The iPad 3's A6 Processor to be Dual-Core?

[longofest]

The only way an "A6" comes out and stays dual-core is if it is based on Cortex-A15. However, no one seems to be ready to ship A15-based devices until late 2012 (OMAP 5 has been previewed, but nothing brewing yet, and Tegra 4 won't come until later this year). I highly doubt Apple can beat everyone by that far of a margin.

Much more likely that the "A6" will be a quad-core Cortex-A9 variant. It may not even be called "A6" - no hard rumor has shown that it will be called the A6 - everyone has just assumed.

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Please, no hyper threading. Please god, no.

who mentioned hyper threading?

 

[Stridder44]

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I hope this rumor is false. There's no real reason to stick with two core chips anymore.

 

[Nielsenius]

All I'm gonna say is that if you can make a tablet with a 4-core processor, then how come my laptop isn't 8-core and my desktop 16-core?

 

[Yamcha]

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Awesome is all I can say.. Retina display on an iPad will be great.. I don't mind a Dual Core processor either.. Should be more the. Sufficent and If it's A6 I assume it'll be faster the the A5.. Which is still good

 

[Saladinos]

If they are indeed using a dual-core A15, I'd expect a >2x performance boost from the architecture change alone.

Samsung and NVidia also seem to be going the 2x A15 route for their new tablet platforms (Exynos & Tegra), so I'd also go with that for Apple.

They may be using IMG's new Rogue GPU architecture for some solid gains there (hard to tell, would be a stretch). More GPU cores could be good for OpenCL if you're really pressed for compute resources (should be coming with iOS6 -- it's a private framework in iOS5).

 

[chrmjenkins]

The only way an "A6" comes out and stays dual-core is if it is based on Cortex-A15. However, no one seems to be ready to ship A15-based devices until late 2012 (OMAP 5 has been previewed, but nothing brewing yet, and Tegra 4 won't come until later this year). I highly doubt Apple can beat everyone by that far of a margin.

Much more likely that the "A6" will be a quad-core Cortex-A9 variant. It may not even be called "A6" - no hard rumor has shown that it will be called the A6 - everyone has just assumed.

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who mentioned hyper threading?

Exynos 5250 is already sampling, will ship Q2 if it remains on schedule. It features two A15 cores,

 

[William Gates]

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Damn Arn. Coming down pretty harsh on Topolsky, eh?

 

[jayhawk11]

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Damn Arn. Coming down pretty harsh on Topolsky, eh?

Topolsky deserves it. Clearly his sources suck. It's not like Arn is hating on him for no reason.

 

[MythicFrost]

Apple has been competing well while ignoring LTE, 4-7" form factor, removable battery, microSD expansion, file system, and more.

They will do what makes sense.

I have expected for months A6 might be a dual A15 setup.

That's right, but a quad-core makes a lot of sense. The benefits are quite substantial for games, and touting a quad-core would be a major selling point. I too suspected a dual-core A15 may be a possibility, but I truly hope it's a quad-core A15 -- that'd put them ahead of the competition by quite a bit, spec-wise. (And at the very least, a quad-core A9 and match the competition.)

 

[gorskiegangsta]

The only way an "A6" comes out and stays dual-core is if it is based on Cortex-A15. However, no one seems to be ready to ship A15-based devices until late 2012 (OMAP 5 has been previewed, but nothing brewing yet, and Tegra 4 won't come until later this year). I highly doubt Apple can beat everyone by that far of a margin.

Much more likely that the "A6" will be a quad-core Cortex-A9 variant. It may not even be called "A6" - no hard rumor has shown that it will be called the A6 - everyone has just assumed.

Samsung was rumored to be introducing next-gen Galaxy Tab with a dual-core Cortex A15 based Exynos chip at MWC later this month. It is not unlikely that Apple might get first hand at the chip if they are aggressive enough.
Even if Apple passes on updating the CPU cores for the next iPad, I highly doubt they'll also neglect the graphics, especially if the "retina" display makes its way to the iPad.

 

[NT1440]

You guys are funny. No one has noticed that iOS basically keeps on par (if not outperforms) most other mobile phone platforms while having roughly half the resources in specs like RAM?

Don't let the core count become the new MHz myth. It doesn't matter how much horsepower you have if the tranny can't get the power to the wheels

 

[Navdakilla]

Uh oh ... This isn't good

 

[arn]

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Damn Arn. Coming down pretty harsh on Topolsky, eh?

Wasn't trying to be harsh.

This was harsh:

http://daringfireball.net/2011/02/eleventh_hour

If I had sources who fed me a load of ********* a month ago, I’d be apologizing to my readers, not doubling down on those sources as “dead right”.

 

[chrmjenkins]

Topolsky deserves it. Clearly his sources suck. It's not like Arn is hating on him for no reason.

Toplosky has one of the best records in the blogosphere. Only guy I can think of with a better record is Gruber, and be bets/predicts less.

That's right, but a quad-core makes a lot of sense. The benefits are quite substantial for games, and touting a quad-core would be a major selling point. I too suspected a dual-core A15 may be a possibility, but I truly hope it's a quad-core A15 -- that'd put them ahead of the competition by quite a bit, spec-wise. (And at the very least, a quad-core A9 and match the competition.)

No one has a quad core A15 on the radar until Tegra 4. Super unlikely. Benefit to games from quad core isn't that big yet, especially not for mobile games.

You guys are funny. No one has noticed that iOS basically keeps on par (if not outperforms) most other mobile phone platforms while having roughly half the resources in specs like RAM?

Don't let the core count become the new MHz myth. It doesn't matter how much horsepower you have if the tranny can't get the power to the wheels

Mobile platforms are not about horsepower. They are about feature set and android is ahead of iOS. How efficiently it performs the function matters, but who cares how little memory mobile safari uses when what they really want are widgets?

 

[smulji]

Toplosky has one of the best records in the blogosphere. Only guy I can think of with a better record is Gruber, and be bets/predicts less.



No one has a quad core A15 on the radar until Tegra 4. Super unlikely. Benefit to games from quad core isn't that big yet, especially not for mobile games.



Mobile platforms are not about horsepower. They are about feature set and android is ahead of iOS. How efficiently it performs the function matters, but who cares how little memory mobile safari uses when what they really want are widgets?

"Toplosky has one of the best records in the blogosphere. Only guy I can think of with a better record is Gruber, and be bets/predicts less."

I don't agree. When it comes to Apple rumors, Jim Darlrymple from The Loop Insight has, by far, the best track record for predicting Apple rumors. After him comes the Wall Street Journal, followed by Gruber.

 

[delToros]

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Make sense. Cameras, retina, new SoC. it is already huge update. 2013 ipad will have minor update with quad-core cpu. It makes a lot of sence.

 

[chrmjenkins]

"Toplosky has one of the best records in the blogosphere. Only guy I can think of with a better record is Gruber, and be bets/predicts less."

I don't agree. When it comes to Apple rumors, Jim Darlrymple from The Loop Insight has, by far, the best track record for predicting Apple rumors. After him comes the Wall Street Journal, followed by Gruber.

Wall street journal isn't a blog (I specified blogs). I've never even heard of Jim until just now. You would think I would have heard of him if he is right often. And there is a distinct difference between predictions and rumors/sources. Can you clarify which he is so good at? Anyone can make predictions. Analysts often do and are entertaining in how wrong they are.

 

[cyberakuma]

A Dual core? Oh no!

I am seriously worried that the dual cores won't pack enough juice to handle the retina display's higher resolution games.

My retina displayed iPhone 4 can't handle Modern Combat 3 or even Black Ops zombies because Apple just used the same old GPU in the 3GS to power twice as many pixels!*

Not happy.

The number of cores is meaningless in reality. Who is to say that a quad core chip would just run at half the clock frequency of the dual-core one? While it is not likely to be that severe of a difference, it is common for variants of a chip with more cores to have a lower top frequency. For applications (games) which do not use more than two cores, this would result in less CPU total than a comparable dual-core chip.

The real reason to add more cores for a mobile device is to reduce the power usage of each core, and to have logic to turn off all power to cores not in use.

Also, the iPhone 4 had a higher end GPU (543 vs 535) with multiple cores. The reality is that a retina display would require 4x the pixels to get to screen, which would mean you need 4x the pixel rate, more memory for the larger textures and frame buffers, more GPU cores to pump shaders through, and a faster memory bus to load data into the graphics hardware. Depending on the engine, you will likely have more polygons as well (due to adaptive algorithms or just more detailed models for use on retina models)

My speculation? I would anticipate the 554 being in an A6, with either 4 or 8 GPU cores. I would anticipate an A9, possibly with quad cores but in that case without a step in per-core processing power. I don't think the timelines mesh up for the A6 containing either the 6-series GPUs or the A15 based on how long I think it would take to finalize the design, ramp up production and be ready with launch weekend inventory.

 

[chrmjenkins]

My speculation? I would anticipate the 554 being in an A6, with either 4 or 8 GPU cores. I would anticipate an A9, possibly with quad cores but in that case without a step in per-core processing power. I don't think the timelines mesh up for the A6 containing either the 6-series GPUs or the A15 based on how long I think it would take to finalize the design, ramp up production and be ready with launch weekend inventory.

The 554 is nothing but a GPU whose cores are essentially two 544 cores in one. And the 544 is nothing but a 543 core with extra graphics API support iOS doesn't need. It's also highly unlikely that their architecture will exceed 4 GPU cores as that would cost a lot of silicon and power. Not even the PS Vita, a dedicated gaming handheld, has more than 4 GPU cores, and it uses the 543 as well.

 

[applefanDrew]

Wall street journal isn't a blog (I specified blogs). I've never even heard of Jim until just now. You would think I would have heard of him if he is right often. And there is a distinct difference between predictions and rumors/sources. Can you clarify which he is so good at? Anyone can make predictions. Analysts often do and are entertaining in how wrong they are.

Gruber says Dalrymple's sources are GOLD. So he's good at everything.

 

[Loyalty4Life]

The sky is falling!!!

 

[DeathChill]

Wall street journal isn't a blog (I specified blogs). I've never even heard of Jim until just now. You would think I would have heard of him if he is right often. And there is a distinct difference between predictions and rumors/sources. Can you clarify which he is so good at? Anyone can make predictions. Analysts often do nd are entertaining in how wrong they are.

Jim is pretty much Apple's method to confirm/deny information. He is quoted on any rumor he comments on because he is correct. John Gruber also specifically says Jim's contacts and information are pure gold.

 

[SockRolid]

Dual core vs. quad core

Apple just might be planning to do this:

Dual core A6: iPhone, iPad, iPod touch

Quad core A6: MacBook Air

Simple, no?

 

[chrmjenkins]

Gruber says Dalrymple's sources are GOLD. So he's good at everything.

Jim is pretty much Apple's method to confirm/deny information. He is quoted on any rumor he comments on because he is correct. John Gruber also specifically says Jim's contacts and information are pure gold.

The funny thing is that I tried to google search to verify and the top hit is a tweet where Gruber jokes that he is wrong. I'll have to pay closer attention in the future. However, the pure gold comment was in reference to no new hardware at WWDC 2011, which was widely expected and not a surprise.

Apple just might be planning to do this:

Dual core A6: iPhone, iPad, iPod touch

Quad core A6: MacBook Air

Simple, no?

Tim Cook commented directly on that and said no. The Air will stay intel and the iPad will gain more productivity software to close the gap.

 

[Amazing Iceman]

If the A6 is a 2 Ghz dual core processor, that would be better than a 1 Ghz quad core, for what the iPad does.. Yes it would.

That is, if the rest of the components and the bus can run fast enough to benefit from such speed, otherwise it would be like setting up the speed limit for a residential street to 100MPH; it would be chaos...

Let's see what new rumors we get about the A6; there's always a reason for everything. I would also like to know the true specs for the A6.

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Tim Cook commented directly on [MBA with Quad-Core A6] that and said no. The Air will stay intel and the iPad will gain more productivity software to close the gap.

Definitely! Switching out of the Intel Platform would be a terrible move for Apple; It would be costly and redundant, as they would need to produce a separate version of OS X for the A6 and subsequent processors. It would require rewriting OS X and every supporting application, adding this platform to Xcode and SDK; basically having to form a new team of developers for each.
And more work for developers, needing to compile and test multiple versions of their applications.

It would be like going back to the Rosetta days, having Rosetta-like issues.