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Peace

Cancelled
Apr 1, 2005
19,546
4,556
Space The Only Frontier
The graphics-benchmark is awesome. The processor benchmarks are kinda logical. A dual-core i5 will be smoked with a quad-core i7, so a quad-core Tegra 3 will smoke a dual-core A5X. But wait until Apple reveals the A6 chipset...

I wouldn't compare the Tegra running Android ( or W8 ) to the A5X running IOS.

imho IOS runs better on less horsepower than Android does. Android needs the extra horsepower to keep up.
 

firewood

macrumors G3
Jul 29, 2003
8,108
1,345
Silicon Valley
Might be a great opportunity for a game explicitly designed for AirPlay, with the quad-core GPUs rendering some massive amount of polygons for a large TV, while only displaying a few game controls on the iPad itself.

Anyone know how the actual poly and pixel rates compare with game consoles? (not just the posted specs.)
 

Rocketman

macrumors 603
Wouldn't it be cool if the A6 had quad core CPU, octocore GPU and algorithims to use the GPU as a co-processor for some tasks?

Tablet faster than a desktop anyone?

I think the solution to the cooling problem could be two processors located on opposite ends of the board to distribute the heat. It is not the way a circuit guy would do it, but it is the way a thermodynamicist would.

Rocketman
 
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SimonTheSoundMa

macrumors 65816
Aug 6, 2006
1,033
213
Birmingham, UK
The GPU is from PowerVR which uses tile-based deferred rendering. On the iPad 2 each core renders half the pixels on the screen, each core on the new iPad renders the same amount of pixels, so quarter of the screen. Unsure why people assume there would be an increase in performance when you are running at native resolutions.
 

tigress666

macrumors 68040
Apr 14, 2010
3,288
17
Washington State
make sure you turn off the HTML5 version on youtube.com/html5/ page - after that, I have zero issues (with lag, not loading) on os x lion with flash uninstalled.

The iPad 2 played games just fine. With the higher resolution now, while being the same performance as an iPad2, it's a WIN.

There is really no need for a quad core: but I am a tad bit disappointed the web browser on the iPad 3 is not as fast as a pc or at least 2x faster web browsing than a regular iPad 2

I'll say. The one downer of the iphone 4 was because it had a retina display but they didn't really increase the processor/graphics power so much the processor/graphics card on games actually made it slower than the 3GS (I honestly have to say I did notice it seemed a bit laggy for brand new tech when I got it. I mean it wasn't bad at all, but I think my 3G when new had less random lag issues. And yeah, my 4 is starting to feel a lot like my 3G did a few months before the 4 came out).

I think honestly in a big way the people with the 3GS/4S upgrade pattern get the much better phone as they get the one that gets the good speed boost (and the phone keeps up with new software/games longer).
 

Steveorevo

macrumors newbie
Jul 27, 2010
27
0
OpenCL?

Surely it's just a matter of time for the API to allow programmers to tap that quad core GPU for higher performance applications. OpenCL is a library that would allow floating point calculations on the GPU for programs that wish to leverage extreme calculations. Encryption, offline 3D rendering, etc. Their are already a number of Apps in the app store that, if re-compiled with a software library to use the OpenCL, should outperform the Tegra's native quadcore.
 

Moonjumper

macrumors 68030
Jun 20, 2009
2,740
2,908
Lincoln, UK
I was disappointed that the Tegra was mentioned at the iPad announcement. Apple compete on usability, numbers mean nothing to most customers. Mentioning the opposition strengthens them.
 

jayducharme

macrumors 601
Jun 22, 2006
4,533
5,980
The thick of it
That report fits in with my experience. I was expecting much smoother frame rate with games, but that didn't materialize. And in some cases, the frame rate is worse on the new iPad. So much for the glory of the retina display. Perhaps iPads need that A6 after all.
 

Rocketman

macrumors 603
Surely it's just a matter of time for the API to allow programmers to tap that quad core GPU for higher performance applications. OpenCL is a library that would allow floating point calculations on the GPU for programs that wish to leverage extreme calculations. Encryption, offline 3D rendering, etc. Their are already a number of Apps in the app store that, if re-compiled with a software library to use the OpenCL, should outperform the Tegra's native quadcore.
Exactly.
 

firewood

macrumors G3
Jul 29, 2003
8,108
1,345
Silicon Valley
That report fits in with my experience. I was expecting much smoother frame rate with games, but that didn't materialize. And in some cases, the frame rate is worse on the new iPad.

My guess is that those games haven't been tuned and optimized for the new iPad yet. There is a bit of an art to Open GL performance tuning, and most game developers haven't had enough time to do that yet for the new performance envelope.
 

mcfrazieriv

macrumors 65816
Jan 30, 2012
1,105
2,843
Transformer Prime. Its Tegra CPU is apparently more Optimized for geekbenching than the A5X.

However, when you look at the article in total, and consider the Retina display and GPU performance, there's clearly More Than Meets The Eye to this article, than simply the numbers. :)

I don't know much about the Transformer Prime sales numbers, but it would seem that Apple can't Roll Out enough iPads!



...... :confused: ..........really?
 

Lennholm

macrumors 65816
Sep 4, 2010
1,003
210
I find it laughable really: no one will care what you name your GPU. Tegra what? I asked 5 people who are good friends what they thought of the tegra 3 processor vs. an iPad 3 (aka the 'new' iPad) - 5 out of 5 said, WHAT is tegra?

What a weird question, "Tegra 3 processor vs. iPad 3" and an even weirder conclusion. You don't think you would've gotten the same "What is..." answer about A5X if you asked about A5X instead of iPad 3?
There are those who care about the under the hood-components of a device and to those the Tegra name is established and well known. But of course to those who don't care the name is not known, but neither is the name "A5X"
 

ArizonaKid

macrumors regular
Jun 4, 2005
114
22
Arizona
I find it laughable really: no one will care what you name your GPU. Tegra what? I asked 5 people who are good friends what they thought of the tegra 3 processor vs. an iPad 3 (aka the 'new' iPad) - 5 out of 5 said, WHAT is tegra?

Here is the final conclusion for all the haters:

Apple knows what to do, how to do it right, and how to sell it. Most of these other iPad competitors love to give you specs and 99% of the time, if it runs like an iPad, people will not care what is Tegra.

Nerds and spec whores make up the 1% of buyers for any consumer gadget. The other 99% are intelligent people who know an iPad is better than anything else on the market right now. They are putting their money to prove it.

PS - I saw that fox show with J.Lo and marc antony - they actually use blackberry play books in the show. Terrible.

As been stated, Apple's the one that put the comparison out there. They didn't have to compare benchmarks at their keynote, but apparently they thought it was important enough to highlight.
 

rjohnstone

macrumors 68040
Dec 28, 2007
3,896
4,493
PHX, AZ.
I wouldn't compare the Tegra running Android ( or W8 ) to the A5X running IOS.

imho IOS runs better on less horsepower than Android does. Android needs the extra horsepower to keep up.
Yes and no.
On Android 3.x or below, yes, you need more horsepower.
On 4.x and above, no. Google finally got hardware acceleration right.
You can get excellent performance out of an Adreno 220 or Tegra 2 GPU running under ICS.

Of course you're still stuck with vendor code when it comes to hardware optimization.
Something many Android vendors still fail miserably at and nothing Google can do anything about either.
 

ranReloaded

macrumors 6502a
Feb 16, 2010
894
-1
Tokyo
Surely it's just a matter of time for the API to allow programmers to tap that quad core GPU for higher performance applications. OpenCL is a library that would allow floating point calculations on the GPU for programs that wish to leverage extreme calculations. Encryption, offline 3D rendering, etc. Their are already a number of Apps in the app store that, if re-compiled with a software library to use the OpenCL, should outperform the Tegra's native quadcore.

I don't think you need OpenCL for that; OpenGL "render to texture (off-screen framebuffer)" should be enough :)

In any case, does anybody know if and why, the new iPad keeps the same performance despite having 4x the pixels but only 2x the GPU cores of the iPad 2? Are they the same model of cores? (i.e. PowerVR SGXWhaterverCantKeepUpWithTheNumbers)
 

Karnivore

macrumors 6502
Apr 22, 2010
373
0
Yeah, too bad you couldn't make profit on them. :D

You're right, I only sold eight of them this Friday. Don't get me wrong $500 profit in one day is nothing to sneeze at but it's nothing compared to 2-3K I'd clear on average release weekend. Apple needs to hurry up with new iPhone so that fanboys can subsidize my next vacation :D
 

iSee

macrumors 68040
Oct 25, 2004
3,539
272
Very impressive.

The GPU score is crazy.

The CPU score is fine. The Tegra 3 quad core platform number is skewed by the two extra processing cores which don't have a lot to do on a device like the iPad running iOS

(iOS is one-app-at-a-time only. While certain kinds of background tasks are allowed, none of them use a lot of CPU power.)
 

iSee

macrumors 68040
Oct 25, 2004
3,539
272
I wouldn't compare the Tegra running Android ( or W8 ) to the A5X running IOS.

imho IOS runs better on less horsepower than Android does. Android needs the extra horsepower to keep up.

One big difference was that iOS has had much more of the UI rendering pipeline GPU-accelerated than Android. So it makes some sense that Apple focuses on GPUs and Android deveices focus on CPU: rendering possibly millions of pixels per second is a huge task for a mobile device.

However that has supposedly changed with Android 4 ICS.

As ICS devices become more prevalent, especially ones with decent GPUs, it will be interesting to see if it really works out that way: will Android devices still feel sluggish next to iOS one?
 

firewood

macrumors G3
Jul 29, 2003
8,108
1,345
Silicon Valley
In any case, does anybody know if and why, the new iPad keeps the same performance despite having 4x the pixels but only 2x the GPU cores of the iPad 2? Are they the same model of cores? (i.e. PowerVR SGXWhaterverCantKeepUpWithTheNumbers)

One possibility is that the peak pixel fill rate of the A5 devices is purposely limited (down-clocked bus, etc.) to save on power consumption. The new iPad has a massively larger battery, and reportedly gets a lot warmer under the same CPU load, maybe more than from running more GPU cores but at the same old power levels.
 

longofest

Editor emeritus
Jul 10, 2003
2,924
1,682
Falls Church, VA
The unreleased A6 chip is believed to be Apple's next generation Quad-Core CPU which is still in the pipeline.

Article Link: New iPad Graphics and Processor Benchmarks: iPad 2, NVIDIA Tegra 3

that's a bit premature, IMO. A6 could turn out to be a dual core cortex A15. Keeping it dual core has advantages - mainly battery life. The move to cortex A15 would provide plenty of performance benefits without needing to add cores - dual core cortex A15s are beating out quad core A9s in early benchmarks.
 

speedylomeli

macrumors member
Feb 15, 2011
51
0
South Lake Tahoe, CA
Better Specs

Boy. This is going to be an interesting thread. Fodder for both sides of the tech fence.

Technically it does have better specs, it's just that the improvement only applies to power the retina display. In a sense you would be able to browse the internet and play games at the same frame rates, but the only difference would be that the games and everything else will look sharper.
 
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