Can it run Crisis? Yes! Nvidia has just announced SHIELD, an Android TV Game Console powered by the latest Tegra X1 SoC coupled with 3GB, 16GB flash, and which I believe to be the very first consumer ARM system with true 4K video output, decoding/encoding up to 60 fps, as well as both VP9 and H.265 codec at 4K resolution. I’m still not 100% sure gaming will be feasible at 4K resolutions. Since they already have a Shield tablet, and Shield portable game console, it would have been nice to find another name though…
SHIELD specifications:
- SoC – NVIDIA Tegra X1 octa-core processor with 4x Cortex A57 cores, 4x Cortex A53 cores, and a 256-core Maxwell GPU
- System Memory – 3GB RAM
- Storage – 16 GB + MicroSD slot
- Video Output – HDMI 2.0 up to 4K @ 60 Hz
- Video – 4K playback and capture up to 60 fps (VP9, H265, H264)
- Audio
- 7.1 and 5.1 surround sound pass through over HDMI,
- High-resolution audio playback up to 24-bit/192 kHz over HDMI and USB
- High-resolution audio up-sample to 24-bit/192 kHz over USB
- Connectivity – Gigabit Ethernet, 802.11ac 2×2 MIMO 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.1/BLE
- USB – 2x USB 3.0 (Type A) + 1x micro-USB 2.0 port
- Misc – IR Receiver (compatible with Logitech Harmony)
- Power Supply – 40 W power adapter
- Dimensions – 210 x 130 x 25 mm
- Weight – 654 g
The SHIELD will run the latest version of Android TV (Lollipop) with Google Cast support, include PLEX, support NVIDIA gaming features such as GRID, Share, and GameStream, and receive software upgrades directly from NVIDIA. The console will be sold with a SHIELD controller, and optional accessories such as a stand and a SHIELD remote.
PC Perspective ran ICE Storm Unlimited benchmark in the SHIELD, and compared the results to the SHIELD Tablet and iPad Air 2.
|
SHIELD |
SHIELD Tablet (Tegra K1) | iPad Air 2 (Apple A8X) |
|
| Overall | 42,406 (+42%) | 29,668 | 21,541 |
| Graphics | 56,179 () | 37,983 | 31,419 |
| Physics | 22,823 (+15%) | 19,837 | 10,256 |
* Percentage value represents the improvement over the SHIELD tablet.
200 games (or is it 50+ games?) will be available at launch in May, and it will sell for $199 with the SHIELD controller. You can find more information on Nvidia SHIELD product page.
Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.
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Can it run XBMC/Kodi with HEVC hardware decoding?
uh.. nice
was thinking about buying some mediacenter-thing soon anyway. So that might be another option (even more since Kodi slowly starts to get useful on android)
Razer forge tv is another choice with snap805 ram 2gb 16emmc price 100$
omfg. Will It Blend? :d
There isnt spidf :X Bootloader will be locked probably. But Linux would be a great on it, since tegra has a support 😀
@Harley
I guess for now not, but I could come.
Kodi 15 is now supported in Android TV so there’s hope.
http://shield.nvidia.com/console
Says it only support 1080p @60 fps gaming anyway.
http://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2015/03/03/why-shield/
So the 4K @ 60Hz is only for video playback.
Nvidia’s online shop contain more information and pictures about the Bluetooth Remote Control, and the game controller
http://shield.nvidia.com/store/remote
Bluetooth Remote Control with Microphone for voice search and a Headset Jack for private listening
http://shield.nvidia.com/store/controller
@Harley
The 1080p limit is explicit for the GRID, but I could not find anything about the games (and user interface resolution) on the console itself. I could see 4K touchscreen TVs before with X1, so I assume it might be possible on the SHIELD too.
Let’s see how the worldwide distribution works.
@cnxsoft
I’m guessing they will allow 1080p upscaling to 2160p for games, and allow true native 2060p resolution for both the user interface and video playback. While this is powerful it is not powerful enough to render any AAA games at in native 2160p.
Limiting it to 1080p but support upscaling to 2160p makes sense for for games. There is no reason why they would want to limit user interface resolution or video playback to 1080p if you have a 4K television.
Interesting to compare this new device with other Android devices, but many more interesting would be to compare it with real (dedicated) game consoles, like the Xbox 360 and the PS3.
Nvidia claim this new SHIELD console will feature one teraflops of computing power, at least in theory on paper.
While Xbox One can do 1.23 teraflops, while the PS4 can do about 1.84 teraflops. The previous generation could claim a lot less, with the only Xbox 360 having about 300 gigaflops of floating point performance, on a theoretical level, and the PS3 was about 400 gigaflops.
Though according to John Carmack you roughly need to double the amount of gigaflop/teraflop when comparing with a real (dedicated) game consoles. This is true because all newer games for these real (dedicated) game consoles are highly optimized for their specific specifications and hardware profile. Which is why people still argue if a comparably similar configured PC is as good as a new game console or not.
http://www.gamespot.com/forums/system-wars-314159282/john-carmackyou-need-a-368-teraflop-gpu-to-match-p-29422359/
Still, even if the new SHIELD console only have about 500 gigaflops, half of which Nivida claim, then the the new SHIELD console is still more powerful than Xbox 360 or PS3.
let see they media-hub capability and it may be contender to say
goodbye wintel.
The Nvidia Tegra X1 based shield should be a nice armv8 based Mini-PC with Ubuntu installed.
@Peter Bauer
Indeed it would but it’s not quite cheap. For this price you could probably get something powered by an Intel Atom which is still far more flexible and has better open source support.
But if you really want it to be ARM64 then yes, it’s a very good choice and you might be able to sell or reuses the game controller.
Nvidia is doing great with this console and even with the last two devices shield portable and tablet.
Nvidia Android ecosystem, TV and games,this its a good move pushing forward and going ahead in this matters, the new tegra X1 blazing no question. The nvidia hub,the grid free until June PC games, optimized games, partnership, great,just need flash support maybe not, but this was the right move from nvidia.sorry for the Chinese SoC makers. And think its a good price
Looks interesting ,wish I had the time
https://developer.nvidia.com/develop4shield
Nvidia has just released Tegra Android Development Pack 4.0R1 (TADP 4.0R1) with support for NVIDIA SHIELD (Tegra X1).
https://developer.nvidia.com/tegra-android-development-pack
Has anybody bought this new NVIDIA device and was successful to hack it? I’d like to see Ubuntu running on it. Would be pretty awesome, a 64bit ARMv8 with 3GByte of memory for $199 only.
hm… the UK price for the cheapest option is £240. I really wonder whether the sales teams thing the customers in the UK are idi*ots who can not count…
@olin
… and rightly so, considering some of them can not spell correctly.
ps. it would be nice to have an option to fix typos in my comments
Seems one can only buy this through shield.nvidia.com (broken atm)
I’m not a gamer at all but if this will be avail. in Europe I’ll be in.
Hm, it’s availabe on amazon.com. Gonna try to order it when I’m home.
Especially since http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=21936