The Tegra 3 is one powerful little chip, featuring four cores plus a fifth “power saver” core to create what Nvidia is calling Super 4-PLUS-1™ which provides power when needed by enabling and disabling cores based on workload. The chip is made to deliver console quality gaming and superior HD video.
If your not familiar with this chip, this is the work horse behind the new Google Nexus 7.
The big thing I personally see with this chip when going through all of its specs are the all the power saving features and efforts to improve overall responsiveness. Mobile devices like the Nexus 7 have been noted for smooth performance, Nvidia attributes the smooth feel to its DirectTouch™ architecture that is designed to improve touch responsiveness by handing a portion of the touch processing onto the Tegra 3 processor.
The overall feel of the device has long been a deciding factor for me when choosing mobile devices. It really takes alot away from the experience even when there is a small amount of lag when navigating.
The Tegra 3 is also inside many other devices including the Acer Iconia Tab A510, Asus Transformer Pad TF300 and the Toshiba Excite 10 Tablet.