Why the iPad 3 might not be using PowerVR SGX600 series

[maclook]

Yeah, the camera will definitely be upgraded. It's pretty insane though they shipped the first iPad with such a bad camera, perhaps it was a back up and their intended camera had some last minute problems. Or maybe they just did want to put a cheap quality camera on there so we'll buy the next model 😛

I'm pretty sure the camera quality was just a cost saving measure, which is why we're no doubt going to be disappointed by something with the iPad3 since everyone is expecting everything to be upgraded.

The fact that the 3GS and 4 shared the same GPU may be a good indication that the GPU will be one things not upgraded this time around. Out of the screen, CPU, GPU, RAM, and cameras, I think camera and GPU are the most likely to be unchanged. If those shell pictures are real then the camera is definitely upgraded which leaves the GPU. Tim Cook would be the man if he demanded that everything be upgraded but I doubt it...

 

[borgqueenx]

Cameras are likely to remain unchanged? Na i dont think so.
Gpu will probaly also be upgraded for the reason they need to stay ahead of competition.

 

[MythicFrost]

I'm pretty sure the camera quality was just a cost saving measure, which is why we're no doubt going to be disappointed by something with the iPad3 since everyone is expecting everything to be upgraded.

The fact that the 3GS and 4 shared the same GPU may be a good indication that the GPU will be one things not upgraded this time around. Out of the screen, CPU, GPU, RAM, and cameras, I think camera and GPU are the most likely to be unchanged. If those shell pictures are real then the camera is definitely upgraded which leaves the GPU. Tim Cook would be the man if he demanded that everything be upgraded but I doubt it...

That's true but also there aren't really any games that ran well on the 3GS that didn't work on the 4, in this instance, with the same GPU many games wouldn't run very well -- and the SGX543MP2 would become useless in the 4S and iPad 2 since they won't ever make any game that can't be run on the latest and greatest.

I believe they'd have put only one SGX543 in both devices if they only wanted an SGX543MP2 for the iPad.

I think we'll see a big upgrade personally.

 

[ThatsMeRight]

I'm pretty sure the camera quality was just a cost saving measure, which is why we're no doubt going to be disappointed by something with the iPad3 since everyone is expecting everything to be upgraded.

The fact that the 3GS and 4 shared the same GPU may be a good indication that the GPU will be one things not upgraded this time around. Out of the screen, CPU, GPU, RAM, and cameras, I think camera and GPU are the most likely to be unchanged. If those shell pictures are real then the camera is definitely upgraded which leaves the GPU. Tim Cook would be the man if he demanded that everything be upgraded but I doubt it...

I really believe that the iPad 2 was supposed to get a retina display. Even before the iPad 2 launch, there were already rumours about a retina display. I think that they had to dump the retina display for some reason (low yields? Higher than expected costs? Etc.), but at the same time everything else was ready... including the A5 chip. I think that that is the reason why the iPad 2's GPU is really powerful.

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That's true but also there aren't really any games that ran well on the 3GS that didn't work on the 4, in this instance, with the same GPU many games wouldn't run very well -- and the SGX543MP2 would become useless in the 4S and iPad 2 since they won't ever make any game that can't be run on the latest and greatest.

I believe they'd have put only one SGX543 in both devices if they only wanted an SGX543MP2 for the iPad.

I think we'll see a big upgrade personally.

I sincerely hope they we'll see a big upgrade, but I don't expect too much. Apple is unpredictable.

 

[psonice]

I'm not guessing, if you increase the pixels by four you'll need roughly four times the amount of power to maintain existing frame rates. It doesn't how much is used right now, it matters whether the iPad 3 will get lower frame rates at 2048x1536 than the iPad 2 at 1024x768, because it'll limit how good games will look. If Apple maintained an SGX543MP2 as it is, we'd seen only one quarter of the frame rate.

You don't necessarily need 4x fillrate for 4x resolution. In a complex game some elements would be rendered at 4x res, others wouldn't change at all. I explained why before, read back.

I see why you think a 8-core SGX543 GPU is much better than a dual-core SGX543 GPU like used now, but don't forget that it is much harder to code for multiple cores (at least it is when using the CPU - I can only assume it's the same with GPUs - correct me if I'm wrong).

ok, you're wrong 😀 The GPU cores are transparent, we just pretend it's a single core. Current code would run nearly 4x faster on an 8 core chip compared to 2 core.

Using CPU cores is different, you have to write with multicore in mind. Even then it's not that hard nowadays.

 

[MythicFrost]

I really believe that the iPad 2 was supposed to get a retina display. Even before the iPad 2 launch, there were already rumours about a retina display. I think that they had to dump the retina display for some reason (low yields? Higher than expected costs? Etc.), but at the same time everything else was ready... including the A5 chip. I think that that is the reason why the iPad 2's GPU is really powerful.
I sincerely hope they we'll see a big upgrade, but I don't expect too much. Apple is unpredictable.

I thought that too, but if that was true we probably wouldn't have seen the SGX543MP2 in the iPhone 4S as well.

You don't necessarily need 4x fillrate for 4x resolution. In a complex game some elements would be rendered at 4x res, others wouldn't change at all. I explained why before, read back.

I know, I remember. It would be more ideal that everything could be rendered at the higher resolution though, so I'm really hoping Apple's going to give us at least four times the power.

 

[ThatsMeRight]

I thought that too, but if that was true we probably wouldn't have seen the SGX543MP2 in the iPhone 4S as well.

I know, I remember. It would be more ideal that everything could be rendered at the higher resolution though, so I'm really hoping Apple's going to give us at least four times the power.

Remember that the GPU in the iPhone 4S is less powerful than the GPU in the iPad 2! (It is underclocked).

 

[MythicFrost]

Remember that the GPU in the iPhone 4S is less powerful than the GPU in the iPad 2! (It is underclocked).

That's true, but it's still a whopper. I believe the iPad 2 beats it by about 25%.

 

[psonice]

That's true, but it's still a whopper. I believe the iPad 2 beats it by about 25%.

I vaguely remember working it out, and the iPad version is faster exactly in proportion with the number of extra pixels it has to render - i.e. the GPU power per pixel is identical between the two.

It's pretty likely that apple use exactly the same chip in the iPad + iPhone to save money. In that case, there's a pretty high chance we'll see this A5X (if that's what it turns out to be) in the iPhone 5 too. If the GPU power has indeed doubled, we're going to see some absolutely amazing graphics on the iPhone. I'll still manage to write something that pushed it to 100% utilisation though 😀

 

[MythicFrost]

I vaguely remember working it out, and the iPad version is faster exactly in proportion with the number of extra pixels it has to render - i.e. the GPU power per pixel is identical between the two.

Wait, I don't get that? The GPU power per pixel is identical between the two, but the iPad 2 has a higher resolution and a higher score?

It's pretty likely that apple use exactly the same chip in the iPad + iPhone to save money. In that case, there's a pretty high chance we'll see this A5X (if that's what it turns out to be) in the iPhone 5 too. If the GPU power has indeed doubled, we're going to see some absolutely amazing graphics on the iPhone. I'll still manage to write something that pushed it to 100% utilisation though 😀

It'd be cheaper though to use one less SGX543 though. If Apple does go the way of a quad-core SGX543MP4, or higher, the heat will be way too much for the iPhone 5 and that aside, it wouldn't make any sense for Apple to give the iPhone 5 more horse power than the iPad 3, factoring in resolutions.

Would love to see an SGX643 in the iPhone 5 -- that's five times more performance than the SGX543MP2. (I'm assuming that the SGX643 is the replacement for the 543.) The graphics would be insane, either way 😀

 

[ThatsMeRight]

Wait, I don't get that? The GPU power per pixel is identical between the two, but the iPad 2 has a higher resolution and a higher score?

I think what he means, is that the GPU power is relative. The iPhone 4S has got a 960 by 640 display. The iPad 2 a 1024 by 768 display. He means that the power is relative to the resolution. The resolution of the iPhone 4S is lower than that of the iPad 2, and thus the iPhone 4S has an underclocked GPU - yet it can achieve the same results on its native resolution.

It'd be cheaper though to use one less SGX543 though. If Apple does go the way of a quad-core SGX543MP4, or higher, the heat will be way too much for the iPhone 5 and that aside, it wouldn't make any sense for Apple to give the iPhone 5 more horse power than the iPad 3, factoring in resolutions.

Would love to see an SGX643 in the iPhone 5 -- that's five times more performance than the SGX543MP2. (I'm assuming that the SGX643 is the replacement for the 543.) The graphics would be insane, either way 😀

The A6 chip is most likely going to be produced on a 32nm line (currently it's produced on a 45 nm line). This means that it is smaller and it's going to consume less power (or it is going to consume the same power, with much better performance). Quad-Core GPU is not impossible.

I also think it is just cheaper for Apple to use the same chip for both iPhone and iPad, and to underclock them for iPhone. Now they only have to put R&D money in one chip and costs will go down for this one single chip over time.

 

[MythicFrost]

I think what he means, is that the GPU power is relative. The iPhone 4S has got a 960 by 640 display. The iPad 2 a 1024 by 768 display. He means that the power is relative to the resolution. The resolution of the iPhone 4S is lower than that of the iPad 2, and thus the iPhone 4S has an underclocked GPU - yet it can achieve the same results on its native resolution.

Ah right, gotcha.

The A6 chip is most likely going to be produced on a 32nm line (currently it's produced on a 45 nm line). This means that it is smaller and it's going to consume less power (or it is going to consume the same power, with much better performance). Quad-Core GPU is not impossible.

I also think it is just cheaper for Apple to use the same chip for both iPhone and iPad, and to underclock them for iPhone. Now they only have to put R&D money in one chip and costs will go down for this one single chip over time.

They shouldn't really have to spend additional money in R&D to take out one SGX543. They've done similar things with RAM, the iPad, iPod touch 4, and iPhone 4 all had the A4 but the RAM varied by device. An entire GPU would be significantly more expensive than RAM, the SGX543MP2 should do the iPhone for quite a while -- although switching to a significantly more powerful 600 series would be ideal.

Even so, an SGX543MP4 at 32nm would still get too hot. My iPhone 4S gets quite hot when gaming, a drop from 45nm to 32nm won't cut power consumption and heat by 50%.

 

[wilycoder]

Friendly developer reminder:

EVERYTHING on the iPad is GPU accelerated. The entire OS: every widget, every UIView, every icon, every pixel on the screen...

Apple does not have the best GPUs just because they hope to sell some 3rd party games. Apple NEEDS a top notch GPU because the entire OS rendering depends on it.

 

[ThatsMeRight]

Ah right, gotcha.

They shouldn't really have to spend additional money in R&D to take out one SGX543. They've done similar things with RAM, the iPad, iPod touch 4, and iPhone 4 all had the A4 but the RAM varied by device. An entire GPU would be significantly more expensive than RAM, the SGX543MP2 should do the iPhone for quite a while -- although switching to a significantly more powerful 600 series would be ideal.

Even so, an SGX543MP4 at 32nm would still get too hot. My iPhone 4S gets quite hot when gaming, a drop from 45nm to 32nm won't cut power consumption and heat by 50%.

The heat doesn't really matter. It's not like you can't use your iPhone 4S anymore. And next to that, the iPad 2's got a different casing: the iPad 2's casing conducts heat, while the iPhone 4S' glass doesn't really conduct heat that well.

The sixth generation iPhone will definitely get a redesign, so we never know for sure what they will do. I'm sure Apple is able to find a good balance between power, power consumption and heat.

 

[borgqueenx]

Friendly developer reminder:

EVERYTHING on the iPad is GPU accelerated. The entire OS: every widget, every UIView, every icon, every pixel on the screen...

Apple does not have the best GPUs just because they hope to sell some 3rd party games. Apple NEEDS a top notch GPU because the entire OS rendering depends on it.

thats true, but you also know it doesnt use alot of resource from the GPU.
But still, it depends on the GPU, wich is also the reason for less lag and stutter then the competition.

I cant wait for the announcement. if they include the A15 and the series 6 GPu everyone will drop dead for the beauty is to intense 😀
Na even if its desame GPU with quad core, its pretty good. not perfect or awesome, but good enough.

 

[psonice]

Ah right, gotcha.

They shouldn't really have to spend additional money in R&D to take out one SGX543. They've done similar things with RAM, the iPad, iPod touch 4, and iPhone 4 all had the A4 but the RAM varied by device. An entire GPU would be significantly more expensive than RAM, the SGX543MP2 should do the iPhone for quite a while -- although switching to a significantly more powerful 600 series would be ideal.

There RAM and CPU/GPU are in the same little black package, but they're not the same chip. The CPU + GPU and a few other bits are on a single silicon chip, then the RAM is on one (or maybe even 2) separate chips that they stack above it. So changing the RAM is easy, you just add more to the package. Changing the GPU means you have to redesign the chip, and manufacture it separately - this is big money, and you lose even more because instead of ordering 100m A5s you're ordering a mere 50m A5a and 50m A5b, so the cost of both is higher.

That's why they use the same chip in the iPad 2 + iPhone 4S, and why they'll want to continue doing that with the next generation. If it uses too much power for the 4S, they can under clock it to reduce power/heat, or they can even disable some of the GPU cores completely - it might still work out more economical.

Friendly developer reminder:

EVERYTHING on the iPad is GPU accelerated. The entire OS: every widget, every UIView, every icon, every pixel on the screen...

Apple does not have the best GPUs just because they hope to sell some 3rd party games. Apple NEEDS a top notch GPU because the entire OS rendering depends on it.

True, except that OS rendering is so trivial to the A5 GPU that it barely breaks a sweat. The A5 would handle a retina iPad with ease for the system UI and most apps - it's only games where it needs more power.

 

[wilycoder]

True, except that OS rendering is so trivial to the A5 GPU that it barely breaks a sweat. The A5 would handle a retina iPad with ease for the system UI and most apps - it's only games where it needs more power.

You are probably right, but I believe that to be speculation on your part. In other words, [citation needed].

 

[MythicFrost]

The heat doesn't really matter. It's not like you can't use your iPhone 4S anymore. And next to that, the iPad 2's got a different casing: the iPad 2's casing conducts heat, while the iPhone 4S' glass doesn't really conduct heat that well.

The sixth generation iPhone will definitely get a redesign, so we never know for sure what they will do. I'm sure Apple is able to find a good balance between power, power consumption and heat.

No, but seriously it gets hot to the touch. They'd need something pretty radical to be able to absorb that heat.

There RAM and CPU/GPU are in the same little black package, but they're not the same chip. The CPU + GPU and a few other bits are on a single silicon chip, then the RAM is on one (or maybe even 2) separate chips that they stack above it. So changing the RAM is easy, you just add more to the package. Changing the GPU means you have to redesign the chip, and manufacture it separately - this is big money, and you lose even more because instead of ordering 100m A5s you're ordering a mere 50m A5a and 50m A5b, so the cost of both is higher.

Mmm, I see. You make a good point,

That's why they use the same chip in the iPad 2 + iPhone 4S, and why they'll want to continue doing that with the next generation. If it uses too much power for the 4S, they can under clock it to reduce power/heat, or they can even disable some of the GPU cores completely - it might still work out more economical.

Mmm, that sounds reasonable. Although, if the iPad 3 doesn't use the SGX600 series, which seems likely at this point, and instead opts for a SGX543MP4+, I'm betting we won't see that same GPU in the iPhone 6 -- it'll either stay the same with the SGX543MP2, or we'll get a 600 series GPU.

 

[MythicFrost]

You are probably right, but I believe that to be speculation on your part. In other words, [citation needed].

Nah it's true, the UI and non-games would run flawlessly at 60 FPS. It'd use more power though, too. It might not be much though.

 

[psonice]

You are probably right, but I believe that to be speculation on your part. In other words, [citation needed].

Well, I'm not basing that on hard figures, but I think "speculation" isn't quite the right word. I'm an iOS developer and I specialise in realtime graphics, so I "just know" what pushes the GPU hard. The system UI is trivial to render - very few polygons, minimal shader use, it's pretty much just texturing and blending.

The SGX543MP2 is so damned powerful it'd be pretty much whistling and spinning a yoyo while doing that one-handed. Quadruple the screen area, and it'd probably have to take its eye off the passing ladies for a while, but I reckon it'd still keep that yoyo going in its other hand.

 

[ThatsMeRight]

We'll find out in just two weeks. 🙂

 

[wilycoder]

Nah it's true, the UI and non-games would run flawlessly at 60 FPS. It'd use more power though, too. It might not be much though.

Well, I'm not basing that on hard figures, but I think "speculation" isn't quite the right word. I'm an iOS developer and I specialise in realtime graphics, so I "just know" what pushes the GPU hard. The system UI is trivial to render - very few polygons, minimal shader use, it's pretty much just texturing and blending.

The SGX543MP2 is so damned powerful it'd be pretty much whistling and spinning a yoyo while doing that one-handed. Quadruple the screen area, and it'd probably have to take its eye off the passing ladies for a while, but I reckon it'd still keep that yoyo going in its other hand.

Bummer, I was hoping someone had a way to actually benchmark this kind of thing.

I don't mean to repeat myself but I did say you were probably right. I'm not trying to play devil's advocate but I will provide some evidence for you to reexamine your claims: there is a noticeable difference in UI performance on my 2010 macbook pro when I switch from the i7 integrated graphics to the nvidia 330m. The difference is very observable when minimizing windows with the genie effect. Being an OpenGL programmer for 8 years, the difference in the genie effect drives me crazy enough that I force the system to use the nvidia chip all the time. I cant stand bad graphics performance.

Now, are you positing that the SGX543 is more powerful than the i7 integrated graphics? Because the mbp resolution is certainly less than the speculated retina display of the ipad. Its certainly not an apples-to-apples comparison, but its at least some food for thought. I wouldn't be so sure that the SGX543's ability to render simple things would scale up. Who knows how many draw calls are made to render the UI, it might choke at higher resolutions. There is certainly more alpha-blending occuring on iOS UI rendering than there is on OSX rendering. Is there any hard data available about the blending performance of the SGX543? Maybe I should make a project that has a few thousand UIViews in it heh...

Finally, unless you can get an iPad2 GPU into a retina display version of the iPad, you are speculating. So am I, and everyone else in the thread. I am too much a scientist, there are no facts in this thread 🙂

 

[psonice]

Bummer, I was hoping someone had a way to actually benchmark this kind of thing.

I don't mean to repeat myself but I did say you were probably right. I'm not trying to play devil's advocate but I will provide some evidence for you to reexamine your claims: there is a noticeable difference in UI performance on my 2010 macbook pro when I switch from the i7 integrated graphics to the nvidia 330m. The difference is very observable when minimizing windows with the genie effect. Being an OpenGL programmer for 8 years, the difference in the genie effect drives me crazy enough that I force the system to use the nvidia chip all the time. I cant stand bad graphics performance.

Now, are you positing that the SGX543 is more powerful than the i7 integrated graphics? Because the mbp resolution is certainly less than the speculated retina display of the ipad. Its certainly not an apples-to-apples comparison, but its at least some food for thought. I wouldn't be so sure that the SGX543's ability to render simple things would scale up. Who knows how many draw calls are made to render the UI, it might choke at higher resolutions. There is certainly more alpha-blending occuring on iOS UI rendering than there is on OSX rendering. Is there any hard data available about the blending performance of the SGX543? Maybe I should make a project that has a few thousand UIViews in it heh...

Finally, unless you can get an iPad2 GPU into a retina display version of the iPad, you are speculating. So am I, and everyone else in the thread. I am too much a scientist, there are no facts in this thread 🙂

Ok, just did a quick + dirty test. Profiled the GPU utilisation on my 4S as I was doing some profiling on it anyway. Played around a bit in the system, scrolling around, opening + closing stuff, resizing the screen in the browser, all the usual stuff. GPU usage was generally 5-10%, and peaked at 20% (this was extremely rare).

Stretching that figure out a bit and using the peak, it could handle 5x more screen area. That's enough to drive a retina iPad - and the 4S GPU is under clocked. You'd be hitting near 100% utilisation now and then, but it would be rare. It'd generally be hitting 25-50% utilisation.

So yes, the A5 would handle a retina iPad display for the vast majority of non-game apps 🙂

 

[ThatsMeRight]

Ok, just did a quick + dirty test. Profiled the GPU utilisation on my 4S as I was doing some profiling on it anyway. Played around a bit in the system, scrolling around, opening + closing stuff, resizing the screen in the browser, all the usual stuff. GPU usage was generally 5-10%, and peaked at 20% (this was extremely rare).

Stretching that figure out a bit and using the peak, it could handle 5x more screen area. That's enough to drive a retina iPad - and the 4S GPU is under clocked. You'd be hitting near 100% utilisation now and then, but it would be rare. It'd generally be hitting 25-50% utilisation.

So yes, the A5 would handle a retina iPad display for the vast majority of non-game apps 🙂

There is no question that the OS itself would do just fine with the A5 GPU. The performance of apps that demand a lot of GPU, however, would go down! Is that desirable?

Let's take GTA 3 for example. It runs just fine on the iPad 2 because it makes good use of the GPU. Now let's say that the iPad 3 indeed has a display with four times as many pixels. Is it desirable that there is no improvement in the GPU in any way? If the GPU is not improved, than two things can happen if GTA 3 is going to run on a 2048 by 1536 resolution:

- The developers need to drop special effects, light exposure, shorter viewing distance (so more pop-in), to keep the performance drop at a minimum (and even if they do this, there will be a slight performance drop). GTA 3 will run at 2048 by 1536.
GTA 3 will look worse than on the first generation iPad, except for the higher resolution.
- They are not removing functionality. GTA 3 will run at 2048 by 1536. This means GTA 3 will run on a higher resolution, but will not get extra effects, better viewing distance, better light exposure.
GTA 3 will look the same as on the iPad 2, except for the higher resolution, but performance is worse (lower amount of frames per second?).

Let's not forget that when the iPhone 4 was released, there were no real apps that were making optimal use of the GPU on the iPhone 3GS. That only happened when Apple started marketing their iOS devices as gaming devices starting with the iPhone 4 and the iPod touch (fourth gen.).

Currently, there are enough apps that make good use of the GPU in the A5 right now (like Infinity Blade 2). Is it really desirable that these apps run at lower performance on the iPad 3, than on the iPad 2?

 

[maclook]

^ Isn't that assuming that GTA3 is pushing the iPad2 to it's limit?

sidenote: I really hope they release Vice City after the iPad 3 comes out. Replaying GTA3 was surprisingly so much fun.