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

[Mr. Retrofire]

if a quad-core, like 4G connectivity for the iPhone 4S, will too severely impact battery life i can definitely see them going with a beefed up dual-core setup.

Quad-Core CPUs allow a better power management. So your fear is unfounded.

 

[bushido]

please more RAM. 512 is redic, i always have about 20 mb left most of the time according to SB Settings

 

[Mad-B-One]

Quad-Core CPUs allow a better power management. So your fear is unfounded.

Yea, by switching off cores not needed - this would make it what? A dual-core? Or by throttling? But which app uses 4 threads at once but not at full power? 99% of apps don't call for more than dual core and the rest will be using every percent of power needed thus suck the battery dry like the NYT App on the iPhone 4 - if I have to warm my hands, I open that.

 

[ufon68]

To the ones which cite that the GPU is more important: No such thing exists in iDevices. The Ax are doing all of it - much like the AMD Vision chips for mobile devices.

Obviously when people talk about a GPU, they mean the processing unit in charge of the 2d/3g graphics operations, doesn't really matter if it's located on the same chip as the CPU or if it's a different bug 5 inches away. It's still a circuit dedicated for graphics, hence a GPU.

But if you still believe there is no GPU in the iDevices, then don't look here, since they even manage to benchmark that nonexistent GPU.

 

[milo]

But what about ram? I would think they'd have to go to a gig, but that's what people said last time and it didn't happen.

And yes, the extra ram makes a difference. With multiple web tabs open, tabs often have to reload after switching. And quitting other apps (even though that's supposed to be unnecessary) makes that reloading happen less often.

 

[nylonsteel]

re original article

ah cmon aapl - quad is better than dual - you know that

 

[longofest]

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.

Oh, they will almost certainly update the graphics. However I tend to put more weight into the idea that the next chip will be quad-core Cortex-A9 based rather than dual-core and Cortex-A15.

Also, note that "announcing" is not the same thing as "shipping".

 

[ufon68]

But what about ram? I would think they'd have to go to a gig, but that's what people said last time and it didn't happen.

And yes, the extra ram makes a difference. With multiple web tabs open, tabs often have to reload after switching. And quitting other apps (even though that's supposed to be unnecessary) makes that reloading happen less often.

People saying apple was going for 1GB with iPad2 have no knowledge of apple's upgrading history. I think 1GB is very very very likely, actually almost inevitable, this time around, unless i'm mistaken, the RAM is shared between GPU and CPU and we will need a video RAM upgrade to support the higher res.

 

[Saladinos]

I think there is a general misconception that some people think if the processor has more cores or is running at a higher frequency, this will determine the speed of the device. Sure, since iPad tablets don't have a GPU, it is true to some degree. Thinking about a quadcore, you have to have an app which uses four different threads at once with at least two using the full capacity of the core to see a difference. Now, even with the higher resolution, how many apps will do that? Next thing: Using 4 cores at full speed will be nearly impossible with the current RAM configuration. The bandwith and/or speed would have to be increased to allow more data to be calculated actually getting to the cores. If I would be in charge of what to improve, I would go with more cache, higher bandwith for RAM (e.g. like PC dual channel) and other optimizations before I touch the amount of core or speed of cores. Simple reason: using more cores or higher frequency - someone mentioned 2GHz - causes higher temperature and hot spot which then causes 2 problems users don't apreciate: Lower battery life and a heatPad instead of an iPad. Since Apple is all about customer experiance, I don't think the quality control would let this one slide.

Edit:
To the ones which cite that the GPU is more important: No such thing exists in iDevices. The Ax are doing all of it - much like the AMD Vision chips for mobile devices.

Nope, sorry. There is a GPU.

What people are getting confused by is that it's a system-on-a-chip. Apple license the IP from ARM and Imagination and others and build a chip that integrates all of them. There was another story a few days ago about a speeh processing company whose IP had been licensed by Apple for integration inside their SoCs. It's also got a load of customisations like hardware acceleration for face recognition.

In a PC, you might have separate CPU, controller and GPU chips (amongst others). With a SoC, those are all located on the same physical package. The idea behind that is this simplifies the design, gives you better performance and power consumption, in high-level terms. I think Apple even includes the RAM chips inside the A5 package.

There is still a separate graphics processing unit. It's provided by Imagination. Apple pays them royalties for it.

 

[Mad-B-One]

Nope, sorry. There is a GPU.

What people are getting confused by is that it's a system-on-a-chip. Apple license the IP from ARM and Imagination and others and build a chip that integrates all of them. There was another story a few days ago about a speeh processing company whose IP had been licensed by Apple for integration inside their SoCs. It's also got a load of customisations like hardware acceleration for face recognition.

In a PC, you might have separate CPU, controller and GPU chips (amongst others). With a SoC, those are all located on the same physical package. The idea behind that is this simplifies the design, gives you better performance and power consumption, in high-level terms. I think Apple even includes the RAM chips inside the A5 package.

There is still a separate graphics processing unit. It's provided by Imagination. Apple pays them royalties for it.

Obviously when people talk about a GPU, they mean the processing unit in charge of the 2d/3g graphics operations, doesn't really matter if it's located on the same chip as the CPU or if it's a different bug 5 inches away. It's still a circuit dedicated for graphics, hence a GPU.

But if you still believe there is no GPU in the iDevices, then don't look here, since they even manage to benchmark that nonexistent GPU.

Errr... nope. If you look carefully, you will see that all calculations (except some specifics like earSmart, WiFi, memory controler, etc) go through one of the 2 cores. No "GPU" there. Virtually, yes, they exist and if you compare graphics, you compare that speed. In these kind of mobile devices though it is done by the CPU cores. If you think a set of commands is a seperate processing unit, fine. But since the "processing" is done by the CPU, there is only a "G" and a "U" left from the GPU. 😎

Also: The RAM is not on-die. It is the Toshiba DRAM Y890A111222KA - seperate chip. Look at the teardowns.

PS: Saying that the A4/A5 has a GPU on-die would be saying that Pentium and Athlon are GPUs as well since they have SSE and/or 3DNow on-die.

 

[gorskiegangsta]

Oh, they will almost certainly update the graphics. However I tend to put more weight into the idea that the next chip will be quad-core Cortex-A9 based rather than dual-core and Cortex-A15.

Also, note that "announcing" is not the same thing as "shipping".

Well, the dual-core Cortex-A15 based Exynos was planned to be shipped "in quantity" by Q2 2012. Assuming that iPad 3 ships in mid March, it is not unlikely for Apple to jump aboard the dual-core Cortex-A15 based design train. I do, however, agree with you that it'll make more sense for them to go with a quad-core Cortex-A9 and significantly bump the graphics, perhaps with a quad-core PowerVR SGX543.

 

[hchung]

Errr... nope. If you look carefully, you will see that all calculations (except some specifics like earSmart, WiFi, memory controler, etc) go through one of the 2 cores. No "GPU" there. Virtually, yes, they exist and if you compare graphics, you compare that speed. In these kind of mobile devices though it is done by the CPU cores. If you think a set of commands is a seperate processing unit, fine. But since the "processing" is done by the CPU, there is only a "G" and a "U" left from the GPU. 😎

Also: The RAM is not on-die. It is the Toshiba DRAM Y890A111222KA - seperate chip. Look at the teardowns.

The GPU isn't labeled because whoever wrote in the labels didn't know.
I believe it's likely to be one or two of the four blocks on the right; either the one underneath the "I/O" text, the one marked "Digital Logic Blocks" or the two immediately underneath the two I just mentioned. Most likely the larger one south of the one under the "I/O" text.

GPU functionality is definitely not done by the CPU datapath. I don't know where you got that idea, but you're just simply wrong.

 

[chrmjenkins]

Quad-Core CPUs allow a better power management. So your fear is unfounded.

Misleading. A quad vs dual core alone says nothing about power better or worse power management. Quad core can be better if it allows tasks to be finished quicker and for the CPU to go back to sleep, but that is all contingent on the power management scheme of the SoC and the typical workloads it sees.

 

[DeathChill]

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.

No, here's an exact quote from Gruber:

But I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Jim Dalrymple’s sources at Apple are gold.

 

[-LikesMac-]

Hmm..

If there's a dual-core iPad 3, it will probably be based on the Cortex A15 (Hopefully). The RAM will probably be doubled again to 1GB, and the GPU will definitely be upgraded for retina-display (which we're all hoping for, right?) 😛

 

[ufon68]

Errr... nope. If you look carefully, you will see that all calculations (except some specifics like earSmart, WiFi, memory controler, etc) go through one of the 2 cores. No "GPU" there. Virtually, yes, they exist and if you compare graphics, you compare that speed. In these kind of mobile devices though it is done by the CPU cores. If you think a set of commands is a seperate processing unit, fine. But since the "processing" is done by the CPU, there is only a "G" and a "U" left from the GPU. 😎

Also: The RAM is not on-die. It is the Toshiba DRAM Y890A111222KA - seperate chip. Look at the teardowns.

Well if you follow your link to the actual article, you will notice they talk about a GPU and they will even tell you which one it is. Sorry, but the fact remains that all iphones, ipod touches and ipad have had a GPU, it's absurd to try to convince anyone otherwise, and it's absurd to think the graphics calculations are actually done by the CPU.

The truth is, all evidence and logic points to one conclusion, there is a dedicated graphics processing unit on-die with the cpu(or even elsewhere for all i care), but if you think you can provide any evidence to the contrary, by all means, i'll be glad to learn.

PS: Saying that the A4/A5 has a GPU on-die would be saying that Pentium and Athlon are GPUs as well since they have SSE and/or 3DNow on-die.

That's hardly the same, these are just instruction sets extensions meant to accelerate specific calculations, sometimes not even graphics related and as you know, even with those you still need a dedicated GPU. So if anything, this just goes further to show you need much more than just to modify your CPU with new instruction sets to achieve some reasonable graphics performance and that's the case with iDevices as well.

 

[MythicFrost]

The A5 is a SoC including the CPU, RAM, and GPU. They are all included on the die, in fact the reason why the A5's die size is so huge, is because of the GPU. The CPU has nothing to do with calculating GPU related things.

 

[whooleytoo]

There is still a separate graphics processing unit. It's provided by Imagination. Apple pays them royalties for it.

Yup, the SGX543MP2 on the iPad 2, possibly one of the G6200 or G6400 on the iPad 3.

 

[longofest]

Well, the dual-core Cortex-A15 based Exynos was planned to be shipped "in quantity" by Q2 2012. Assuming that iPad 3 ships in mid March, it is not unlikely for Apple to jump aboard the dual-core Cortex-A15 based design train. I do, however, agree with you that it'll make more sense for them to go with a quad-core Cortex-A9 and significantly bump the graphics, perhaps with a quad-core PowerVR SGX543.

Fair enough... and don't get me wrong - I'd LOVE to see Apple beat my expectations and make the next chip be A15 based. I just don't think it's likely based on the iBoot leak we saw that showed a model number that only increased by 5 (rather than 10 from A4 to A5). Granted, the iBoot could have been faked, but I kinda doubt it.

 

[chrmjenkins]

Fair enough... and don't get me wrong - I'd LOVE to see Apple beat my expectations and make the next chip be A15 based. I just don't think it's likely based on the iBoot leak we saw that showed a model number that only increased by 5 (rather than 10 from A4 to A5). Granted, the iBoot could have been faked, but I kinda doubt it.

Yeah, I'm inclined to agree with you there. It's looking like quad A9 is what it's going to be. But it's not all sad. They could launch it on a 28nm or 32nm process and do a little more custom work to the cores to make it more than just an A5 times 2. Of course, it could have been a developmental chip that they were designing as a testbed, contingency plan, etc.

 

[iSee]

Of course no quad core

That rumor never made any sense.

For Apple to add such an expensive (expensive in several ways: $, size, power consumption, R & D) feature there would need to be significant value to the additional cores... So...

What would all those cores be doing, exactly?

Where Apple sees a significant value to doing computationally intensive functions, they've gone the route of providing a specialized co-processor in order to optimize the tradeoffs. (E.g., video decompressing, 3D graphics, audio processing.)

For Apple to add general purpose computational power to the iPad, they would have to see the iPad as a good fit for general purpose number crunching.

Which is ridiculous.

 

[wackamac]

3 core?

what if apple makes it 3 core?

 

[holmesf]

what if apple makes it 3 core?

Then I'll eat my hat.

 

[pmz]

It really DOES NOT matter.

What we all want is a faster processor. Apple will deliver that.

/thread

 

[chrmjenkins]

It really DOES NOT matter.

What we all want is a faster processor. Apple will deliver that.

/thread

Of course. Why discuss anything ever?