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Photo of iPad 3 Logic Board with "A5X" System on a Chip

Regardless of the other factors, "iPad 2S" truly sounds like crap. I hope they call it "iPad 3".
 
Either that camera has an incredibly narrow depth of focus or the image is photoshopped. Look at the difference in focus between the heatsink over the CPU and the logic board it's mounted on. Probably only a 0.5 mm difference in depth, but the logic board is completely out of focus.
 
Peterson8765 said:
I bet this A5X will be a 1.2-1.5GHz chip. In my opinion, I think it's best for Apple to wait until iPad 4 to release a quad core A6.
Click to expand...

And why is that ?

Let me guess, you recently bought an iPad 2 and can't justify upgrading it just yet and would like to see as few improvements as possible to make yourself feel better about not missing out on anything.

Am I right ? :rolleyes:
 
With the timeframe at which the iPad 3 will be released, we already knew it couldn't have a Cortex A15 quad-core processor, which will be released at the end of the year.

The choices were:

Dual-core Cortex A9 (like in the iPad 2)
Quad-core Cortex A9 (like in the PSVita)
Dual-core Cortex A15 (like the newly announced Samsung Exynos 5250, TI OMAP 5)

Given the poorer efficiency of quad-core processors in general and the better efficiency of the A15 architecture over the A9, a dual-core Cortex A15 would have performed better than a quad-core A9 that's clocked slower.

Apple usually cares more about real-world performance than about having impressive spec terms anyway. Those that would like to brag about having a quad-core phone are generally more interested in Android-based phones to begin with.

I think it's safe to assume that the A5X will not be a quad-core. The number of cores was the only "spec" Apple has talked about when they presented the A5. Now that the new A5X SoC doesn't have more cores, it's hard for them to justify an A6 being significantly better than the A5 without getting technical and explaining the architecture difference between a Cortex A9 and A12, which Apple obviously wouldn't do. A5X makes it sound like it's the same old dual-core processor, just faster (like iPhone 4S vs iPhone 4).

Now there are two possibilities:

  1. The A5X is still just an A5. It uses the same Cortex A9 architecture but it is now clocked higher. That would be weird since the iPhone 4S also uses an A5 with a different (slower) clock speed, yet they didn't rename the SoC just because of this. The "X" would basically just be a marketing term to make people feel like the CPU is new, while it's not really. All they would need is a bigger battery to compensate and good heat management, which shouldn't be a problem.

  2. The A5X is a new dual-core SoC based on the Cortex A15 architecture. It's about 50% more powerful and efficient than the A5. This would be even better than having a quad-core Cortex A9 (the only possible quad-core SoC right now) and the absolute best we could hope the iPad 3 to have. The iPhone 5 could have a new A5X as well and benefit from more power/efficiency without having a higher clock, which is desirable for a device as small as the iPhone.

tl;dr: Either the iPad 3 will just have a higher-clocked A5 and the "X" is just a marketing gimmick, or it will have a new dual-core Cortex A15 CPU which is actually more powerful and efficient (50% faster at same clock speed). No quad-core and that's a good thing.
 
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Capt Underpants said:
It's not a cover; it's a heat sink.
Click to expand...

ramuman said:
It could be a heat spreader that contacts the EMI shield. Cortex and PowerVR are low power, but might be approaching levels where heat dissipation is a minor issue. Pure speculation.

I'm guessing this is still made on Samsung's 45nm process which would almost two generations older than Intel's non-planar 22nm and definitely more than two generations in power consumption.
Click to expand...

I was thinking it could be a ( cheap ) heatsink also.

I'm wondering what happened to Taiwan Semiconductor's Aug. 2011 test run of the A6 chip though.

http://www.techradar.com/news/compu.../apple-a6-chip-trial-production-begins-992019
 
All we know is Apple has ordered to build a logic board.
In november.

Now tell me how we can conclude that this is going to be in the next iPad release.
 
My guess...

iPad3:
Retina, 32GB, Quad Core A6, Siri, white or black; 499, w/LTE 629
Retina, 64GB, Quad Core A6, Siri, white or black; 599, w/LTE 729

iPad2S:
No-Retina, 8GB, Dual Core (A5X), Siri, black; 349, with universal 3G 449
 
Why can't an A5 (A5X) be Quad Core?

I'm sure people have said this in other posts, but the way I see it there is no reason that the Quad-Core couldn't still be called 'A5'. As in:

A4 = Cortex A8
A5 = Cortex A9
A6 = Cortex A15

I mean the G5 wasn't called a G6 when the cores were double.
 
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Nah, I just sold my iPad 2 and plan on buying an iPad 3. I just think that apple should wait for new quad core technologies for a completely redesigned iPad 4 in 2013.
 
hotcocoa said:
My guess...

iPad3:
Retina, 32GB, Quad Core A6, Siri, white or black; 499, w/LTE 629
Retina, 64GB, Quad Core A6, Siri, white or black; 599, w/LTE 729

iPad2S:
No-Retina, 8GB, Dual Core (A5X), Siri, black; 349, with universal 3G 449
Click to expand...

Apple will not muck up the product line with a release like this.
 
The cores (and their nomenclature) are really irrelevant. I am confident the configuration is the best possible tradeoff in running all the Apps smoothly and "snappily" based on the new (massive) resolution upgrade. This, while keeping battery life as long as possible to not be slammed for being a major step backwards in comparison to previous models.

I think Apple has this performance mix down to a well honed science.
 
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