NVIDIA And Microsoft Are InTEGRAl To The Zune HD

Sure, it's common knowledge that the Zune HD will be powered by a ridiculously powerful NVIDIA Tegra processor, and that's one of the many reasons the Zune HD is so anticipated at this point. But up until recently, NVIDIA has been pretty quiet about their powerhouse of a processor, for whatever reason. It wasn't until the Zune HD went up for pre-order, that NVIDIA's website began to reflect the upcoming release, and with it, they got down to the nitty-gritty, detailing exactly what we should expect with the Zune HD's September 15th launch.

A quick refresher, and you'll remember that the Zune HD is packing a 3.3" OLED display, with a capacitive touchscreen and multi-touch support. It comes packed with HD radio, as well as the ability to output 720p HDTV for movies and other media. You'll need an extra dock to port the video to a compatible HDTV. But, it's with the Tegra chip that things get tantalizing. We know that the processor will be handling the multimedia on the Zune HD, and NVIDIA decided to open up on this. The Tegra processor is made up of at least eight independent processors, which can work on their own or together to control power consumption. Each processor is also designed for one suite of tasks: one processor for audio, another for HD video, a graphics processor, and two ARM cores, among others. With the Zune HD's built-in nPower technology, the entire system should be optimized for system power and enable lengthy HD viewing/music playback.

But this is all on paper, and if we're to learn anything from the past, we know that a lot of things sound great on paper, but can act drastically different when it comes to the real thing. Will Microsoft fall victim to the past? Or will they finally realize the true potential of a processor that many have been vying for since its announcement. Whether you're excited to get your hands on one or see it fail against the competition, you're wait ends in less than a month.

[via NVIDIA]