iPad Could someone explain why the A6X, a 2-core chip, can match or best 4-core Tegra?

[klover]

One article I saw somewhere said something about the memory bandwidth being a big part of that answer.

 

[Dulcimer]

I read in an article that the A6X beats out the Exynos 4 (a quad core like the Tegra) processor (used in the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1) in most Geekbench tests; specifically, those that involve a single core. It's only in the multicore tests that the Exynos wins, but you have to consider that multicore performance rarely matters in tablet apps (for now, anyway).

I guess having more cores doesn't really matter unless there is a specialized purpose where it would matter.

 

[reputationZed]

It would be helpful if you linked to the article so we knew under what conditions the A6x is out performing the Tegra. Without any further inforamtion to go on, the following are possible reasons.

1. The tests or apps being run do not take advantage of more than two cores
2. The A6x may be clocked higher than the Tegra
3. Some of the difference could be attributed to efficiencies of iOS vs Android

 

[Creibold]

"By far the most exciting aspect of this news is the fact that the A6′s dual ARM CPU cores have been manually laid out — an approach that used to be the norm, but which is now almost unheard of outside of Intel (even AMD has given up). Today, chips are nearly always laid out using advanced, CAD-like software — the designer says he wants X cache, Y FPUs, and Z cores, and the software automagically creates a chip. Hand-drawn processors, on the other hand, are painstakingly laid out by chip designers. This approach obviously takes a lot longer (and is a lot more expensive), but if it’s done correctly the end result can be a lot faster."

http://www.extremetech.com/computin...-rare-hand-made-custom-cpu-and-a-tri-core-gpu

Although this is talking about the iPhone 5's SoC, the A6, it's still applicable. "The devil is in the details" as they say.


Here is AnandTech's article on the A6X, with more information than you will ever require about the A6X:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6426/ipad-4-gpu-performance-analyzed-powervr-sgx-554mp4-under-the-hood