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NVIDIA Challenges Apple's iPad Benchmarks
MojoKid writes "At the iPad unveiling last week, Apple flashed up a slide claiming that the iPad 2 was 2x as fast as Nvidia's Tegra 3, while the new iPad would be 4x more powerful than Team Green's best tablet. NVIDIA's response boils down to: 'it's flattering to be compared to you, but how about a little data on which tests you ran and how you crunched the numbers?' NVIDIA is right to call Apple out on the meaningless nature of such a comparison, and the company is likely feeling a bit dogpiled given that TI was waving unverified webpage benchmarks around less than two weeks ago. That said, the Imagination Technologies (PowerVR) GPUs built into the iPad 2 and the new iPad both utilize tile-based rendering. In some ways, 2012 is a repeat of 2001 — memory bandwidth is at an absolute premium because adding more bandwidth has a direct impact on power consumption. The GPU inside NVIDIA's Tegra 2 and Tegra 3 is a traditional chip, which means it's subject to significant overdraw, especially at higher resolutions. Apple's comparisons may be bogus, but Tegra 3's bandwidth issue they indirectly point to aren't. It will be interesting to see NVIDIA's next move and what their rumored Tegra 3+ chip might bring."
> This used to be a place where you could have a decent discussion
Great, more empathy-seeking and misdirection that would make a stage magician blush.
> the campaigns to silence "hostile" voices are so effective - it's very easy to accuse and whip up a froth of vitriol
Oh dear, now you're a victim of maleficent persecution. Really, did you even read your post before clicking Submit, or did the fury of your adolescent anger and indignation rush your trigger finger to the button as uncontrollably as a rising orgasm having reached beyond the point of no return?
We all are. I'm not just talking about it personally. I'm making an observation about how /. has changed over the years. In the past few months it has become a downright hostile place to post if you don't follow a very specific set of criteria. It wasn't always like that, which is one of the reasons I was still here after all this time. I've had some cracking debates on here with some genuinely great people, despite our clear differences of opinion and it never became nasty. Now, not so much.
I'd rather it didn't turn into an echo chamber - there are enough of them around already, but who knows, it might be too late. Finding a decent place to talk about technology where the forum participants actually have some brains about them and can actually construct a sentence? It's not an easy thing to find when combining it with a diverse set of opinions as well. Slashdot had that, and it still has it here and there but when a hot button story comes up; with the list of "hot button" things that people can get stomped on for growing ever longer.
I'm not trying to make this a pity party, I'm just wondering how we got from you "knowing" that I'm an Apple shill (enough that you emphasised the "I" in your comment, to me repeating the denial of that allegation and being told I'm "misdirecting" when discussing why I believe it is happening.
I'd be interested to know how you know so definitively that I'm a shill. Obviously I know it's totally untrue, since I am me and I know what I have and have not done regarding my own life and internet activity, but I'm interested in what brings you so definitively (enough that you emphasised "I") to that conclusion, given that I know there's no actual proof of it. I'd point out that merely holding a different opinion to me on a discussion board is not evidence, nor is my posting history in line with the supposed shilling I have been accused of (hell, I've been accused of being an Apple, Google and MS shill simultaneously, which I guess is where the paranoid idea that it's all handled by one PR firm and that all these big companies use the same one? I have no idea). Either way, you seem so sure, so I'm curious.