Nvidia has showcased its first quad-core Tegra processor, codenamed Kal-El, and the new part should enable much more powerful tablets and high-end phones.

Senior VP of Nvidia's Mobile Business Phil Carmak announced that the new processor will deliver a five-fold graphics performance increase over the current Tegra 2 dual-core. Capable of driving 2560x1600 displays, the new processor could power much more serious products than current tablets.

"You'll have full photo editing, video editing, writing of documents, browsing the Web, all sorts of stuff," he said.

He noted that Kal-El will allow hi-res displays on tablets, comparable to Apple's Retina display in terms of pixels per square millimeter. This should reduce eye strain and improve user experience.

On the CPU side of things, Nvidia claims Kal-El will outperform an Intel Core 2 Duo T7200 in CoreMark, which sounds quite impressive. The new processor should also speed up web browsing and other applications. Nvidia also showed off some 1440p playback on a 2560x1600 screen.

Nvidia started sampling Kal-El chips to manufacturers two weeks ago, but actual products won't appear until the end of the year, or early 2012.

More here.