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A9X GPU?

Cakefish

Cakefish

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Oct 14, 2015
512
308
CPU - four Twister cores clocked >1.85GHz
RAM - 4GB LPDDR4
GPU - ???

I will put my guess out there - the PowerVR GT7900 from Imagination.

http://blog.imgtec.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/PowerVR-Series7XT-GPU.png

http://blog.imgtec.com/powervr/powervr-gt7900-redefining-performance-efficiency

It seems the only PowerVR GPU capable of powering the display with 80% more pixels than the Air 2 whilst simultaneously offering 2x the on-screen performance (as per Apple's official claims). All other iOS devices have utilised Imagination's GPUs (including the A9 powered 6S/6S+) so there is no reason to assume that the Pro will be any different.

What are your predictions for the identity and performance of the GPU inside this beastly SOC?
 
Did they really say that they have 2* on-screen performance?
I expected them to come out with a display with 2* the resolution and a 2* as powerful GPU so that they have the same GPU-power as the air 2 with a bigger display.
 
gerbrian said:
Did they really say that they have 2* on-screen performance?
I expected them to come out with a display with 2* the resolution and a 2* as powerful GPU so that they have the same GPU-power as the air 2 with a bigger display.
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I think what they said during the keynote is something along the lines of "despite all these extra pixels it still packs in two times the GPU performance of iPad Air 2" or something along those lines. They made it sound like twice the on-screen performance from the way they worded it, but I suppose it's not guaranteed.

Taking a look at the theoretical power of the 16 core GT7900;

Six-core GT7600 (A9) performs slightly better than eight-core GX6850 (A8X) in off-screen tests. This suggests a +25% advantage in the PowerVR 7XT series vs PowerVR 6XT series when combined with clock speed increases from the 14/16nm FinFET process.

Now, extrapolate the performance of the GX6850 up to sixteen core design whilst accounting for aforementioned architecture/clockspeed improvements. It never scales linearly, but you can easily see how they could attain 2x the performance of A8X in the GPU department.
 
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The iPad Pro tech page says, "Despite having nearly twice the pixels in its Retina display, iPad Pro still offers up to double the graphics performance of iPad Air 2."

That is a little tricky wording wise, but to me that says that it has double the graphics performance even while rendering twice as many pixels.
 
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As far as CPU goes, I would agree quad-core and 4GB of RAM, but the same clock speed as the 6S/6S Plus is unlikely. I would say 1.9Ghz or 2.0Ghz. No iPad has ever had the same clock CPU speed as iPhone.
 
hovscorpion12 said:
As far as CPU goes, I would agree quad-core and 4GB of RAM, but the same clock speed as the 6S/6S Plus is unlikely. I would say 1.9Ghz or 2.0Ghz. No iPad has ever had the same clock CPU speed as iPhone.
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Hence the '>' in my post.
 
The 16 cluster Rogue at 1.5 TFlops (theoretical) > Xbox One GPU.

So awesome. Hope it is in the Pro even though I am not getting one.
 
Performance in benchmarks will be ridiculous. Performance in and appearance of games will be the same as the air 2 and every other ipad, just on a bigger screen. It would be nice if the pro could popularize ultra high res textures and performance stratification among ipads.
 
With all this graphics power, I hope we see some games written specifically for the iPad Pro to take advantage of it.

I'm also thinking by the wording on Apple's website for the iPad Pro that it is up to 2x the onscreen performance of the iPad Air 2 while running nearly double the amount of pixels. Can't wait for the benchmarks!
 
I hope it truly delivers. I still remember the A5X on the iPad 3 (I had one) where Apple overestimated its capabilities that they had to replace it with the iPad 4 right away.
 
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pika2000 said:
I hope it truly delivers. I still remember the A5X on the iPad 3 (I had one) where Apple overestimated its capabilities that they had to replace it with the iPad 4 right away.
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I don't think that will happen this time. Part of the problem for the A5X was the underpowered GPU, yes, but along with that, the CPU power did not increase at all one year after the A5. Had it been like an A6 with the A5X's GPU, the iPad 3 wouldn't have been so bad. Since the A9X improves on both CPU and GPU performance from the previous generation, things should perform at least the same, if not better than the iPad Air 2.
 
TheRealCBONE said:
Performance in benchmarks will be ridiculous. Performance in and appearance of games will be the same as the air 2 and every other ipad, just on a bigger screen. It would be nice if the pro could popularize ultra high res textures and performance stratification among ipads.
Click to expand...

Why couldn't it? That already happens to a certain extent.

image.jpeg


iPad Pro could have an even higher level of graphic detail.
 
Cakefish said:
Where are you getting that number from? From official sides it is clear that performance will be around ~600GFlops, so just over the NVIDIA GeForce GT 730M. Definitely not Xbox One territory yet, but mobile GPUs are closing in fast, it's only a few years away.

Take a look;

http://blog.imgtec.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/PowerVR-Series7XT-GPU.png
Click to expand...

Check the official product page and note the "scalable up to 1.5 TFLOPS". "It is clear"...:rolleyes:

Take a look;

http://imgtec.com/powervr/graphics/series7xt/
 
TheRealCBONE said:
Performance in benchmarks will be ridiculous. Performance in and appearance of games will be the same as the air 2 and every other ipad, just on a bigger screen. It would be nice if the pro could popularize ultra high res textures and performance stratification among ipads.
Click to expand...
No iPad ever will because developers don't care about optimizing games. We could have graphics now on iPads that surpass the PS3. But they still want to make games that are compatible with old hardware. Which makes it pointless when Apple brags every year about 2X graphics performance.
 
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jonnyb098 said:
No iPad ever will because developers don't care about optimizing games. We could have graphics now on iPads that surpass the PS3. But they still want to make games that are compatible with old hardware. Which makes it pointless when Apple brags every year about 2X graphics performance.
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Actually, there are games that adjust its image quality depending on which SoC they are played on. Newer hardware will get more eye candies (like particle effects and whatnot). iOD developers have more interest in optimizing games as they know that most people will have the base APIs matching the latest OS.
 
Cakefish said:
CPU - four Twister cores clocked >1.85GHz
RAM - 4GB LPDDR4
GPU - ???

I will put my guess out there - the PowerVR GT7900 from Imagination.

http://blog.imgtec.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/PowerVR-Series7XT-GPU.png

http://blog.imgtec.com/powervr/powervr-gt7900-redefining-performance-efficiency

It seems the only PowerVR GPU capable of powering the display with 80% more pixels than the Air 2 whilst simultaneously offering 2x the on-screen performance (as per Apple's official claims). All other iOS devices have utilised Imagination's GPUs (including the A9 powered 6S/6S+) so there is no reason to assume that the Pro will be any different.

What are your predictions for the identity and performance of the GPU inside this beastly SOC?
Click to expand...

4gb ram wow, web browsing, YouTube, emails, games would be fantastic on this thing. Come on Apple open pre-orders.
 
I rate the Geekbench score should be a round;

8370 - Mulit-core score

Which drills the highest speced MacBook Air at 7062 - Multi-core score
 
Aside from not having 3D Touch it seems the iPad Pro is going to be a decently specced machine even a couple years from now. Which is nice.
 
MartinAppleGuy said:
What is everyone expecting from the Geekbench score then?
Click to expand...


iPadDad said:
I rate the Geekbench score should be a round;

8370 - Mulit-core score

Which drills the highest speced MacBook Air at 7062 - Multi-core score
Click to expand...

I'm also thinking the Geekbench will be around the 8000 mark.

Keep in mind though that the iPad Pro is expected to come with a quad core processor compared to the MacBook Air's dual core processor.
 
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4650 was the Geekbench multi-core score I used X 1.8 = 8370

Though I must just say I saw a score as high as 4704!
 
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iPadDad said:
4650 was the Geekbench multi-core score I used X 1.8 = 8370

Though I must just say I saw a score as high as 4704!
Click to expand...
iPad Air 2 is scoring slightly higher in Geekbench than it did with the reviews at launch back with iOS 8.

9e65382aec821ad68cec2265799828dc.jpg


e6342c740758397c7e703d00dbd502a1.jpg
 
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