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A9 is substantially faster

R

rkuo

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Sep 25, 2010
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oK, from the front page we can see the A9 is scoring around 2400 on geek bench, vs 1720'ish for the A8 in the iPad mini 4 and 1350 or so in the iPad mini 2 and 3.

In other words, the A8 was a pretty sad jump in performance, but the A9 is a bit of return to form. Sadly the mini 4 is using last year's technology in the A8 and so we're seeing the benefits of more RAM in multitasking, but single apps aren't really going to go much faster on the iPad mini 4. Makes the case for upgrading from the mini 2 a lot harder unless you are really going to use split view a lot. I'm even more tempted to wait for a A9 refresh of the mini now ...
 
rkuo said:
oK, from the front page we can see the A9 is scoring around 2400 on geek bench, vs 1720'ish for the A8 in the iPad mini 4 and 1350 or so in the iPad mini 2 and 3.

In other words, the A8 was a pretty sad jump in performance, but the A9 is a bit of return to form. Sadly the mini 4 is using last year's technology in the A8 and so we're seeing the benefits of more RAM in multitasking, but single apps aren't really going to go much faster on the iPad mini 4. Makes the case for upgrading from the mini 2 a lot harder unless you are really going to use split view a lot. I'm even more tempted to wait for a A9 refresh of the mini now ...
Click to expand...

The limiting factor will still be the 2gb of ram especially switching back and forth from apps. The processor is good for games, compiling montages, Adobe Photoshop, and similar apps.
 
There's always going to be something better coming. Maybe a year from now there'll be a Mini with with an A9 (or maybe not), but then an even faster A10 will be out. The question is, what's good enough for your needs? Will you really take advantage of an even faster processor?
 
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I have reached the "good enough" level with the A8x with 2G doing multi tasking. That said, I still am buying the Pro for its size and speaker setup. My wife was still happy with her iPad 2 but I still bought her a new Air 2 .
 
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Shirtin said:
The limiting factor will still be the 2gb of ram especially switching back and forth from apps. The processor is good for games, compiling montages, Adobe Photoshop, and similar apps.
Click to expand...
Montages would take more ram would it not?
 
My uneducated guess is that it's a supply and demand issue. Apple could have used the A9 in the Mini and the new Apple TV, but that would mean less A9 chips for the iPhone 6S/6S+, possibly not being able to meet the demand. Since the profit margin is significantly higher on the iPhone 6S/6S+ than the iPad Mini 4/Apple TV... well... they did what any sane company would do. It sucks, but the A8 still runs circles around most Android tablets (single core score is more important than multi-core where tablets are concerned) and it's still good enough for all the iOS 9 features which IMHO is more important than benchmark numbers.
 
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joeblow7777 said:
There's always going to be something better coming. Maybe a year from now there'll be a Mini with with an A9 (or maybe not), but then an even faster A10 will be out. The question is, what's good enough for your needs? Will you really take advantage of an even faster processor?
Click to expand...
The difference being, in this case, that we know for a fact that the improvement from A7 to A8 is 20% and the improvement from A8 to A9 is more like 40%.
 
But what does that 40% mean to you? Will it significantly improve your tablet using experience? Is it worth waiting another year (or more, the Mini 3 showed us that Apple doesn't necessarily update the line every year)? These aren't rhetorical questions, but only you can answer them for yourself. I know what my own answers are.
 
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ZBoater said:
Yes. But there is no Mini with an A9, so the comparison is pointless.
Click to expand...
Why is it pointless? Unless you think there will never be another iPad Mini, we have a pretty good idea of what the next generation's performance will be.
 
joeblow7777 said:
But what does that 40% mean to you? Will it significantly improve your tablet using experience? Is it worth waiting another year (or more, the Mini 3 showed us that Apple doesn't necessarily update the line every year)? These aren't rhetorical questions, but only you can answer them for yourself. I know what my own answers are.
Click to expand...
Honestly, I'm OCD enough that I might just upgrade. The problem is that I know from the specs and trying it out in the store that it isn't going to change my experience much over the mini 2. At least not until multitasking and/or apps needing 2GB of RAM starts becoming a real issue.
 
rkuo said:
oK, from the front page we can see the A9 is scoring around 2400 on geek bench, vs 1720'ish for the A8 in the iPad mini 4 and 1350 or so in the iPad mini 2 and 3.

In other words, the A8 was a pretty sad jump in performance, but the A9 is a bit of return to form. Sadly the mini 4 is using last year's technology in the A8 and so we're seeing the benefits of more RAM in multitasking, but single apps aren't really going to go much faster on the iPad mini 4. Makes the case for upgrading from the mini 2 a lot harder unless you are really going to use split view a lot. I'm even more tempted to wait for a A9 refresh of the mini now ...
Click to expand...

My mini 4 is lightening fast. I think you've become a little too obsessed.
 
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rkuo said:
Why is it pointless? Unless you think there will never be another iPad Mini, we have a pretty good idea of what the next generation's performance will be.
Click to expand...

Yes, and the one after that. And the one after. The point is what to do now? Buy or wait for the next one? The next one will always be faster. If you wait for the next one, you'll be waiting forever. Does the one NOW do what you need it to do? Then buy it.
 
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When is "fast" fast enough?

If a CPU is already giving you great frame rates on your games, and no significant lags during regular use, what is the point really? If you want console-ish 3D games on iOS I suppose, but what else? In that case I'd rather use consoles anyway.

Not saying I don't appreciate tech advances, but on a platform like iOS I don't see the need for very much more speed than we've had already the past couple of years.
 
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ZBoater said:
Yes, and the one after that. And the one after. The point is what to do now? Buy or wait for the next one? The next one will always be faster. If you wait for the next one, you'll be waiting forever. Does the one NOW do what you need it to do? Then buy it.
Click to expand...
That's just a platitude. If you know a subsequent generation is going to have an unusually large performance bump, that skews the decision in favor of waiting.

In fact, I think a stronger argument to be made in favor of waiting a few months at least is that the mini 4 price point needs to correct under the iPad Air 2. The iPad Air 2 has significantly stronger specs and is selling for less on the open market (just look at all the price promotions happening). I believe the number of people addicted to the specific size of the mini (which includes myself) is rather small ... it would make more sense for most people to buy the Air 2.
 
rkuo said:
Why is it pointless? Unless you think there will never be another iPad Mini, we have a pretty good idea of what the next generation's performance will be.
Click to expand...

And based on last year, it could be two years until the A9 is in the mini.
 
Left4DeadBoy said:
Montages would take more ram would it not?
Click to expand...

You might be correct on that.

rkuo said:
Honestly, I'm OCD enough that I might just upgrade. The problem is that I know from the specs and trying it out in the store that it isn't going to change my experience much over the mini 2. At least not until multitasking and/or apps needing 2GB of RAM starts becoming a real issue.
Click to expand...

Multitasking on an iPad requires 2GB of ram.... So it's a real issue right now
 
Shirtin said:
You might be correct on that.



Multitasking on an iPad requires 2GB of ram.... So it's a real issue right now
Click to expand...
I meant I haven't found the multitasking on the iPad to be particularly useful the way it's been implemented. Who knows, maybe it will grow on me in time.
 
Tapper123 said:
When is "fast" fast enough?

If a CPU is already giving you great frame rates on your games, and no significant lags during regular use, what is the point really? If you want console-ish 3D games on iOS I suppose, but what else? In that case I'd rather use consoles anyway.

Not saying I don't appreciate tech advances, but on a platform like iOS I don't see the need for very much more speed than we've had already the past couple of years.
Click to expand...
Fast is fast enough when you can open a Forex application and it does not take forever to load. Currency and stock applications require a lot of RAM. 1Gb just does not cut it. 2GB may be a bit better but I reckon 3-4 is what is need to run properly.
 
A8X in the iPad Air 2 is kind of a dog on some sites like theverge.com. iPad Mini 5 with A9 and 4GB DRAM would earn my money.
 
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I want an iPad Pro.

However I want Devs to write apps and GAMES that take full advantage of the iPad Pro.

Do you think this will happen?

I don't want to run iPad Air apps on my Pro, I want apps and games that take full advantage of this new amazing hardware.
 
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