How does the iPad 4 double graphics performance, when it's still quad-core?

[yow.]

The A6 doubled graphic performance over the A5 by increasing graphics cores by 50% (from 2 to 3 core), along with increasing clock rates (offset by process shrink).

But the A6X has the same number of graphics cores as the A5X (both have 4). The A6X does not have hex-core graphics. So where is the graphics improvement coming from?

 

[Renzatic]

The lame but factual answer? It's likely a better designed, more efficient chip. It's similar to how a single core on a Core2Duo is considerably faster than an equivalently clocked Pentium 4.

...though I doubt the difference between the A6 and A5x is really as big as they're making it out to be. It's probably a good deal faster, but twice as fast? Eh...

 

[nhlducks35]

The A6 also increased the clock speed of each core by 33%

 

[w00t951]

If it's comparable to the Cortex-A15 architecture, it'll also have dramatically improved memory throughput. That was the major limiting factor for chipsets such as the Tegra 3 and A5/A5X.