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iPad faster than XR?
- Thread starter jwolf6589
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What sort of tests are we talking about, how is each device set up in general and in particular during these tests, and how is performance being measured?
The iPad has more heat dissipation capability due to its larger size and so should run longer at full speed before throttling from heat occurs. Even then, it should throttle less than the phone.
If you kept the phone on a surface that absorbs heat (like a stone countertop) it should boost the benchmark.
If you kept the phone on a surface that absorbs heat (like a stone countertop) it should boost the benchmark.
I did.
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I did a OS update last week and did them both at the exact same time. iPad beat XR.
Not really given how many variables can be in play when it comes to something like that.
I'll just throw out one potential variable (which really just on its own can make quite a bit of a difference): updates for different devices can be and often are different in various ways, from how big the update itself is, how much code is affected, which code it is, how the update is applied, etc.
And that's not counting the differences when it comes to how much free space devices might have, which apps might be installed, which are running or are in the background, what other services are being used at the time, etc., etc., etc.
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There’s a few reasons which others have stated above. The modem for cellular connectivity, the wider area of heat dissipation, the basic apps preloaded on each.
The iPhone does require a connection to the cellular provider. This can use some cpu cycles to connect and maintain connectivity. The iPad mini, unless it has cellular, does not.
Geekbench does show that the mini is faster than the xr though. Only by a small margin. ~3 in single core ~100 in multi core. This again could be due to thermals, modem, and network software for cellular carriers. I’ll bet even a sim enabled mini still runs faster than the XR by that slight margin.
I wonder how different iOS is setup for a tablet vs phone. Tablets could be more optimized.
The iPhone does require a connection to the cellular provider. This can use some cpu cycles to connect and maintain connectivity. The iPad mini, unless it has cellular, does not.
Geekbench does show that the mini is faster than the xr though. Only by a small margin. ~3 in single core ~100 in multi core. This again could be due to thermals, modem, and network software for cellular carriers. I’ll bet even a sim enabled mini still runs faster than the XR by that slight margin.
I wonder how different iOS is setup for a tablet vs phone. Tablets could be more optimized.
You still haven't said what the difference is, or the testing conditions. Or even what the test itself is.
While the iPad Mini 5 and the iPhone XR use the same CPU, and the same amount of RAM, they differ in other ways. The storage in one could be faster than the storage in the other - boosting any storage-related parts of the testing. The iPad has a larger chassis, which is made of metal, so it conducts heat away from the CPU better - allowing the CPU to run at higher speeds for longer before thermal throttling is needed. (Which is generally more important on benchmarks than in everyday usage.) Depending on the test, it might run at different resolutions on the two devices, allowing for a difference in results. One system could have more running in the background than the other. One could have simply more on it than the other, causing standard OS background tasks to do more work.
Until you say what tests you ran, and what the results were, we can't answer better.
The only way to get a reliable comparison is to start with as close to identical, as close to fresh-from-new configurations as possible - do a full restore on both, do not load any software other than the benchmarks, run with all background tasks off, after the same number of reboots since restore, etc, etc.
Note that Geekbench shows the mini 5 is slightly faster, too: https://browser.geekbench.com/ios-benchmarks Likely down to the iPad being able to cool better. Anandtech did such a test when the iPhone 5s and iPad Air came out: https://www.anandtech.com/show/7460/apple-ipad-air-review/3
While the iPad Mini 5 and the iPhone XR use the same CPU, and the same amount of RAM, they differ in other ways. The storage in one could be faster than the storage in the other - boosting any storage-related parts of the testing. The iPad has a larger chassis, which is made of metal, so it conducts heat away from the CPU better - allowing the CPU to run at higher speeds for longer before thermal throttling is needed. (Which is generally more important on benchmarks than in everyday usage.) Depending on the test, it might run at different resolutions on the two devices, allowing for a difference in results. One system could have more running in the background than the other. One could have simply more on it than the other, causing standard OS background tasks to do more work.
Until you say what tests you ran, and what the results were, we can't answer better.
The only way to get a reliable comparison is to start with as close to identical, as close to fresh-from-new configurations as possible - do a full restore on both, do not load any software other than the benchmarks, run with all background tasks off, after the same number of reboots since restore, etc, etc.
Note that Geekbench shows the mini 5 is slightly faster, too: https://browser.geekbench.com/ios-benchmarks Likely down to the iPad being able to cool better. Anandtech did such a test when the iPhone 5s and iPad Air came out: https://www.anandtech.com/show/7460/apple-ipad-air-review/3
If you’re basing performance speed based on the installation of iOS, that is totally irrelevant. First the size of the update varies for each device, secondly two devices in the same location will sometimes, maybe most of the time, access different update servers which will operate at vastly different speeds occasionally. I’ve seen this any number of time with 5 devices we have that all update at different rates.
Now if you’re actually running some kind of real performance test that shows the mini superior that would be a different story. But even then so what?