



I. Same Results, Different CPU



GeekBench iPad 3

[Source: Tienhte]

II. Better Graphics




iPad 2 v. Tegra
[Source: Anandtech]

III. Rivals Prepare Counterstrike







IV. Samsung Truce Could Guarantee Steady Component Supply for iPad 3





Samsung Austin Texas
[Image Source: Let's Go Digital]


V. The Beefy Battery





VI. LTE -- Fast and Dangerous


iPad 3 LTE
[Source: Anandtech]



Sources: Tinhte [Vietnamese], AnandTech, AP

Comments     Threshold


Maybe I'm wrong but...
By VahnTitrio on 3/13/2012 4:07:28 PM , Rating: 3
If all they did in the A5X was double the graphics power, wouldn't it make the 3rd gen iPad slower than an iPad2 as it has 4X as many pixels? Logic tells me that if all else is equal there is no way the new one can perform better...

RE: Maybe I'm wrong but...
By extra_baggage on 3/13/2012 4:29:22 PM , Rating: 1
You are forgetting the increased ram!

RE: Maybe I'm wrong but...
By B3an on 3/13/2012 4:39:34 PM , Rating: 3
More RAM will not magically make it perform better, it will just help compensate for the extra pixels it has to push.

At native resolution games should actually run slower than the iPad 2.

RE: Maybe I'm wrong but...
By tayb on 3/13/2012 6:40:27 PM , Rating: 2
Except that games don't scale that way. As an example from a recent Anand article (pasted below) scaling from 1680x1050 to 2560x1600 resulted in a 61.75% drop in FPS but the increase in pixels was 132.20%. The "new iPad" is pushing 4 times as many pixels as the iPad 2 but that does not mean you should expect 1/4 of the performance. They have also doubled the theoretical performance of the GPU, may have increased the CPU speed, could have optimized the software, and might have doubled the amount of RAM. This is a "we won't know until we know" kind of thing.

RE: Maybe I'm wrong but...
By snorldown on 3/13/2012 7:33:44 PM , Rating: 4
Your example just reinforces B3an's point. Assuming performance scales linearly with the number of pixels, a 132% increase in the pixel count would result in a 57% drop in FPS, so the fact that the benchmark showed a 61.75% drop means that the scaling was even worse.

RE: Maybe I'm wrong but...
By testerguy on 3/14/2012 2:49:31 AM , Rating: 3
Sorry but tayb is correct, he just used a bad example.

Take the same link of his.

Look at the HD 7950 (only selected because it's the first one on the list). At 1920 x 1200, it achieves an FPS of 47.1

Now, lets look at the result for 2560 x 1600. This is a move from 2304000 pixels to 4096000 pixels. This represents 1.78x as many pixels. As a result, if performance scales linearly, we would expect an FPS of 47.1/1.78, which is 26.46.

Instead, we see an FPS of 31.1.

Proof, by counter example, that FPS does not necessarily scale linearly with number of pixels. This also proves that 4x the pixels does not necessarily mean 1/4 of the FPS. Which was tayb's original point.

RE: Maybe I'm wrong but...
By testerguy on 3/14/2012 2:52:23 AM , Rating: 2
Edit: Sorry the 47.1 figure I quoted is actually 47.7 on the graph.

The point still stands though, 47.7/1.78 is 26.8 FPS (rather than the 26.46). Still less than the 31.1 (14% less) and still proves the point.

RE: Maybe I'm wrong but...


RE: Maybe I'm wrong but...


And the results are in. Compare:

Tegra 3
GL Egypt Offscreen 720p: 64fps
GL Pro Offscreen 720p: 78fps

iPad 3
GL Egypt Offscreen 720p: 140fps (2.2X faster)
GL Pro Offscreen 720p: 241fps (3.1X faster)



RE: Maybe I'm wrong but...


RE: Maybe I'm wrong but...


RE: Maybe I'm wrong but...
"Clueless hate comment fuelled by bitterness."

??? huh




RE: Maybe I'm wrong but...
By B3an on 3/13/2012 8:54:25 PM , Rating: 2
CPU speed is the same @ 1GHz. And as i said, more RAM will not make games run better! Unless games are limited by not enough RAM, which no iPAd games are being as all the developers know exactly how much RAM they have to work with.

Another example would be that i have 32GB RAM in my PC, but taking much of it out and just leaving 6GB does not make games run any worse (apart from slightly longer loading screens), being as no PC game uses more than 4GB. Adding more RAM when it's not going to be used will not increase FPS.

If anything, games that decide to use the extra RAM in the iPad 3 will see even more of a performance hit from the higher res textures used and so on. Or all that extra RAM could easily be used up from just enabling AA, which needs a lot of RAM for that res, which again will see a performance hit. The iPad 3 will not run games better at native res with just these GPU changes.

RE: Maybe I'm wrong but...
By reginhild2 on 3/14/2012 3:01:40 PM , Rating: 3
Good example. The geekbench number above is interesting as the Tegra 3 in the Transformer Prime kicks it to the curb.


RE: Maybe I'm wrong but...
By quiksilvr on 3/13/2012 9:05:56 PM , Rating: 1
One thing worth mentioning:

Those Tegra 3 benchmarks were taken BEFORE ICS. Those are Honeycomb benchmarks.

RE: Maybe I'm wrong but...
By MrMilli on 3/14/2012 8:53:09 AM , Rating: 3
Those numbers only relate to how the HD 7950 scales but that doesn't mean this kind of a scaling just transfers to the A5X. As a matter of a fact I can assure you that it doesn't.
That a videocard with 240GB/s dedicated memory bandwidth and 25.6 GPixel/s fill rate can take a punch, we all know. But the A5X with it's around 5-6GB/s shared memory bandwidth and 4GPixel/s fill rate (PowerVR: All fill rate figures stated assuming a scene depth complexity of x2.5. That means the actual fill rate is 1.6GPixel/s) will have a much harder time with this 4x increase in pixel count.
My guess is that the performance drop will be even worse than linear because of the many bottlenecks.
So as stated, the performance of games on the new iPad will be worse than the iPad 2 on their respective native resolutions.
To fight this effect, developers won't run 3D games at 2048x1536 but will keep the engine running at 1024x768 internally. They will apply the (almost free) 2xAA and then scale the output to 2048x1536 (just the like a XBOX360 would run FullHD).

RE: Maybe I'm wrong but...


RE: Maybe I'm wrong but...
By michael2k on 3/13/2012 5:14:36 PM , Rating: 2
But even so it will be faster than a Tegra 3...

RE: Maybe I'm wrong but...
By Dribble on 3/14/2012 5:41:43 AM , Rating: 2
With half the processors running at lower clock speeds? It won't be faster then tegra 3 in any cpu bound tasks, which is most of them.

RE: Maybe I'm wrong but...
By testerguy on 3/14/2012 7:03:00 AM , Rating: 3
Most tasks aren't CPU bound - certainly not those which require great performance (eg Games).

iOS is hardware accelerated so it benefits from the better GPU just about everywhere.

Every day tasks like browsing the internet, watching movies, viewing photos, sending emails, don't require a great amount of CPU power, any increase in the speed of CPU above that of the iPad would result in an imperceptible speed difference, since the much larger delay is, for example, in waiting for the page to download. Animations, switching between apps, slide-interfaces, multi-touch pinch/zoom is mostly handled by the GPU and that's where you need the grunt.

It's very rare to find an Android tablet, even ones which have a 'faster' CPU, which feel as smooth as the iPad range.

RE: Maybe I'm wrong but...
By theapparition on 3/14/2012 9:31:53 AM , Rating: 3

Maybe because none of them had hardware accelerated UI, until ICS.

Take a look at reviews on ICS on tablets and you'll see how improved it is.

RE: Maybe I'm wrong but...
By Dribble on 3/14/2012 10:05:38 AM , Rating: 2
I bet when the iPad 4 or whatever they call it comes out with some uber A15 based cpu (much faster) then apple (and you!) will be telling us all how important the cpu is.

If that's not true then whey are they bothering to develop A15 based cpu's - why not just stick with having a couple of A9's @ 1ghz for ever?

RE: Maybe I'm wrong but...
By michael2k on 3/14/2012 1:30:16 PM , Rating: 2
Because they are simultaneously working on iOS6 and iOS7?

RE: Maybe I'm wrong but...
By MrMilli on 3/15/2012 5:59:49 AM , Rating: 3
That's what i've been saying for years. Apple tells people what's important and people just repeat after them. It's pretty amazing.
In this case, how's cpu power not important? I would say that anything and everything is short on cpu power. Even a Core i7 that's >10x faster than a Cortex A9 is still not fast enough. The day when every task happens instantaneous then you're allowed to say that the cpu is fast enough.
Apple applied the same strategy in the past with the lack of multitasking, lack of good camera, ...
Apple always manages to convince people that when they introduce it, is the right time. Nothing short of amazing.

RE: Maybe I'm wrong but...

RE: Maybe I'm wrong but...
By Smilin on 3/13/2012 8:53:37 PM , Rating: 3
For 2d raster graphics, yes. But there is so much leftover horsepower that it's not an issue under those circumstances.

For 3d graphics 4x pixels doesn't translate directly into 4x workload.

