CPU benchmarks are all well and good, but real world improvements will this more powerful chip bring? Where are we likely to see the performance and speed improvements?
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A6X Chip in the New iPad
- Thread starter Eadfrith
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1) apps will open faster - won't be noticeable for small apps, but the apps that take ~5 seconds to full load will load much quicker
2) graphics intensive games will be smoother - the A5X hiccups and has difficulty showing fluid motion in games such as Metal Storm that have complex video game graphics rendering
3) scrolling with extensive graphics and video media will be smoother
4) will be more future proof - the A6X will be able to handle everything and anything for at least 2-3 years. expect the A5 support to start dwindling with the next iOS. the reason why i say this is because the A5X can barely handle both the Retina in the iPad 3 and a graphics intensive app
5) the iPad itself should run at cooler temperatures despite also being faster - the A6(X) is a much much better chip
6) expect the next innovative feature in iOS 7 to not be compatible with the A5, where as the A6(X) will get it. i predict it relating to an Apple iTV or something like that, we will find out next year
2) graphics intensive games will be smoother - the A5X hiccups and has difficulty showing fluid motion in games such as Metal Storm that have complex video game graphics rendering
3) scrolling with extensive graphics and video media will be smoother
4) will be more future proof - the A6X will be able to handle everything and anything for at least 2-3 years. expect the A5 support to start dwindling with the next iOS. the reason why i say this is because the A5X can barely handle both the Retina in the iPad 3 and a graphics intensive app
5) the iPad itself should run at cooler temperatures despite also being faster - the A6(X) is a much much better chip
6) expect the next innovative feature in iOS 7 to not be compatible with the A5, where as the A6(X) will get it. i predict it relating to an Apple iTV or something like that, we will find out next year
I wonder what the actual chip is. The A5X had quad-core graphics, and the A6 supposedly already has 3 GPU cores that are the same as the ones in the A5X (543MP3 vs 543MP4 in iPad 3.) But they say graphics are 2x as fast, so I wonder if they just kept the 543MP4 and doubled the clock speed? Seems like that would create too much heat, so it may be a whole new graphics chip. I guess we'll have to wait till the anandtech review.
But basically everything will open faster, graphics performance will be smoother, games could push more polygons if they are updated to do so. Browsing/editing photos should be faster. Web pages should render faster, but we are probably talking milliseconds here - the actual download speed will be the main determining factor.
But basically everything will open faster, graphics performance will be smoother, games could push more polygons if they are updated to do so. Browsing/editing photos should be faster. Web pages should render faster, but we are probably talking milliseconds here - the actual download speed will be the main determining factor.
If the A5X support is dwindling in iOS7, it will affect the iPad Mini and iPad 2. I don't see that happening.
Chris Foresman of Ars Technica makes a good educated guess
http://arstechnica.com/apple/2012/10/deducing-details-about-apples-a6x-processor/
And why not? Apple already screwed everyone by releasing iPad 4 in 7 months, do you really think they care about whether your other iDevices are obsolete or not?
no it won't
the A5 powering a 1024x768 display is more capable than the A5X trying to power the Retina. the A5X chokes on a regular basis which affects its processing performance when playing games like Metal Storm.
what would affect it though would be Apple's artificial feature rationing where the next feature will purposefully be left out for A5 devices
the A6X will be a godsend for the iPad Retina when it comes to Metal Storm. that A5X chokes when trying to push graphics in motion - hiccups, stuttering...it's honestly horrendous. on my iPad 2 it played so much better