Interesting - I definitely believed there were four cpu cores in that chip yesterday. It'll be interesting to see what is made of this double speak, lord knows if someone like samsung pulled a trick like this the condemnation from the true believers would be severe.
Apple pulled a clever ninja word dice, knowing that most consumers don't really know or care what the difference is. The problem Apple faces is that in BestBuy, Target Etc.. you will have sales people that don't know a lemon from an orange yet will push whatever tablet has "Quad-Core" because it sounds better. With the use of the term Quad-Core Graphics Apple more or less guarantees that the average consumer looking at a Quad Core (Cpu) Android will think that is more or less the same as the Quad-Core (graphics) from the iPad.
Understandable however disingenuous it may be.
What I found interesting was that people who should know better (I'm looking at you Bloomberg) got confused as well.
> Interesting - I definitely believed there were four cpu cores in that chip yesterday.
I have trouble understanding how that could be done, they clearly stated "quad-core graphics" as opposed to the A5's "dual-core graphics" (the A5 using a SGX543MP2 with the A5X probably being a SGX543MP4), there was no fudging around or tentative to make it anything but.
> lord knows if someone like samsung pulled a trick like this the condemnation from the true believers would be severe.
True believers say that specs are for nerds (and so would I). The occasional benchmark results are interesting, though.
The last thing I remember about Samsung pulling a "trick" was comparing pixel density on PenTile and some other display type, with the accusation by some that X DPI on one doesn't equal X DPI on the other... and I didn't notice a backlash.
Nvidia often makes exotic claims about its SoCs; for instance that the Tegra 3 was faster than a Core 2 Duo (later retracted), and that the Tegra 3 provides "the fastest gaming" (it's beaten by the Apple A5 (iPad 2, iPhone 4S) and the Qualcomm S4 on most game-oriented benchmarks, sometimes substantially). Dubious claims are pretty common in the SoC business.
I didn't realize there was confusion. He was pretty clear about quad core graphics and the iPad site on Apple is pretty clear about quad core graphics but a dual core cpu.
BTW: Apple claims x2 GPU performance over iPad 2 - suggesting the doubling of GPU cores to MP4 is the only source of increased performance.
Because the iPad 3 (?) has x4 the pixels of the iPad 2, half-speed seems expected (if using full resolution). The same thing happened for the first iPhone retina display, so not that surprising.
It's likely game devs will use the same solution as on the xbox360: less than full resolution.
There is still much we don't know about the A5X. The A5 in the iPad (which is different from the iPhone 4S's and Apple TV's A5) is clocked at 1 ghz per core. The A5X could be clocked higher. We won't know until the benchmarks come out.
The A5X does have two additional GPU cores. They could be clocked higher or lower than the old GPU cores or the same. Again we won't know for sure.
We do know that the new iPad has a battery almost twice as a big as the iPad 2s. Clearly there is a lot more pixels and horsepower to push.
Just because a tablet has more or less cores won't tell you everything about its computational power. Some companies may go with more cores clocked lower, while others with fewer cores clocked higher. Others will focus more on GPU performance (and in having the GPU accelerate non-graphical tasks), while others will focus more on CPU power.
Ultimately Apple probably couldn't have gotten the battery life it wanted with a quad-core CPU and quad-core GPU at the same time. Apple clearly is prioritizing GPU power, as they have been pushing the iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch as portable gaming devices. Apple has also been pushing the GPU to be used for general computing purposes.
I wouldn't be surprised to see the A5X having faster core speeds for the CPUs.
Battery life is the biggest concern for mobile devices. Some companies are putting CPU power first, while others are putting GPU power first. This is good for consumers.
> The new iPad is a Dual-Core tablet with a graphics engine that is 2X the speed of the iPad 2
out of nowhere. 2X? He just provided evidence that the iPad 2 is 2x faster than Tegra 3 - it's obvious the new one must be at least 4x faster since it's driving four times more pixels (they wouldn't launch a new iPad that performs worse), and that would make it even more than 4X faster than nvidia.
He did not provide evidence that the iPad 2 is 2x faster than Tegra 3--rather, he showed that on one benchmark that isn't entirely relevant it performs twice as well. His theory is that the new model is 4x faster on that benchmark. But the real point is that the particular benchmark is of limited utility.
I had to ... as patiently as I possibly could ... explain to a woman yesterday that her iPhone 4 was not 4G (LTE). I think people like her are who Apple target with this sort of marketing. Don't misunderstand, I don't believe Apple made users believe they were getting a 4G phone with the iPhone. I just think companies like AT&T, Verizon, Samsung and Apple word things in a manner intended to put their customers in a certain frame of mind.
It is worth noting that the new iPad has the same GPU as the Playstation Vita. I think that says something about the gaming performance implications for the chip. I doubt the Tegra 3 stacks up, because if it did, surely Sony, a company that needs great portable gaming performance, would have looked much harder at the platform.
[+] [-] Steko|14 years ago|reply
Graphics comparison:
Tegra 3 (Kal-El) @ 300 Mhz: 7.2 Gflops
A5X (2 x Power VR SGX MP2): 2 x 19.2 Gflops = 38.4 Gflops
Actual GPU clock on Tegra 3 unknown (in this article) but if it was 400 Mhz that would be 9.6 Gflops which would be exactly 1/4 of the A5X.
[+] [-] unknown|14 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] Steko|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] techblock|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jsz0|14 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] trotsky|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kenrikm|14 years ago|reply
Understandable however disingenuous it may be. What I found interesting was that people who should know better (I'm looking at you Bloomberg) got confused as well.
[+] [-] masklinn|14 years ago|reply
I have trouble understanding how that could be done, they clearly stated "quad-core graphics" as opposed to the A5's "dual-core graphics" (the A5 using a SGX543MP2 with the A5X probably being a SGX543MP4), there was no fudging around or tentative to make it anything but.
[+] [-] doe88|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gurkendoktor|14 years ago|reply
True believers say that specs are for nerds (and so would I). The occasional benchmark results are interesting, though.
The last thing I remember about Samsung pulling a "trick" was comparing pixel density on PenTile and some other display type, with the accusation by some that X DPI on one doesn't equal X DPI on the other... and I didn't notice a backlash.
[+] [-] rsynnott|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tvon|14 years ago|reply
Interesting, it seems to me that Apple gets far more scrutiny than any other company in tech.
[+] [-] sigzero|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 6ren|14 years ago|reply
BTW: Apple claims x2 GPU performance over iPad 2 - suggesting the doubling of GPU cores to MP4 is the only source of increased performance. Because the iPad 3 (?) has x4 the pixels of the iPad 2, half-speed seems expected (if using full resolution). The same thing happened for the first iPhone retina display, so not that surprising. It's likely game devs will use the same solution as on the xbox360: less than full resolution.
[+] [-] pwthornton|14 years ago|reply
The A5X does have two additional GPU cores. They could be clocked higher or lower than the old GPU cores or the same. Again we won't know for sure.
We do know that the new iPad has a battery almost twice as a big as the iPad 2s. Clearly there is a lot more pixels and horsepower to push.
Just because a tablet has more or less cores won't tell you everything about its computational power. Some companies may go with more cores clocked lower, while others with fewer cores clocked higher. Others will focus more on GPU performance (and in having the GPU accelerate non-graphical tasks), while others will focus more on CPU power.
Ultimately Apple probably couldn't have gotten the battery life it wanted with a quad-core CPU and quad-core GPU at the same time. Apple clearly is prioritizing GPU power, as they have been pushing the iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch as portable gaming devices. Apple has also been pushing the GPU to be used for general computing purposes.
I wouldn't be surprised to see the A5X having faster core speeds for the CPUs.
Battery life is the biggest concern for mobile devices. Some companies are putting CPU power first, while others are putting GPU power first. This is good for consumers.
[+] [-] ricardobeat|14 years ago|reply
> The new iPad is a Dual-Core tablet with a graphics engine that is 2X the speed of the iPad 2
out of nowhere. 2X? He just provided evidence that the iPad 2 is 2x faster than Tegra 3 - it's obvious the new one must be at least 4x faster since it's driving four times more pixels (they wouldn't launch a new iPad that performs worse), and that would make it even more than 4X faster than nvidia.
[+] [-] tikhonj|14 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] unknown|14 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] bilbo0s|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pwthornton|14 years ago|reply
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