Nvidia's quad-core Kal-El processor, the next in line to the tablet powerhouse throne, does in fact have five cores. 

Why is this important? Well as an Nvidia white paper reveals, the extra "companion core" means parts of Kal-El can be power optimised, allowing for better battery performance. 

Without getting too bogged down in all the technical details of the Nvidia paper, which some of you will enjoy, we're sure, it basically explains how Kal-El means more power and less battery drain.

"Using the combination of performance-optimized main cores and a power-optimized Companion core, Variable Symmetric Multiprocessing technology not only delivers ultra-low power consumption in active standby states, but also on-demand peak quad core performance for performance hungry mobile applications such as gaming, Web browsing, Flash media, and video conferencing."

So there you have it, straight from the horses mouth, Kal-El will bring better battery and better processor intensive experiences, thanks in part to its secret fifth core. The four main cores will come to life when things get hairy in the processor department, whereas the fifth, capped at 500MHz is geared up for simpler applications. This means Kal-El can divvy things up between gaming and general smartphone/tablet usage. 

We can't say we aren't surprised, Nvidia keeps on getting it right on the portable processor front. Now all we have to do is wait for Kal-El to drop and let the next batch of smartphone core-wars get started. 

Until then, enjoy reading through Nvidia's white papers; they are insanely complicated. 

Looking forward to Kal-El?