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iPhone 5 processor?

lazard said:
it would be a major letdown if they stick an A5 in the new iPhone. Dual core GPU is insufficient.
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Well, quad core is more or less an impossibility this year if they go LTE. I think most people would agree that we will see LTE this year.


I'm sure they will do something to boost the power. Either a full powere A5, or an "A6" or something. But it will be dual core.
 
b166er said:
Well, quad core is more or less an impossibility this year if they go LTE. I think most people would agree that we will see LTE this year.

I'm sure they will do something to boost the power. Either a full powere A5, or an "A6" or something. But it will be dual core.
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I am not a semiconductor engineer by any means, but Apple's component suppliers are probably capable of producing 32nm A5X by now (which is a 45nm monster on 3rd generation iPad). 32nm A5X would be roughly 60% the size of 45nm A5X. If my theory is true, it wouldn't be impossible to fit die shrunk A5X in new iPhone.
 
nutmac said:
I am not a semiconductor engineer by any means, but Apple's component suppliers are probably capable of producing 32nm A5X by now (which is a 45nm monster on 3rd generation iPad). 32nm A5X would be roughly 60% the size of 45nm A5X. If my theory is true, it wouldn't be impossible to fit die shrunk A5X in new iPhone.
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Possibly, but the leaked battery shows almost no improvements. This makes me to believe that any power savings made is by using a more energy-efficient LTE chip and a more energy-efficient A5 chip. I think a 32 nm A5 chip will offer them that, a 32 nm A5X won't.

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b166er said:
Well, quad core is more or less an impossibility this year if they go LTE. I think most people would agree that we will see LTE this year.


I'm sure they will do something to boost the power. Either a full powere A5, or an "A6" or something. But it will be dual core.
Click to expand...
Why would quad-core be impossible if they settle with LTE?
 
ThatsMeRight said:
Possibly, but the leaked battery shows almost no improvements. This makes me to believe that any power savings made is by using a more energy-efficient LTE chip and a more energy-efficient A5 chip. I think a 32 nm A5 chip will offer them that, a 32 nm A5X won't.
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"New" iPad 2 is using 32nm A5, whereas last year's iPad 2 used 45nm A5. According to Anandtech's testing, new iPad 2 gets anywhere from 1.6 to 2.4 hours of additional battery life over last year's iPad 2. If 32nm A5X brings similar improvement, 6th generation iPhone should have at least comparable battery life over 4S.
 
b166er said:
Well, quad core is more or less an impossibility this year if they go LTE. I think most people would agree that we will see LTE this year.


I'm sure they will do something to boost the power. Either a full powere A5, or an "A6" or something. But it will be dual core.
Click to expand...

was referring to the GPU. I have no doubt that they are gonna use a dual core CPU.
 
nutmac said:
"New" iPad 2 is using 32nm A5, whereas last year's iPad 2 used 45nm A5. According to Anandtech's testing, new iPad 2 gets anywhere from 1.6 to 2.4 hours of additional battery life over last year's iPad 2. If 32nm A5X brings similar improvement, 6th generation iPhone should have at least comparable battery life over 4S.
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You're forgetting the bigger display. You're forgetting LTE. You're forgetting NFC. Somewhere there must be power savings to create equal battery life.
 
Hankster said:
Most people look as specs as the "standard" to compare phones. This is 100% the wrong way to go about it. I would be completely fine if the next iPhone ran just as quick as my current 4S. The .05 seconds faster it would be doesn't kill my day. Sometimes people are too caught up on "specs" and don't realize most times they aren't even that important.

The best example are people who buy the top of the line computers only to use them for web browsing, email, office and streaming video. You can do all those things on a $499 laptop.

I hope Apple focuses less on specs and more on user quality. Who cares if Android phones have better specs when they have x5 more bugs and crash x5 as often as iOS.
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That is true but our problem is what you aren't understanding. Who would want that 499 laptop if it selling for the same price as the top of the line computers. Ie iPhone
 
robbie12345 said:
That is true but our problem is what you aren't understanding. Who would want that 499 laptop if it selling for the same price as the top of the line computers. Ie iPhone
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People who understand it's not about tech specs in the post-PC world. It's about ecosystem, experience, and easy usability. Apple wants to transform our thoughts from worrying about the latest tech to worrying about does it work easily and beautifully.
 
robbie12345 said:
That is true but our problem is what you aren't understanding. Who would want that 499 laptop if it selling for the same price as the top of the line computers. Ie iPhone
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actually that $499 laptop would cost more than the top of the line one. $549 for the S3, $649 for new iPhone (assuming same pricing scheme as the 4S).
 
I'm assuming a dual A5 rebraded as an A6 processor clocked at sub-1 ghz.
768 mb of Ram.
A slightly bigger battery than the 4s's.

I'll pre-order the phone, but my hype is way down now that I bought my first android phone and seen how lightyears ahead it was to the iphone.
 
applefanDrew said:
32nm A5X @ 800 MHz. Dual gore graphics. 1gb ram.
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Doesn't make any sense. The A5X is defined specifically by quad core graphics.

The A5 is a dual core cortex with dual core graphics. The A5X is the same dual core cortex but with quad core graphics, hence the X. Without the quad core graphics, it's the same processor we have now.
 
fs454 said:
Doesn't make any sense. The A5X is defined specifically by quad core graphics.

The A5 is a dual core cortex with dual core graphics. The A5X is the same dual core cortex but with quad core graphics, hence the X. Without the quad core graphics, it's the same processor we have now.
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Yes but for marketing reasons Apple will call it an A5X. And if anyone asks, they'll say it's a modified A5X.

Faster dual core graphics than 4S, slower than iPad.

So 32nm A5 with improved dual core graphics, called an A5X.
 
applefanDrew said:
Yes but for marketing reasons Apple will call it an A5X. And if anyone asks, they'll say it's a modified A5X.

Faster dual core graphics than 4S, slower than iPad.

So 32nm A5 with improved dual core graphics, called an A5X.
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deceptive advertising...that should go well with customers.
 
the A5X was shipped with the new Ipad for one reason and one reason only the A6 simply was not ready at the time of launch and Apple didnt wanna break the product cycle as it had done the prior year with the 4s so they gave it the A5X. Now the A6 is ready to go so why wouldnt they install it, also remember that the Ipda is suppose to get a mid cycle refresh i bet it gets the A6 also
 
ray6712 said:
the A5X was shipped with the new Ipad for one reason and one reason only the A6 simply was not ready at the time of launch and Apple didnt wanna break the product cycle as it had done the prior year with the 4s so they gave it the A5X. Now the A6 is ready to go so why wouldnt they install it, also remember that the Ipda is suppose to get a mid cycle refresh i bet it gets the A6 also
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None of what you said will happen..
 
HishamAkhtar said:
iOS is awesome but why would you not want the best hardware in your phone?
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A chip that sucks down battery life too quickly is not the best hardware!

A quad core GPU on a 32nm A5x could be way underclocked on a iPhone and still outperform the 4S (which is no slouch). Or they could up the clock speed on the dual core A5 in 32nm.
 
firewood said:
A chip that sucks down battery life too quickly is not the best hardware!

A quad core GPU on a 32nm A5x could be way underclocked on a iPhone and still outperform the 4S (which is no slouch). Or they could up the clock speed on the dual core A5 in 32nm.
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Keep similar thickness, make the phone bigger and install a bigger battery. Problem solved ;)
 
nutmac said:
Historically speaking, new iPhones always used existing iPad architecture, down clocked to save battery life. The only special case was RAM in iPhone 4, which had more RAM than existing iPad.

1st generation iPad (April 2010): 1 GHz A4 (single core), 256 MB RAM, PowerVR SGX535 (single core)
iPhone 4 (June 2010): 800 MHz A4 (single core), 512 MB RAM, PowerVR SGX535 (single core)

2nd generation iPad (March 2011): 1 GHz A5 (dual core), 512 MB RAM, PowerVR SGX543MP2 (dual core)
iPhone 4S (October 2011): 800 MHz A5 (dual core), 512 MB RAM, PowerVR SGX543MP2 (dual core)

3rd generation iPad (March 2012): 1 GHz A5x (dual core), 1 GB RAM, PowerVR SGX543MP4 (quad core)

I suspect 6th generation iPhone will use 800 MHz A5X (dual core) with 1 GB RAM and Power VR SGX543MP4 (quad core).
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+1

I'm expecting A5X + quad-core graphics in the next iPhone.

b166er said:
due to technical limitations we know it will not be quad core, and it will not be the A5X. Either they keep the A5, which is not a big deal because it is if anything overpowering the 4S, or they unveil an A6, which we have heard nothing about in terms of power.

I think putting a fully powered A5 with 1 GB of RAM is both likely and welcomed.
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Its probably not technical limitation, they just want to push another year with dual-core and make more $$
 
My expectations are that they will just bump the clock speed a little, or do nothing at all to increase the performance. They will however put in a 32nm chip, this is pretty much a given if they want to keep at least the same amount of battery life.
What I'm hoping to see is a new architecture, either Krait or A15 but I don't think we'll see that this generation. We won't see Krait because it's a architecture made by Qualcomm and we probably won't see A15 because it seems that no one has a SOC running yet with the A15 architecture.
What I'm also hoping to see is the same amount of memory, only with a higher amount of memory bandwidth.
One thing they could do that would blow my mind is if they would include a PowerVR 6 "Rogue" GPU in there. But I don't see this happening because the design probably isn't final yet, and it would be to much risk for Apple.
My Dream SOC for the next gen iPhone would be Dual core A15, a PowerVR 6 GPU and tons of memory bandwidth (like the iPad 3rd gen).

Why Do people want quad cores in their phones? More cores doesn't mean more performance if the software isn't up to par. Yes you could offload tasks by the OS on 2 cores and the app on the other 2 cores, but would you really want to take the hit in battery life? Right now it's better to go with a dual core based on a new architecture as that would give more performance overall, but it would also increase performance of the apps which is something that a quad core wouldn't without either a real smart scheduler or developers optimizing their apps. And that is something which only a select few developers will do, just look at Android and the PC market.

And to all you people saying that the A5X is just the A5 with a 543MP4 instead of a 543MP2 are wrong, the A5X also has a wider memory bus thus increasing the memory bandwidth. I believe the A5X has a 128bit vs the 64bit in the A5. I don't know for sure if their are more difference, but I can't be bothered looking them up right now.

Edit; We probably won't see a A5X with a 543MP4 though, because the chip is physically really big and drains even more battery. This combined with a larger screen and possible LTE would mean that that new iPhone would have considerably worse battery life than the previous one. Something is got to give in the next iPhone if they want to keep the battery roughly the same size, and if it's not the screen (which probably will be the opposite) then it will be something else. Maybe just 32nm a5? Maybe bumped clock speeds? No one knows at this point and we probably won't until the announcement.
 
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