Qualcomm recently showcased its new quad-core APQ8064 chip - apparently the fastest ARM-based processor on the market, as of now - in its $1,299-priced Snapdragon APQ8064 S4 Pro development tablet.

The APQ8064 is, fundamentally speaking, a top-end smartphone, doubled --- it boasts four 1.5Ghz, 28-nanometer Krait cores, rather than two such cores in top-of-the-line handsets such as Samsung Galaxy S III and the HTC One X. In addition, the new Qualcomm quad-core screamer is, on many benchmarks, two times faster too.

The test unit of the APQ8064 is a chunky 10-inch tablet which features a 13-megapixel rear camera, a dock with USB and Ethernet ports, and a fingerprint reader. The actual retail APQ8064 tablets - which will be different from the test tablet; and will be manufactured by tablet makers - will likely hit the markets by the end of this year.

While the APQ8064 is a cut above the rivals on raw measurements of CPU and I/O prowess - scoring 7,667 on Quadrant and 13,888 on Antutu -, the biggest surprise, is the noteworthy graphics performance due to the new Adreno
320 GPU. Most gaming tests on the APQ8064 S4 Pro development tablet hit 60 frames per second (fps), the "vsync limit" for consumer Android apps.

Moreover, with the GLBenchmark Egypt Offscreen test - which pumps the graphics system sans any image display - hit 132 fps; thus making the APQ8064 a prime processor for the new "retina" as well as the higher-resolution tablets of the future.