With quad-core chips quickly losing their novelty, the industry will start pushing benefits like better graphics and power efficiency.

Remember when a quad-core processor was the ultimate indicator of a super-smartphone? Well its 15 minutes are almost up.

Just as the current run of super-smartphones are destined for the bargain bin in a few months, so too will the novelty and obsession with the number of cores powering a phone begin to fade. Sure, smartphones with the latest quad-core chips still rule now, but companies are already preparing to change the conversation.

In its place, expect chip companies, handset manufacturers, and wireless carriers to shift their marketing away from an emphasis cores and more toward tangible benefits such as a smoother experience, bigger displays with higher-resolution graphics, and better battery life.

"That's the end game for a lot of these semiconductor companies: connect great experiences and long battery life with their chip," said Francis Sideco, an analyst at IHS.

The mobile industry has been making steady progress on the brains found in smartphones. It wasn't that long ago that a 1-gigahertz processor was the high benchmark for a mobile device. Then came the advent of dual-core processors, and this year brought quad-core chips to the mainstream.

The progression made for an easy marketing message to consumers and specification geeks: if two cores are better than one, four has got to be even better. Of course, the truth isn't really that simple, but that doesn't stop everyone in the mobile devices industry, right down to the sales staff, from repeating it as gospel.

The obsession with mobile processors has been a boon to the chip makers, giving added visibility to companies such as Qualcomm and Nvidia. These aren't exactly household names, but they are brands that mean something to gadget enthusiasts, and are often associated with quality. It's no wonder companies such as Qualcomm have spent millions of dollars marketing the Snapdragon processor brand, similar to Intel's own "Intel Inside" campaign for PCs.

But the chip industry is getting to the point where more cores will result in diminishing returns, with most companies agreeing that four will be the limit for a while. That's because few applications and tasks on the phone (or computer) can take advantage of multiple cores and actually get a benefit.

"Quad-core CPUs will have become the standard for mobile devices," said Matt Wuebbling, director of Nvidia's Tegra marketing. "While some may try to move beyond quad-core, we don't believe there will be a perceptible user benefit."

So don't hold your breath for a five or six-core smartphone.

Without the easy sales pitch of more cores, these companies have their work cut out for them when it comes to talking about their chips.

"It's what's keeping their chief marketing officers up at night," Sideco said.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-57557548-94/beyond-quad-core-whats-next-for-mobile-processing-power/