Apple's New A6X iPad Chip Adopts PowerVR SGX 554MP4 Graphics

This is upgrade is nothing more than being future proof. It does nothing to current iPad owners and its simple.

No developer will be making games for the graphics power of iPad 4, everyone will make sure their games are low spec enough to run probably even on the iPad 2.

Even if developers will make use out of the iPad's 4 graphical power, their games will only be released about 6-7 months into the future, making it closer to the release of the iPad 5 and 7 months of almost useless graphical upgrade.

Think of new consoles, all the good games start coming within a year after release, and looking back at it, the first games released are usually the worst in graphics(compare release titles for PS2 vs latest release for the system)

nutmac said:

Although increased performance is great, especially for Safari rendering and games, I have rarely considered my iPad 3 to be anywhere near slow.

Looking at iFixIt teardown (with all the unused spaces and all) and very short list of changes (can literally be counted with 1 hand), I can't help but think that iPad 4 is a rushed and minor update to iPad 3.

Having said that, if I was running Apple, I probably would've never released iPad 3. I purchased iPad 2 on day 1 (and upgraded to iPad 3 on day 1). And I would've been perfectly fine using iPad 2 for 20 months (March 2011 to November 2012).

I look forward to slimmer, lighter, faster, and longer battery life iPad 5 next year.

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Yeah, I did just that bought iPad 2 days one and now the iPad 4. Same experience as iPad 2 now with Retina and 2x CPU and about even on GPU.

kingmohd84 said:

This is upgrade is nothing more than being future proof. It does nothing to current iPad owners and its simple.

No developer will be making games for the graphics power of iPad 4, everyone will make sure their games are low spec enough to run probably even on the iPad 2.

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For 3D games, I'd expect developers could much more easily just turn up the detail switch if you have a 4th gen, and dial it down on a 3rd gen. Since it's pretty standard to have adjustable quality/antialiasing/etc for these types of titles.

iChrist said:

Agreed! However I do really hope they do away with the LG screens in the iPad 5. The LG screen in the ipad 4 is really a step down from the truly amazing screen in the iPad 3. The color accuracy is quite poor in the LG screen.


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So you already had an iPad 4 in your hands and checked it with a spectrophotometer? Can you please be more specific? Is the display colder or warmer than the iPad 3 display? What´s the gamut like?

jav6454 said:

I wonder what the constraints are concerning power. Also, if, having 2x 543 cores gives 19.2 GFLOPS of compute GPU power, why didn't Apple opted for a single core 554 that has the same specs as two 543s in their A6 chip? There are no differences in core count, bandwidth, compute, or anything else. Eliminate a core, deliver greater performance no?

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The number of "cores" is largely irrelevant, as they are on the same die as the CPU. The total number of MADs, to first order, describes the area and power needs of the GPU. You're probably right that a single 554 core would perform at least as well as two 543s, possibly better if they've enhanced the power efficiency. My guess is that the 554 wasn't available in the iPad 2 days, and now it probably costs less to license then a 554 with equivalent MADs.

iPad power constraint: typical long term iPad use needs to under 5 watts, with 4 watts driving the screen at typical brightness, and less than 1 watt for the CPU/GPUs. During peak use (aka iPad3 overheat), the CPU cores can reach 0.5 watts each, and the GPU cores can reach 1 watt each. But this pushes the iPad way over budget and can't be sustained.

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nutmac said:

Having said that, if I was running Apple, I probably would've never released iPad 3.

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By that time, Android tablets were getting pretty good, and Apple needed to keep a clear lead in tablet hardware, so they released an under baked retina iPad. Not the greatest move, true, but if they had waited, and only now released a retina iPad, it would look like they were just playing catch up to Google, instead of Google trying to catch up to Apple.

To be fair, it was easy to see that the iPad 3 was unbalanced, meaning that an application running in high resolution on an iPad3 would run twice as slowly as the same application running in low res on an iPad 2. Now the iPad4 is as fast as the iPad2.

iChrist said:

Nah, he probably meant he bought an iPad 3 because it didn't come with a second rate LG screen.

iPad is all about the beautiful retina screen, and the LG doesn't cut it as shown on the mrMBPs.

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You guys put way too much important on who makes what. For a great deal of components, suppliers are more or less interchangeable - it's mostly a matter of yield and cost.

Just because LG messed up that one time, Sansung fanboys repeatedly bring up the incident, ignoring the fact that LG was the one behind the Retina Display that gave the iPhone 4 quite an edge 2 years back, and use it to justify that their claim that LG is inferior.

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iChrist said:

Agreed! However I do really hope they do away with the LG screens in the iPad 5. The LG screen in the ipad 4 is really a step down from the truly amazing screen in the iPad 3. The color accuracy is quite poor in the LG screen.


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[citation needed]

You appear to have something against LG don't you. LOL

Also, the iPad 4 is more or less the iPad 3 with a better CPU and GPU plus 4G support. I doubt Apple went through the trouble to redo their supply lines, ergo, everything else is more or less the same.

In 1992 there was a movie called Sneakers

In this movie Robert Redford and Ben Kingsly sit on a Cray (cause a Supercomputer makes such a great bench). The Cray in the movie was a Y-XP (I think). Approximately 19.2 GFlops. I'm just sayin...

silverf1re said:

Hope games like Infinity Blade Dungeons got pushed back because they recognize the graphics potential of the ipad 4 (What ever you call it)

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It's funny how Apple seems to care about graphics on the iPad but not their Macintosh computers (e.g. the new Mac Mini).

MagnusVonMagnum said:

It's funny how Apple seems to care about graphics on the iPad but not their Macintosh computers (e.g. the new Mac Mini).

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Let me fix that for you:

It's funny how Apple seems to care about graphics on the iPad but not their Macintosh computers

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MagnusVonMagnum said:

It's funny how Apple seems to care about graphics on the iPad but not their Macintosh computers (e.g. the new Mac Mini).

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I don't think it's about Apple caring more about iPad's graphic as much as the fact the faster graphic chips available for Macs require a ton of electricity and heat in comparison.

From what I can gather, the iPad 4 simply fixes the relative graphics performance deficit that was introduced with the iPad 3.

Or, to break it down.

iPad 2 = 1 x 1024 x 768 pixels / 1 x Relative GPU (2 cores)

iPad 3 = 4 x 1024 x 768 pixels (2048 x 1536) / 2 x Relative GPU (4 cores). So only enough GPU to really power half the pixels

iPad 4 = 4 x 1024 x 768 pixels (2048 x 1536) / 4 x Relative GPU (4 cores). That's 4 x the GPU power of the iPad 2, enough to power 4 x the pixel count. Meaning, relatively speaking, games can look JUST as good. But not better.

Yes I know that fill-rate isn't everything. This is a rather crude way to view it. I know. But to me, I understand Apple's desire to get the GPU power back up to scratch so that things look as good as the iPad 2 (just at 4 x the resolution).

scottrichardson said:

From what I can gather, the iPad 4 simply fixes the relative graphics performance deficit that was introduced with the iPad 3.

Or, to break it down.

iPad 2 = 1 x 1024 x 768 pixels / 1 x Relative GPU (2 cores)

iPad 3 = 4 x 1024 x 768 pixels (2048 x 1536) / 2 x Relative GPU (4 cores). So only enough GPU to really power half the pixels

iPad 4 = 4 x 1024 x 768 pixels (2048 x 1536) / 4 x Relative GPU (4 cores). That's 4 x the GPU power of the iPad 2, enough to power 4 x the pixel count. Meaning, relatively speaking, games can look JUST as good. But not better.

Yes I know that fill-rate isn't everything. This is a rather crude way to view it. I know. But to me, I understand Apple's desire to get the GPU power back up to scratch so that things look as good as the iPad 2 (just at 4 x the resolution).

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It fixes that particular issue..... But it also gives developers a bunch more shader, and polygon crunching power to throw around in addition to being able to feed those pixels quickly.

insane gpu upgrade
great cpu upgrade

2 pretty dam good reasons to upgrade my ancient ipad 1 ive been holding on to. ipad 4 here i come!

scottrichardson said:

From what I can gather, the iPad 4 simply fixes the relative graphics performance deficit that was introduced with the iPad 3.

Or, to break it down.

iPad 2 = 1 x 1024 x 768 pixels / 1 x Relative GPU (2 cores)

iPad 3 = 4 x 1024 x 768 pixels (2048 x 1536) / 2 x Relative GPU (4 cores). So only enough GPU to really power half the pixels

iPad 4 = 4 x 1024 x 768 pixels (2048 x 1536) / 4 x Relative GPU (4 cores). That's 4 x the GPU power of the iPad 2, enough to power 4 x the pixel count. Meaning, relatively speaking, games can look JUST as good. But not better.

Yes I know that fill-rate isn't everything. This is a rather crude way to view it. I know. But to me, I understand Apple's desire to get the GPU power back up to scratch so that things look as good as the iPad 2 (just at 4 x the resolution).

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You're totally right, but a few considerations
-- many games on iPad 3 don't actually run at 2x resolution, but actually 1.5x resolution, so it works out okay with only two times the GPU cores of the iPad 2. So on iPad 4 developers could bump these games to true retina, or add more detail.
-- besides pushing pixels, in OpenGL ES 2.0 the GPU also has to transform vertices. Since this is independent of resolution the amount of work for the retina display is actually less than 4 times the work of non-retina. If you really wanted to quadruple the work you could do full retina and also push 4x the amount of geometry. So games could look better.
-- The PowerVR SGX 554 has 2x the theoretical floating point throughput, but the same number of TMUs (for texture filtering) and ROPs (for rasterizing) has not increased. This is why we don't actually get 2x the performance of the iPad 3. So maybe games won't look that much better afterall.

Jeans89 said:

I upgraded 4S to 5 and having used the new one now several weeks, I am not sure was the upgrade worth of the cost. 4S is a terrific phone and 5 don't add much to that. Slightly bigger screen and a new design. But on the other hand, both models have nice design. Perform wice I think 4S has all the power I needed.

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The screen may not be much bigger but it's 16:9 so full screen videos are much larger. Also everything on the phone is super quick and no reload of websites etc. and very quick app switching due to increased RAM (1GB). All of these added into the redesigned shell makes iPhone 5 a very worthy upgrade instead of "boring".

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nutmac said:

Although increased performance is great, especially for Safari rendering and games, I have rarely considered my iPad 3 to be anywhere near slow.

Looking at iFixIt teardown (with all the unused spaces and all) and very short list of changes (can literally be counted with 1 hand), I can't help but think that iPad 4 is a rushed and minor update to iPad 3.

Having said that, if I was running Apple, I probably would've never released iPad 3. I purchased iPad 2 on day 1 (and upgraded to iPad 3 on day 1). And I would've been perfectly fine using iPad 2 for 20 months (March 2011 to November 2012).

I look forward to slimmer, lighter, faster, and longer battery life iPad 5 next year.

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The only problem with the iPad 3 is the weight. I don't feel is sluggish at all and the retina screen is terrific. And the iPad 4 didn't fix that very problem.

Acorn said:

insane gpu upgrade
great cpu upgrade

2 pretty dam good reasons to upgrade my ancient ipad 1 ive been holding on to. ipad 4 here i come!

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I just got mine went from a ipad 2 I think it's totally worth it. What I can't understand is I remember when ipad3 was released everyone was bashing on ipad 2s poor screen quality and now they are bashing apple for releasing this so quickly, it's probably the same group of people that bought core duo MacBooks may 2006 only to find a few months later they were updated to core 2 models.

pleas note that the only thing faster in the ipad 4 is the 3D games performance all other operations are identical in real world use

iEvolution said:

No joke how long does it take Samsung to support the latest android system?

I have a motorola xoom that .0000000000002% of the population uses yet motorola is quick to kick out the latest android flavors for it.

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Only if you live in the US, those devices are supported by Google (the Xoom was a kind of Nexus-tablet in the US) - if you live outside the US, you get updates from Motorola, and Motorola is as slow as Samsung.

iSunrise said:

So you already had an iPad 4 in your hands and checked it with a spectrophotometer? Can you please be more specific? Is the display colder or warmer than the iPad 3 display? What´s the gamut like?

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Yes, checked it with a spyder 3 using coloreyes. I bought 5 for the lounge in my office and the waiting area. Returned the ipad 4s. Kept the existing ipad 3's instead.




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Prallethrin said:

Also, the iPad 4 is more or less the iPad 3 with a better CPU and GPU plus 4G support. I doubt Apple went through the trouble to redo their supply lines, ergo, everything else is more or less the same.

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Umm, false. Apple had a hissy fit and stopped getting panels from Samsung. Very recently in fact, there are many posts on this very site. Please read before stating false nonsense. Thank you.

fertilized-egg said:

I don't think it's about Apple caring more about iPad's graphic as much as the fact the faster graphic chips available for Macs require a ton of electricity and heat in comparison.

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That wouldn't really matter that much on a "desktop" like the iMac (or even the new Mac Mini which dumped 3rd party graphics on the new model whereas it had it on the mid-model last generation) if they weren't obsessed with making everything (whether it makes logical sense or not) thin as paper.

of those figures in the Anandtech result the most surprising is just how far ahead the iPhone 5 is from the S3. In most of the tests it's 2 or 3 times quicker however in the GL Texture tests it's 10 times quicker!

Impressive figures.

GorgonPhone said:

pleas note that the only thing faster in the ipad 4 is the 3D games performance all other operations are identical in real world use

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That's totally false. The CPU literally yields 2x the performance.

holmesf said:

That's totally false. The CPU literally yields 2x the performance.

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Yes, it does. However, in real world usage scenarios (not theoretical benchmarks that all the review sites throw around) it´s not that much better than an iPad 3. It´s clearly a much more future-proof design performance wise, but it´s not at all like "WOW, this blows the iPad 3 out of the water."

Make no mistake, the iPad 3 still is pretty darn good, even if it only has an A5X.

iPad 4 vs. iPad 3 Speed Test
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMijuc5qX7M

To be quite frank, I was a bit shocked about these results, too. It´s not worth it at all to upgrade your iPad 3. Now, if you still have an iPad 1 or iPad 2, you may consider it. But as iChrist has pointed out, it seems like the iPad 3 even has better color accuracy than an iPad 4. We have to wait for some results from Displaymate to verify this, but everyone who thinks about upgrading an iPad 3 to an iPad 4 may find himself to be disappointed.

A worthy upgrade from my POV would need Apple to do the following at least:

1) Better iSight camera (yes, I was surprised myself how useful it is, I almost use it daily)
2) Thinner and lighter design (not a must, but a welcome change, it matters a lot for a Pad)
3) A display at least of the same quality (color accuracy, gamut and black level) than an iPad 3

iChrist said:

Yes, checked it with a spyder 3 using coloreyes. I bought 5 for the lounge in my office and the waiting area. Returned the ipad 4s. Kept the existing ipad 3's instead.

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And all of them were worse across the bank? Wow, that´s really bad. Thanks man. Appreciate the detailed answer.

Only for Apple would every single component be subject to such close scrutiny. I rarely ever see such obsession with android products.