Dual-core smartphone processors: passe. Quad-core smartphone processors: the new standard in mobile performance.

Leaked pictures of the HTC Edge — purportedly the first smartphone to run on NVidia’s yet-to-be announced Tegra 3 processor — surfaced on Monday. As PocketNow.com reports, the new Tegra 3 sports four 1.5GHz cores, allowing the processor to simultaneously run multiple sets of program instructions.

Processor companies like Nvidia, Intel and AMD have long leveraged multi-core designs to mitigate diminishing gains in pure clock speed. So, for example, while it may be imprudent or technically infeasible to clock a mobile phone processor at, say, 2GHz for a variety of reasons, a company can roll out a multi-core chip at a much lower clock speed and still deliver faster performance (if not also improved power management).

Mobile operating systems and apps should be coded for multiple cores to take maximum advantage of workload distribution, but once they are, they really begin to sing.

If rumors are to be believed, the Tegra 3 (codenamed Kal-El) should be blazingly fast. Our experience with NVidia’s dual-core Tegra 2 has been nothing but positive. Apps on Tegra 2-powered phones run smoothly with little to no choppiness, and whipping through menu screens has been a breeze. Naturally, then, the Tegra 3 experience should only be better — barring any bizarre complications, of course.

Other leaked Edge specs appear conspicuously close to another recently debuted HTC device, the “Rezound.” Like the Rezound, the Edge is rumored to drop with a full gig of system memory. The Edge will also most likely come with Beats by Dre audio technology (which we’ve demoed and given our stamp of approval), as well as 32GB of storage capacity to store a wealth of tunes.

And big-screen junkies take note: The Edge may measure in at a whopping 4.7 inches, the same size as the HTC Sensation XL.

We don’t know if the phone will ship with Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich), but hopefully HTC is prepared to upgrade the Edge in a timely manner.

Pocket Now claims the Edge should drop some time in early 2012.