iPhone 3GS Has More Powerful PowerVR SGX 535 GPU?

[MacRumors]

Despite the fact that it seems to be common knowledge that the iPhone 3GS uses the latest PowerVR SGX graphics processors, the specifics have remained a bit of a mystery. In an in-depth "under the hood" analysis, Anandtech guessed that Apple uses the low end 520 model in the iPhone 3GS. The PowerVR SGX chips, however, have a range of models which each carry a different set of performance characteristics.

SGX520 (7 MPolys/s, 250Mpx/s) for the handheld mobile market
SGX530/1 (14 MPolys/s) for the handheld mobile market
SGX535 and SGX540 (28 MPolys/s) for handheld high end mobile, portable, MID, UMPC, consumer, and automotive devices
SGX540 (1000M pix/s, 20-35M Polys/s), SGX545, SGX555

The Palm Pre, for example, uses the SGX 530 designed for the handheld mobile market.

iPhone developers, however, have discovered that the iPhone 3GS has extension files named "IMGSGX535GLDriver" suggesting that the new iPhone uses the more powerful graphics processor intended for "high end" mobile devices. This may not be entirely conclusive evidence by itself but it is consistent with a report from a Anandtech commenter who claims to have heard directly from Apple engineers at WWDC that the iPhone 3GS does indeed use the SGX 535. As seen from the above list, the 535 seems to deliver much greater performance over the originally believed 520 model as well as the 530 model found in the Palm Pre.

Article Link: iPhone 3GS Has More Powerful PowerVR SGX 535 GPU?

[ViRGE]

That's all well and great, but what does this mean for battery life? The iPhone 3G was already pretty bad about depleting itself in short periods of time on intensive games.

[csmitty]

This is not helping me hold off on buying one. I frequently get frustrated my the slowness of the 3G, and it seems a bit worse with the 3.0 OS. Oh well, only money.

[Kiwi616]

Great, hopefully the 3rd Gen iPod Touch uses the higher end one also and doesn't under clock it. /crossfingers/

[entropy1980]

Could mean a lot when openCL hits iPhone OS.

[PhilipOrr]

I was the one who commented on the report at AnandTech, and yes, it was one of the development team for the OpenGL|ES2.0 that I was talking to. He made really clear that it was the 535 processor.

Another, almost oddity, was with a question I had put to the Grand Central guys. They told me to ensure that I keep my coding complient with OpenCL. When I told them that I was developing for the iPhone and not the Mac itself, they basically said, Yeah I know, just make sure that you can be complient with multi-core devices when you need to introduce extra horsepower to your apps.

Does this mean that in a later minor update we'll see OpenCL being used with the current iPhone 3GS or, as I've heard rumor, a multi core main processor, allowing the iPhone to switch between cores, based on preference settings and/or CPU workload.

All looking very nice for the future of mobile devices.

[Pressure]

This is great news if true, especially if you want to use it as a mobile gaming device.

[soup4you2]

Am I the only one who is tired of constant iPhone news?

[jrsdead]

Originally Posted by PhilipOrr

Does this mean that in a later minor update we'll see OpenCL being used with the current iPhone 3GS or, as I've heard rumor, a multi core main processor, allowing the iPhone to switch between cores, based on preference settings and/or CPU workload.

i would say a multi core main processor

[Unspoken Demise]

Originally Posted by soup4you2

Am I the only one who is tired of constant iPhone news?

I love all the iPhone news, but I can see your point.

[ImNoSuperMan]

Originally Posted by soup4you2

Am I the only one who is tired of constant iPhone news?

I agree with you completely. You may be the only one.


I cant get enough of 3GS news. Unfortunately I cant get it until Aug, so these news do interest me a lot and further solidifies my decision of getting one as soon as it arrives here.

[sammich]

I'm just waiting for the day when my old 12" 867 Powerbook will be outpaced CPU and GPU-wise by something the size of an iPhone.

How far technology has come in 6 years. Wow.

[Shasterball]

Originally Posted by soup4you2

Am I the only one who is tired of constant iPhone news?

I think it's great for people who are still thinking about getting a 3GS. If you are not, I can see it getting stale...

[Thex1138]

Hmm I wonder if it is possible to squeeze more power from the GPU CPU then?
If the Clock is capped at 600mhz... capable of 800mhz... then is is possible to unleash that extra torque?

Hope Soooooo!

[rols]

Originally Posted by soup4you2

Am I the only one who is tired of constant iPhone news?

probably not, there must be others. News like this however I find very interesting, it shows (to me) a concerted effort by apple to do more than the minimum to stay ahead of the competition and the comments on the story, if they are accurate, say something about where the OSX family of OSes are going and how they may appear on all platforms.

[diamond.g]

Nice . Now we all know the iPod touch is going to get a nice bump in power as well. I wonder how long before devs take advantage of the power. It sounds like enough to keep up with the Wii pretty easily...

[Roamerick]

I knew there was a reason I got mine on launch day! All I need now if an optimised version of F.A.S.T and I'm all set

[psonice]

Originally Posted by PhilipOrr

Does this mean that in a later minor update we'll see OpenCL being used with the current iPhone 3GS or, as I've heard rumor, a multi core main processor, allowing the iPhone to switch between cores, based on preference settings and/or CPU workload.

Depends on 2 things really: when it happens, and how you look at it. Multi-core mobile CPUs won't be here until next year, unless apple are building something themselves (and I doubt that'll happen just yet). So if they were thinking fairly short term, then it's not likely to be the CPU.

Another way to look at it is to consider the GPU as an extra core, as you can run parts of you app on it with CL. Split the app into kernels, assign the kernels to cpu or gpu depending on what they need. I guess they could release an iphone os update with snow leopard, to support some of the new stuff. Adding openCL to the iphone at that point could make some marketing sense.. maybe. I'd have thought something like openCL would come in a major update (i.e. 4.0) though.

Well, multi-core and openCL are pretty much guaranteed in the next few years, perhaps they're just asking you to plan ahead?

[krye]

Palm: IN. YOUR. FACE!

[BeyondtheTech]

I love pissing matches.

"I have the 530..."

"Yeah, well, I have the 53FIVE..."

"I have a keyboard."

"Yeah, well... you're on Sprint."

"Hmm... touché."

[Mr. Wonderful]

Originally Posted by PhilipOrr

I was the one who commented on the report at AnandTech, and yes, it was one of the development team for the OpenGL|ES2.0 that I was talking to. He made really clear that it was the 535 processor.

Another, almost oddity, was with a question I had put to the Grand Central guys. They told me to ensure that I keep my coding complient with OpenCL. When I told them that I was developing for the iPhone and not the Mac itself, they basically said, Yeah I know, just make sure that you can be complient with multi-core devices when you need to introduce extra horsepower to your apps.

Does this mean that in a later minor update we'll see OpenCL being used with the current iPhone 3GS or, as I've heard rumor, a multi core main processor, allowing the iPhone to switch between cores, based on preference settings and/or CPU workload.

All looking very nice for the future of mobile devices.

This is my problem, however. I'm about ready to upgrade to an iPod Touch, waiting for the September update, of course, but then I keep hearing about the dual core processors that will be coming in next year's revisions and keep thinking how it would be worth waiting, particularly for the possibility of true multitasking capabilities. But then I also keep hearing about how much faster the 3GS and therefore the Touch 3G is/will be, and I think twice again.

Eh. I'll probably just wait and use the money to buy an SSD this year instead after the next Intel price cut.

[diamond.g]

Originally Posted by psonice

Depends on 2 things really: when it happens, and how you look at it. Multi-core mobile CPUs won't be here until next year, unless apple are building something themselves (and I doubt that'll happen just yet). So if they were thinking fairly short term, then it's not likely to be the CPU.

Another way to look at it is to consider the GPU as an extra core, as you can run parts of you app on it with CL. Split the app into kernels, assign the kernels to cpu or gpu depending on what they need. I guess they could release an iphone os update with snow leopard, to support some of the new stuff. Adding openCL to the iphone at that point could make some marketing sense.. maybe. I'd have thought something like openCL would come in a major update (i.e. 4.0) though.

Well, multi-core and openCL are pretty much guaranteed in the next few years, perhaps they're just asking you to plan ahead?

The only problem being OpenCL support would be non existent on the 3G and 2G as the MBX Lite has a fixed function pipeline. Apple would have had to phased out the older units or provide some way of gracefully falling back (especially since it appears OpenGL ES 2.0 is not backwards compatible).

[John Jacob]

I don't understand why the GPU model couldn't be determined from the teardown conducted by iSuppli.

[diamond.g]

Originally Posted by John Jacob

I don't understand why the GPU model couldn't be determined from the teardown conducted by iSuppli.

The GPU and CPU are on a single die.

[ironman159]

Originally Posted by BeyondtheTech

I love pissing matches.

"I have the 530..."

"Yeah, well, I have the 53FIVE..."

"I have a keyboard."

"Yeah, well... you're on Sprint."

"Hmm... touché."

HAHAHAHAHAHA you made my day. Also, does this is a sign of the battery life problems some people are having with their iPhones 3GS?