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diamond.g

macrumors G4
Mar 20, 2007
11,064
2,420
OBX
Yeah, typically in mobile applications processors run in a low speed most of the time (active, not sleep), and only go up to their rated speed when absolutely required. That period of high speed can also only be maintained for a certain amount of time before it's throttled down a bit to keep power consumption/heat under control. It's called Race To Idle and doesn't work well with intensive games and long running benchmarks!

It's likely that the larger chassis of the iPad Air 2 can take a lot more heat than the iPhone 6+, so it can run at its top speed for longer, even though that top speed is higher.
Right, I get the throttling to save heat (and battery life). I am just surprised that the A8 is that gimped by the smaller chassis.
 

rkuo

macrumors 65816
Sep 25, 2010
1,199
800
Single core performance matters more for current apps and the current iOS.

I don't doubt that developers can think of ways to use extra cores, and once Apple implements some sort of window management, those cores will be used to the hilt.

iOS Apps are in a unique place since Apple rejects ones with bad performance. Traditionally developers have released slow apps and let hardware catch up, but they can't do that with iOS. As a result the apps lag behind hardware performance, as in, they don't exploit it until it's been out for a while.

It's great to see Apple finally add more cores to their ARM SoC. Now in a few years all iDevices will feature quad cores and then the real excitement starts on the app side of the equation.

I gotta tell ya, I really don't agree. Most mobile devices and programs are trying to reduce processor usage, not increase it. In other words, the number of developers trying to find uses for more cores isn't that large.

The subset of programs that need multi core performance are very specific and generally pretty obvious. Photo and video manipulation apps, and games or highly interactive apps. I'm obviously not against more cores, but even desktop processors often stick with 2 cores and run most programs just fine.
 

Keirasplace

macrumors 601
Aug 6, 2014
4,059
1,278
Montreal
Single core performance matters more for current apps and the current iOS.

I don't doubt that developers can think of ways to use extra cores, and once Apple implements some sort of window management, those cores will be used to the hilt.

iOS Apps are in a unique place since Apple rejects ones with bad performance. Traditionally developers have released slow apps and let hardware catch up, but they can't do that with iOS. As a result the apps lag behind hardware performance, as in, they don't exploit it until it's been out for a while.

It's great to see Apple finally add more cores to their ARM SoC. Now in a few years all iDevices will feature quad cores and then the real excitement starts on the app side of the equation.

Really, real fun.. Desktops barely use 4 cores at all now (And not that much either) They're not even properly using the 2 cores in current applications, let alone the 3 the Ipad will have now.

Video processing (DSP functions in general) is where cores are welcome. And even there you can offload that to the GPU these days so that's not even a given that it will be usefull. Single core is still the most important metric by far and this is why Intel has made the money while AMD has suffered for 10 years.
 

rGiskard

macrumors 68000
Aug 9, 2012
1,800
955
I gotta tell ya, I really don't agree. Most mobile devices and programs are trying to reduce processor usage, not increase it. In other words, the number of developers trying to find uses for more cores isn't that large.

The subset of programs that need multi core performance are very specific and generally pretty obvious. Photo and video manipulation apps, and games or highly interactive apps. I'm obviously not against more cores, but even desktop processors often stick with 2 cores and run most programs just fine.

Yep, you just identified the tasks that will benefit most from more cores in iDevices. Not sure you can say that games and photo/video editing aren't a large number of developers, though.
 

fertilized-egg

macrumors 68020
Dec 18, 2009
2,109
57
Right, I get the throttling to save heat (and battery life). I am just surprised that the A8 is that gimped by the smaller chassis.

I may not be just the chassis. Apple probably couldn't get enough yield for the A8x, especially since it's being made on the cutting edge 20nm process and the demand of iPhones is so high.

The real losers of Apple taking up all the chip capacity might just be the PC master race people. It has been rumored nVidia and AMD just can't get their latest graphic chips on the efficient 20nm process because Apple is taking up all the available capacity, forcing them to alter their roadmaps or sticking to the power hungry 28nm process.
 

Billy95Tech

Suspended
Apr 18, 2014
540
61
So close to the 13" Macbook Air 2014!

Looks like A8x is faster than 2011 MacBook Airs, and faster than 2010 MacBook Pros, faster than low-end 2010 iMacs

In terms of Raw CPU power

http://browser.primatelabs.com/mac-benchmarks

Can't wait to see 3DMark results

That is soo amazing, iPads are getting so powerful now even more powerful then most laptops but one thing that needs to catch up is the software which it is happening now especially with IOS 9 with advanced multitasking features like split view!! :) :)

IOS 10 will definitely be HUGE for iPads this year!! :D :D
 
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