because a10x single core isn’t much better than a10 or a9x imo (and maybe even objectively) looking at benchmarks
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Does iOS for iPad use single or multi core more
- Thread starter thadoggfather
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Single core. It's a main reason I'm a little wary of these new iPads. Everybody here is pretty certain that the A9 is better than the A8X, if the next generation goes back to dual core it'll be immensely faster. If you look at the videos the A9 beats the A8X on everything, expect for intensive games when they appear to be on equal footing.
A10X is ~30% faster than A9X in terms of single-core performance which is quite respectable. Goodness knows Intel would probably be very happy with an increase like that nowadays. Games are probably GPU-bound and graphics performance of A9 and A8X are very similar.
At this point in time, the A10X-based Pro 10.5 and Pro 12.9 are the fastest iPads available. They're good choices for someone in the market for higher end iPads right now. If one can afford to wait indefinitely for a new iPad, well there's always something new around the corner.
Personally, I upgrade for at least one of the following reasons:
- killer feature to me (e.g. retina display)
- storage
- poor performance on my current device
- poor battery life or other hardware defect
Oh I know they are really fast, I've boughten one for a family member and will likely get one myself (first gen 12.9 last me about 3 hours on full battery). My main concern is that the next generations iPad Pro will drop back down to two cores, with performance better than the 2, instantly making both rather outdated, and as everybody points out, the tablet with the three cores will be at a disadvantage is some situations (but come on the air 2 was the flagship for awhile good developers should be using software that uses all the power..). Then again apple might update for a year and a half again who knows, it hasn't stopped me from buying one, I just seem to notice the problem, this forum went from "2017 iPad is a much better choice' "nobody optimizes for more cores get 2017" to "OMG Ipad pro 2 so powerful" 'thing is a absolute monster" " apple undersold the processor". You can always wait and never buy because something better is around the corner, but some times it's better to wait (I learned that with the iPad 3.)
Reckon the same people saying "OMG iPad Pro 2 is so powerful" are the same ones who say there's negligible difference between the Air 2 and Pro 9.7. I view the extra core to be helpful in multi-app split view and again, it's not like the A10X is slower than the A9X in single core.
But yeah, I understand why one might prefer to wait. Paying full MSRP for a 1st gen 12.9 256GB Cellular (practically never went on sale) was not what I considered good value so I waited (somewhat impatiently) for the 2nd gen. Is it possible the 3rd generation will be significantly faster? Sure. In my case, I needed the 12.9 iPad now and have actually been holding off on a 12.9 purchase for around 8 months already so waiting another 12-18 months wasn't something I was willing to do. Graphics also received a not insignificant bump which I was hoping for.
As for the iPad 3, if I had to do it all over again, I still would've bought the iPad 3. However, I would have skipped the iPad 2. That's 6 months of daily usage with the retina display vs the iPad 2 that would often just be sitting in a drawer on standby for weeks. The display difference is like going from dot matrix printers to laser and to me, that was a big change in terms of "useability".
Granted, I did keep the iPad 3 on iOS 6. Nice thing there is iOS 6 doesn't nag you to update unlike later firmware versions. Intentionally limiting firmware updates so my iOS devices maintain an acceptable level of performance is something I've always done. Also, I know a lot of people like to complain about 1-2GB RAM being too little but they're actually not that bad particularly given certain iOS improvements (e.g. storage-backed Safari cache). Actual RAM-starved were models with just 128-256MB RAM and they were definitely a limitation on earlier devices. I've had to delete and reinstall apps because they would crash when starting up after select app or firmware updates and then run into out of memory issues. At this point in time, I'm used to Apple being stingy with RAM so adequate is just about what I expect. Sure, more RAM would be nice but all things considered, having to reload apps and tabs in background isn't as awful as the active app crashing on you because available RAM ran out.