Why the New iPad 3 May Be Slower than iPad 2. Wait, What?

[still1]

?Quad core tablet?, ?four times the graphics performance of Tegra 3?, ?the second coming of Jesus Christ ? again?, and of course all the usual ?amazing, spectacular, magical and all the other attributes we?ve heard before about any new Apple device, appeared once again in the Apple media a couple of days ago. Except many of those are not exactly true ? well perhaps the ?magical? one is ? I mean who can argue with that?

We don?t have any actual benchmarks done by 3rd parties yet, but from what I can tell, the iPad 3 is first of all not a ?quad core tablet?. Every single human that has ever bought a computing device knows that dual core or quad core refers to the CPU, not the GPU ? otherwise we?d be calling the Asus Transformer a 12-core tablet, and our PC?s ? ?500 core PC?s?, since that?s how many cores a high-end GPU has on PC today. So let?s end this shameless misleading by ?some? Apple media outlets, here and now: the iPad 3 is a ?dual core tablet?, not a quad core.

Second, the ?4x the graphics performance of Tegra 3? is extremely suspicious ? to say the least. Nvidia believes so, too. But we didn?t really need Nvidia to tell us that. We can think for ourselves, too. It?s true that the A5 GPU tested in benchmarks to be about 30% faster than Tegra 3, but those are only some rather simple tests, and they don?t test the actual performance of a chip in a game.

Plus, a game is also bound to memory bandwidth and CPU performance as well, so for all we know, a game could actually run better on a Tegra 3. And so far I haven?t seen anything to make me decide that the iPad 2 graphics were absolutely better than Tegra 3 graphics. Anandtech also seems to believe that some games may actually run worse on iPad 3 compared to iPad 2 at native resolution.

But now we have the A5X GPU with 4 instead of 2 GPU cores, so clearly the iPad 3 graphics performance must be faster than iPad 2 graphics ? right? Well, not so fast. While ?theoretically? the iPad 3 GPU has double the performance of the iPad 2 GPU ? in reality the tablet itself likely won?t have that kind of performance increase.

Why? Because the new GPU has to push 4x as many pixels on the screen. While this won?t affect regular use of the tablet too much because I?m sure the new GPU can handle normal tasks and apps well, otherwise they wouldn?t have released it, I?m also quite sure that the graphics performance in games will take a very serious hit when the games use the native 2048?1536 resolution and not the 1024?768 one and by upscaling the game.

What?s my basis for this besides normal common sense believing that a 2x increase in GPU performance won?t be enough to beat the older GPU when the number of pixels increases 4 times? Well, remember when the iPhone 4 also got the Retina Display? It actually used a more powerful overclocked PowerVR SGX535 than the one found in the iPhone 3GS, and yet in this test the iPhone 3GS is still faster than iPhone 4 in graphics performance.

I expect something similar to happen to the iPad 3, but even if it doesn?t ? in worst case scenario (if I?m wrong) the iPad 3 will still be only just as fast, or slightly faster than iPad 2 in real world graphics performance, and will definitely not have the performance increase they are touting (4x Tegra 3, etc). But I don?t think I?m wrong, and iPad 3 should actually have slower performance in advanced 3D games than iPad 2 at native resolution.

Also, that 1 GB of RAM? Will not be enough to make up for the increase in resolution. A more appropriate and proportionate increase would?ve been 1.5 GB of RAM, and if you thought the 512 MB of RAM wasn?t really enough for it, then you?ll start feeling the same with the iPad 3 once apps start supporting the new resolution.

Same goes for the CPU, which apparently either got no improvement in performance, or it was only a slight increase so they would rather not mention it. The resolution is not generally bound by the CPU, but at some point the CPU does interact with data that uses the new resolution, so if it?s the same CPU as in A5, then it should experience some performance bottlenecks when dealing with the high-res apps.

My advice for those who are still in the Apple camp, and want an iPad ? if you already have an iPad 2, then skip iPad 3 and wait for iPad 4, which might actually have a performance increase over the iPad 2. That?s without even counting the increase in thickness and weight over the iPad 2, which will probably disappoint many who want to switch from iPad 2 to iPad 3.

http://www.androidau...ait-what-61643/

[rajputwarrior]

android authority is so bias it's unreal...

[Anibal P]

android authority is so bias it's unreal...

The source site might be biased but Anand is known for his impartiality, and he feels the same, so chances are that he is correct

[DevilsNotDead]

android authority is so bias it's unreal...

but there are some good points and the actual source is from anandtech

[Lachlan]

of course the ipad 3 will be slower on games at native resolution.. but thats why its soo silly to buy the ipad 3 is because you will play games at less then native resolution and makes the retina screen useless except when looking at pictures.. how many movies are even in that resolution as well.. lol

[Scorpus Veteran]

android authority is so bias it's unreal...

It doesn't matter if they are biased, they point out correctly the facts. The A5X has two more GPU cores (for 2x performance) that have to push 4x the pixels thanks to the "retina" display, so theoretically performance will be worse. The increase to 1 GB of RAM will do little to help, and unless the CPU clocks have been increased as well for the dual-core ARM Cortex A9 the performance, in games, for the iPad 3 could be worse.

[rajputwarrior]

the quad core argument name i agree with. not the slower part. say theoritically they pushed the quad core video card to at least maintain the same performance at twice the resolution for games, wouldn't the cpu itself still be faster compared to tegra 3 (i'm not a apple fanboy, i have a galaxy tab

10.1)?

[The_Decryptor Veteran]

It's true, but I don't see why it's surprising.

If you want to compare GPU performance, you have to measure with the same settings, rendering at 1024x768 vs. 2048x1536 is going to make a hell of a difference.

[neo1911]

Even if the article starts with anti-Apple sentiment, most, if not all of the points do make perfect sense.

Ultimately it comes down to actual reviews and graphics tests done by Anandtech after the availability of the new iPad. Till then we only have speculations.

[Hell-In-A-Handbasket]

i agree witn Sanke1 . alot of it does make sense, i already got one, as its still better then my iPad1.

[notuptome2004]

Well the 1GB of ram in the New ipad or i assume 1GB of ram is in it is also GPU Ram Vram so developers should be able to use up to well the full amount of ram or close to and that should help performance some. even tho the CPU part is the same that does not mean it is not based on newer version of the same CPU and has a few more enhantments for threading ad to the fact alone the GPU itself is based on what is in the PSPS Vita or so i think it is the same it can output far greater FPS even with many things going on on the same screen

i dont think tho having just a Dual core is gonna hurt the design of apps and games but only time will tell about the performance of the new iPad when a game is relased to take full advantage of the GPU and CPU and Ram

Mmmm based on Wikipedia the A5x is 1.2ghz rather then 1ghz on the A5 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPad_(3rd_generation) if true that is nice that it is a little faster

[Manish]

The source site might be biased but Anand is known for his impartiality, and he feels the same, so chances are that he is correct

I read through the article on AnandTech. Didn't really see the conclusion that "the new iPad 3 may be slower than iPad 2". Perhaps you could point that bit out? (Seriously. I couldn't find it.)

of course the ipad 3 will be slower on games at native resolution.. but thats why its soo silly to buy the ipad 3 is because you will play games at less then native resolution and makes the retina screen useless except when looking at pictures.. how many movies are even in that resolution as well.. lol

Yep, only useful for pictures. We'll just ignore how reading anything (web pages, books, email, etc) will benefit from the massive upgrade in pixel resolution. In regards to your query, of course you won't see 2048 x 1536-resolution movies; but unlike previous generations, the new iPad will be able to handle Full HD/1080p videos.

the quad core argument name i agree with

I haven't actually seen any websites (erroneously) referring to the new iPad being a quad-core device. Even so, this isn't Apple's fault as they specified "quad-core graphics" in the presentation and on their official site.

It doesn't matter if they are biased, they point out correctly the facts.

I'm not denying some of the logic and facts that Android Authority presented, it's just a shame they wrote it with a tone of condescension (something that was absent from the AnandTech analysis).

[ahhell]

Obviously specs and whatnot concern people like us but ultimately, the less informed masses will lap them up simply because they are new and shiny.

That's the market that Apple cares about. They couldn't care less about how it performs.

[The_Decryptor Veteran]

Of course Apple cares about how it performs, nobody's going to buy a device that can barely run.

Edit: And nobody would write any apps for a device that could barely run.

[Stetson]

The article is most likely true if the game tries to run at full 2048x1536 resolution.

I predict that there will be a lot of games that run at upscaled 1024x768 (not using the pixel doubling but using better scaling techniques).

The same thing happens on consoles. Lots of Xbox games for example run at something like 540p and then get upscaled to 720p.

This could even be done for the actual game engine content while still drawing the game UI on top of that at native resolution.

Resolution isn't quite as important with fast moving graphics. I think that using full native resolution on things like UI and text are more important.

[Hardcore Til I Die]

Performance will only be worse if the gpu was being pushed by any released games already. If the gpu still had a lot of "wiggle room" left then in theory the new gpu shouldn't perform any worse.

[migo]

Good point about 360 and PS3 games getting upscaled to 720, but that was fairly experienced game devs doing that. Do you think the type of devs that iOS attracts will know how to do that?

[sila]

What utter biased drivel.

[TruckWEB]

Good point about 360 and PS3 games getting upscaled to 720, but that was fairly experienced game devs doing that. Do you think the type of devs that iOS attracts will know how to do that?

Let me make a wild guess but "upscaling" should be done "by magic" via iOS no? They said it only take Devs couple hours to make their apps Retina aware...

[CentralDogma]

What utter biased drivel.

I don?t think you understand what this article is saying.

Have you ever tried to run games on a PC at 2048 x 1536 or above? It?s quite taxing on the computer.

The Retina Display is going to increase the amount of pixels the GPU has to manage. Running a game (say Infinity Blade) at native iPad 2 resolution is going to be less computationally heavy vs the same game running natively at the new iPad?s resolution.

Now, obviously this doesn?t affect apps that run at the old resolution or below or apps that are just upres?ed, so you?re not going to notice anything with Netflix. But developers will have to keep in mind there is a trade off between high resolution and prefomance.

[Roger H. Veteran]

I would expect this much too as I know if I was trying to play games from my laptop at native resolution is 1 thing but trying to play it on a external 30" monitor at native resolution my system definitely can't do that. So while I fully expect current games to run just as sweet on the new iPad, games at full res is where I expect there'll be some issues as the "biased" article says.

As for the PS3/Xbox thing - I thought they rendered at 720p but then upscaled to 1080p where needed? Ok well scratch that as for "recent games" (Alan Wake) they said they use a mixture of 540p-720p depending on resolution and AA settings and all that for render while upscaling to native resolution.

http://n4g.com/news/510664/remedy-confirms-alan-wakes-resolution-a-composite-between-720p-and-540p

[Hell-In-A-Handbasket]

personally i think it will have the same performance and here is my reasoning.

if you look at the slides and the leaked microscope, you basically have 4 pixels on the iPad3 for every 1 on the 1/2. the A5X is a Quad core GPU with each GPU pushing the same number of pixels as previous iPads.

now thats a long shot, but i feel they Half-a**ed it just like they did with their " Multi-Tasking " ( i still dont belive it has multi tasking, its more akin to " Recently Used Programs "

[UndergroundWire]

Funny every site I went doesn't call it a Quad-Core. They refer to the new iPad as Dual Core CPU; Quad-core GPU. That is not misleading at all.

Also the CPU went from 1GHz to 1.5GHz. That too should help with the better resolution. When the new iPad is released, I'm sure third party tests will be conducted and it will fair well against the competition.

[Shadrack]

I wouldn't be surprised if performance in terms of responsiveness is about the same or slightly worse than the iPad 2. The iPad 2 is an extremely snappy device, though, and I think I wouldn't mind a small performance hit for the sake of higher resolution and better looking typeface when reading magazines.

That said, I'm waiting for next years iPad before I upgrade. I want at least 2 years out of these mobile devices...

[Elliott]

We'll know on Friday. Apparently the GPU in the A5 was already overkill for a 1024x768 screen, so it might end up evening out.