFLOPS of computing power in FP16 mode. There's optional DirectX 11 support for Windows-running desktops, optional High Performance Computing with Open CL 1.2 Full Profile and FP64.

Tessellation in action

The PowerVR 7XE GPUs are focused on power efficiency first – they still support AEP and tessellation, virtualization too.

Starting next year we'll be seeing devices with these new GPUs. You can hit the source links for more technical details on the PowerVR 7XT and 7XE.

Thanks to Alexandru for sending this in!

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