Apple's A5X SoC: Quad-Core Graphics
by Anand Lal Shimpi on March 7, 2012 1:25 PM EST- Posted in
- Tablets
- Apple
- iPad
- Mobile
- Trade Shows
Apple just confirmed the new iPad uses an Apple A5X SoC. Its main improvement? What Apple is calling quad-core graphics. Our guess? Dual-core Cortex A9 plus a PowerVR SGX543MP4, an upgrade over the 543MP2 used in the iPad 2. Clock speeds are still unknown, however Apple is claiming 2x the performance over the iPad 2 implying equal GPU clocks.
It's also very interesting that Apple used NVIDIA as a baseline for GPU performance comparison, boasting 4x the performance of the Tegra 3.
Gallery: Apple's A5X SoC: Quad-Core Graphics
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
15 Comments
View All Comments
ils - Wednesday, March 7, 2012 - link
will 543MP4 enough to power 3D games @ 2048x1536 ??name99 - Wednesday, March 7, 2012 - link
No. Apple did not think of this and did not bother to test it. And if it's a problem, there is no way to run the screen at lower resolution because that's fancy 1980s technology that's way too sophisticated for a phone.Next inane question...
TopCat996 - Thursday, March 8, 2012 - link
@ils: This is a tricky question, given you've mentioned "3D games" which includes in it's ambit just about anything from Frizbee World to Infinity Blade. If you would compare console quality graphics to what this iPad can offer- you'll be disappointed :/. IPad 1 & 2 have been weak on a few fronts - like doing transparency (alpha testing in very expensive) and per pixel operations ( these are what make 3D surface details acheiveable). Which means we can do extravagant skin shaders , massive volumetric effects etc. I think this might be an issue on the A5x as well with the higher native resolution inspite of the improved GPU resources.But i am sure good developers will do a good job at making good "looking" games on this one . As developers we make games targeted at a given platform - we cheat, devise, hand optimize code to get the best out of a platform. . And every hardware platform has its constraints. Getting around these constraints is the fun part - we don't crib as much as some other people. But dropping to lower than native resolution is pants :)
Henk Poley - Thursday, March 8, 2012 - link
Quite clever how they hid that due to the larger screen it's a effectively a step back in graphics performance. Yes, it's 4x times as fast as Tegra 3. But it's only twice as fast as the old iPad, but has 4 times the pixels. So half the graphics speed of the old iPad.shiznit - Thursday, March 8, 2012 - link
Only if games render at full resolution, which probably won't be necessary for 3D.