Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
iPad iPad Air 2 has 2 GB RAM and a three core A8x processor
- Thread starter Charliebird
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
It showed up on a iOS benchmarking site, hover over the line for Apple iPad5,4
http://www.iphonebenchmark.net/cpumark_chart.html
http://www.iphonebenchmark.net/memmark_chart.html
RAM is still a lot faster than flash memory. The main thing is that flash memory in a tablet like the iPad doesn't include a dedicated controller like an SSD. SSD's are compromised of many smaller flash memory chips with a controller that controls reading and writing to the disk, meaning it can spread the writes over many different banks making it much faster than direct access (Like a USB flash drive.)
Even still with a controller RAM is still faster. The other issue is that I don't believe iOS uses page files, so it isn't even using the flash memory to cache, when it hits the flash it is reloading an app from scratch.
I think the iPad Air 2 will be the baseline for quite a while, I don't think we will see 3/4GB RAM iOS devices for at least another 3 years or so, unless they actually build an iPad Pro and create pro-level apps for it (Logic, Final Cut, etc.)
I think we'll be surprised, they might do like console makers, go to 8gb directly. Chips are ready, it could happen.
They are not referring to the benchmarking between iphone and ipad itself. What they want to show you is that iPad 5,4 has 1987mb memory (around 2GB). And this iPad 5,4 is the Product ID for iPad Air 2.
Actually, the only person nobody wants around here is somebody on the forums saying who the collective group does and does not want around here.
Most of us don't give a crap about the number itself. We just want more because of the crashing and tabs reloading. Others want the iPad to be more powerful so that they can do things like RAW image editing on the go, among other advanced tasks. Having more RAM opens up more possibilities for advanced apps and productivity. To say otherwise is foolish. Hopefully most of our complaints will be addressed with a Pro model. My fear is that such a device would only come in extra large 13". I'd prefer something in the 11" or smaller range.
--
What I don't get about this three core A8X speculation is this: Why would Apple not mention that it is three cores in the keynote? Sure, Apple usually doesn't give stage-time to specs like RAM. But they certainly have mentioned things in the past like how many cores it has. It was kind of a big deal when the A5 got dual-core capability.
Simple. There are loads of Android tablets out there with Quad core processors. By stating a 3 core processor, number whores will jump on it saying how it doesn't compare. That is presumably why Apple just stuck to the large transistor count in the keynote. We all know the A7 was handily outperforming many quad core chips so Apple just stuck with saying even more powerful. Most likely the same reason why they don't mention 2GB RAM when other tablets have 3 or 4GB. Just easier to show the Pixelmator demo where the Air 2 made mincemeat of a 24MP image.
Yes. Less CPU cores make sense.
I would like it better if Apple stuck to two CPU cores instead of three, but it makes sense in this scenario. Apple is already doing everything they can to increase the speed of its Ax dual core processors. To increase the speed of their existing processors without adding a core, they would have to increase the clock speed, which uses up much more power for a small speed increase.
On the other hand, adding another core would increase OS navigation speed, use less power, but be more expensive, and only the apps that are updated by the app developers to take advantage of the extra core would see increased performance. These apps would only be photo/video editing apps, some intensive games, and other multi-threaded processor intensive apps. Also, more than two cores would make sense for running two apps at once, side by side.
I suppose. The alleged increase in speed doesn't really make sense otherwise. When you consider the 1.4Ghz A8 in the iPhone 6 is only a little bit faster than the 1.4Ghz A7 in the iPad Air (about 8% faster in Geekbench), the Apple-stated 40% increase in CPU performance doesn't make a lot of sense. You'd think with an even thinner enclosure they couldn't ramp up the clock speed enough to account for 40% over the A7 in the Air, and it's unlikely that the architecture would be significantly different considering the already available benchmarks for the A8 chip vs. the A7. The thing that I don't understand is this: How do you put another core into this machine and not end up with at least 50% performance increase? As mentioned earlier, the new architecture seems to account for 8% of the speed increase. Are they clocking it lower with more cores? I'm also not sure how apps deal with multithreading from a technical perspective. Is iOS architected in such a way that all existing apps could immediately take advantage of extra processing cores, or would they have to be coded to take advantage of them? Otherwise single or dual threaded apps could see a performance disadvantage if the clock speed is lower but they have an extra core that they haven't yet been updated to use. Can somebody who understands how that works please chime in? Thanks!
In addition to the 40% number, Phil Schiller mentioned during the presentation that "some apps" can see up to 2x the performance of the A7. These numbers seem consistent with a 40% improvement in per-core performance and 50% more cords. During last month's presentation, no CPU performance number higher than +25% was given for the A8, so that 2x number for the A8X is probably not just for some tasks that the A8's CPU happens to do a lot better than the A7's CPU.
That is actually a really keen observation. This really makes me think it might have more cores. I wonder if this makes the likelihood of an iPad Pro showing up next spring less likely.
It's entirely possible that there are 3 cores, but there's a lot more on a SOC than just CPU cores. Those extra transistors could come from any number of things.
Alright, between the photo leaks, the PassMark results, and these GeekBench results, I think 2GB and 3 cores is basically confirmed. It's *possible* that all three could be false, but unlikely at this point.
Wow. Looks like the L2 cache was doubled, too. And check out that multi-core score. Nearly double that of the iPad Air.
In a way I was hoping it wasn't 2GB RAM because I didn't want to spend the money, now I have no choice. 
Pretty good tech inside of the new iPad Air 2. The person who ran that benchmark must be a reviewer. Look at all of the devices they have benchmarked:
http://browser.primatelabs.com/user/naaajsboy