Qualcomm told Nvidia that its day in the sun was over, boasting at Mobile World Congress that the new Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 processor is faster than Nvidia’s Tegra 4, touted as the “world’s fastest mobile processor” when it launched in January. It’s hard to compare the two since Nvidia has not released clock speeds for the Tegra 4, but it has clocked the similar Tegra 4i at 2.3 GHz, the same speed claimed by Qualcomm for the Snapdragon 800. Both the Snapdragon 800 and the Tegra 4i are integrated with LTE modems and are ARM-based chipsets.

ARM introduced “big little processing” at MWC. “Big little processing is the mixture of Cortex A7 and Cortex A15 processors … and what it means is we’re able to extend the dynamic processing range of mobile devices and we’re able to achieve greater energy efficiencies,” said Laurence Bryant, ARM’s director of mobile Solutions. “The software switches backwards and forwards seamlessly across these processors to really achieve a great combination of energy efficiency and high performance computing.” Bryant demoed the processors on a Samsung tablet for RCR Wireless News last week.

Meanwhile ARM’s archrival Intel continues its push to increase its share of the mobile processor market. At MWC the company completed the launch of its Atom Z25xx system-on-a-chip, first announced at CES in January with the name Clover Trail+. The 32nm SoC combines three dual-core Atom processors and can process up to four applications simultaneously. Yesterday ZTE and Intel announced a multi-year partnership to create ZTE devices powered by Intel chips. Intel says Asus and Lenovo will also support its Atom Z25xx platform.