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Apple A8X IPad Air 2 Processor Packs Triple-Core CPU, Hefty Graphics Punch
MojoKid writes When Apple debuted its A8 SoC, it proved to be a modest tweak of the original A7. Despite packing double the transistors and an improved GPU, the heart of the A8 SoC is the same dual-core Apple "Cyclone" processor tweaked to run at higher clock speeds and with stronger total GPU performance. Given this, many expected that the Apple A8X would be cut from similar cloth — a higher clock speed, perhaps, and a larger GPU, but not much more than that. It appears those projections were wrong. The Apple A8X chip is a triple-core variant of the A8, with a higher clock speed (1.5GHz vs. 1.4GHz), a larger L2 cache (2MB, up from 1MB) and 2GB of external DDR3. It also uses an internal metal heatspreader, which the Apple A8 eschews. All of this points to slightly higher power consumption for the core, but also to dramatically increased performance. The new A8X is a significant power house in multiple types of workloads; in fact, its the top-performing mobile device on Geekbench by a wide margin. Gaming benchmarks are equally impressive. The iPad Air 2 nudges out Nvidia's Shield in GFXBench's Manhattan offscreen test, at 32.4fps to 31 fps. Onscreen favors the NV solution thanks to its lower-resolution screen, but the Nvidia device does take 3DMark Ice Storm Unlimited by a wide margin, clocking in at 30,970 compared to 21,659.
thin is in.
The new Mac Mini is twice as slow as the late 2012 model. So fuck you Apple.
The benchmarks say that the CPU of the entry-level late 2014 Mac Mini is only 3.8% slower than the entry-level late 2012 Mac Mini. However, the TDP is also 57.1% lower (from 35W to 15W).
>> The new iOS 8 makes older iPhones slow and dysfunctional. So fuck you Apple.
I waited to upgrade my iPhone 4S until the recent release of IOS8.1. It seems to work pretty well. Indeed, there is a bit of slowdown but it is quite acceptable. For a 3 year old device this is quite good support, I'd say.
I have not yet tried 8.1 on my iPad 2. Does anyone have experience with it?
Nope Apple apologizer. The new Mac Minis are all dual cores compared to the late 2012 for which some were quad core. So basically Apple cut the multi core performance to half. Nice job, Apple.
http://www.primatelabs.com/blog/2014/10/estimating-mac-mini-performance/
http://ark.intel.com/products/83506/Intel-Core-i7-4578U-Processor-4M-Cache-up-to-3_50-GHz
They allso stopped signing iOS7, so you cant even downgrade. So fuck you Apple!
Time to stop buying apple for you maybe?
Join those of us don't own apple products and aren't raging like you are.
Kenny? Is that you, Kenny? You're family is so poor, Kenny, that you can't even afford a new iPad, Kenny.
The new Mac Mini is twice as slow as the late 2012 model. So fuck you Apple.
The new iOS 8 makes older iPhones slow and dysfunctional. So fuck you Apple.
Fuck you Apple.
Well. D'uh! Microsoft won the PC wars over Apple because they were the lesser evil.
Yep, you are correct on that one. Even the fastest dual cores of the new Mac Mini can't kick the old quad cores' ass.
8.1 runs fine on my iPhone 5.
The iPad isn't used for number-crunching. It's not a high-end gaming platform - it certainly has a lot of games, but few of them are graphically demanding. It's used for a little light content creation, but nothing more than timeline video editing - not real time effects composition or rendering. Mostly it's used for document viewing and web browsing. So long as it's got enough power to comfortably decode video (And it has hardware h264 acceleration anyway), why would you need to worry about just how much?
I wouldn't even consider this a average trolling. You didn't try at all. Did you post from a samsung tablet which didn't give you enough battery life to write something better?
Good advice. Anonymous Dude, you're getting a DELL :)
It's mathematically impossible for something to be "twice as slow" as something else.
Per the Geekbench 3 CPU benchmark suite, the A8X scores ~4500.
The Surface Pro hybrid laptop's i3 scores 4750.
Apple's base model MacBook Air's i7 scores 5300.
(and for reference, the old Core 2 Quad Q6600 scores 4250.)
Meanwhile, the Intel chips in the Surface Pro and MacBook Air have a 15W TDP, while the A8X should be well south of 5W. Granted, a lot of that goes to the integrated GPUs, but the A8X is no slouch in graphics either. The iPad runs at a higher resolution than 90-plus-percent of PCs today and runs plenty of good-looking 3D games. It's good enough for consumer use, definitely.
Finally, Intel's 'recommended customer price' for their ULV chips is ~$300. Major purchasers like Apple and Microsoft no doubt negotiate a substantial discount, but I doubt it comes close to the ~$20 (plus in-house design costs) Apple pays for the A-series chips.
This may sound like an Apple fanboy post, but it isn't. It's a 'Intel needs to get their shit together' post. A decade ago Intel lost their way with the Pentium 4 and AMD took the lead for a few years. In the end that gave us the vastly improved Core architecture. If Broadwell and Skylake don't put Intel out ahead of ARM designs in a hurry, the next few years could be very interesting.
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos!
Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
Shut up and keep sucking bitch.
No, because they were better at being evil. Much better.
Not really. Take something's minimum, given that it cannot reach zero, and if another object reaches closer to zero than the original, and it can be twice as ___. Doesn't work going into negatives, but does work sub positives. For example 0.5 and 1.
An informed individual posted an explanation for this. Apparently, the new Intel chips have different pinout requirements between the dual core and quad core variants - this is assuming you are soldering the CPU directly to the motherboard. Because of this difference Apple can not sell a quad core CPU without designing a new motherboard. So they sell it with the fastest CPUs that operate within the given power constraints and supports the required physical pinout.
In all likelihood, Apple will release a quad core update sooner rather then later. Holding off for 6 months gives them plenty of time to design the new hardware while also giving them the opportunity to make headlines once again in 6 months time.
The Mac Mini is a great little design. If one is in the market and wants to get the fastest one possible, it is probably best to either wait or purchase a quad of the previous model.
For a 3 year old device this is quite good support, I'd say.
Would you say that about any other consumer device? Heck, the *warranty* on a new car is usually longer than that; and US laws mandate that the manufacturer support the car with parts and service for at least 10 years. If a major flaw is found, the company has to issue a recall and fix it for free. Your phone/taplet/computer? After a year you're on your own, and any updates - even for massive security flaws - is totally at the whim of the manufacturer. And this is considered good?
yes sir. sorry sir. *sucks*
It depends on how you use your iPad 2. I probably wouldn't recommend it. It's pretty sluggish and non-responsive. I mostly use it as a second screen for fantasy football, so... I guess it's not that bad. But if you're using it to browse the net or play games, you will be disappointed. I'll add the disclaimer that I only upgraded to 8.1 today (from 8.0), so things may have improved.
running windows on a mac is gratuitous. even x-windows. but gratuitousness is what apptards are all about. face it.
Gratuitous?
5.5 million people in the last three months. I didn't knew there are that many tech reporters....
Or maybe it's just that YOU are the douchebag and an idiot.
What could be the odds. 1 vs 5.5x10^6. Hmmm. Yeah right. It's you.
Intel processors crush ARM crap in all tests. They are more power efficient too doing real work.
The iPhone 3GS was release in June 2009 and got a security update 2/2014.
Most native English speakers would equate "twice as slow" with "half as fast". It's a pretty common idiom, really. They should have covered it in your ESL class. If I were you, I'd ask for my money back.
Works find on the original mini pad, so I assume the iPad 2 will be fine as well. Haven't upgraded my 4S since 7 is slower than 6 - enough to bug me - and I don't want to be bugged by my phone. But it's an early 4S and physically at death's door so I'll probably get a new version.
PLEASE APPLE. It won't hurt you much. Keep the 4S size. And while you're at it, bring back the 17 inch MBP and the cheese grater. Pretty please.
(Stomps off to the basement to sniffle.)
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Yeah, Apple hater, if only Apple sold some quad or more core computers, eh?
Perl Programmer for hire
A car costs tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars when new. The iPhone - not so much. An automobile has the real possibility of killing you or dozens of people around you - again, the iPhone not so much*.
They are not even remotely analogous.
* and for all of you serious aspergers cases out there, don't go trying to make up some bizarre scenario where an iPhone connected to a cheap charger burns down a elementary school, OK?
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
I'd love a link to this. I'm happy to hear that this would be the problem but fail to see why they didn't keep the option for the old quads. They certainly sold out fast enough after the announcement.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
Yeah, I checked out Dell last week because someone stated macs were way more expensive. Imagine my surprise when the first 2 laptops I spec'd out just based on hardware wound up costing significantly more than their Mac counterparts. What's even funnier is that this will be down-modded as a troll despite being the truth.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
They crippled it when they removed the optical drive IMO. It made for a really nice and discreet media center. No, adding an external drive won't do it as it kinda defeats the media center idea...
I've got better things to do tonight than die.
"A car costs tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars when new. The iPhone - not so much"
With Canadian carrier prices, it's about the same after 2 years...
I've got better things to do tonight than die.
I upgraded my iPad 2 to iOS 8.1. There are occasional glitches and some things seem to take slightly longer to respond, but all in all it's not too bad.
Safari, unfortunately, is next to useless if you're using more than a single tab. Crashes don't seem quite as frequent as they were in iOS 7, but switch back to the other tab and the page reloads, every single time. I've switched to Chrome because this was getting too frustrating.
One interesting thing is how there is some framerate drop in transitions and overall things don't feel as snappy as they used to. Sometimes you do something, in settings, and it just sits there with no indication that it's working. It's something I've observed even on the iPad Air, although it's obviously less prevalent. I find it ironic considering Apple devotes have long been critical of the same thing in Android. In fact, in terms of overall performance my iPad 2 feels a bit like old Android devices. Serviceable, but not great.
"If only the poor customers knew that a two or three year old model already had nearly the same performance."
Yep, and where are they going to buy a supported warranteed one of these?
Have you ever heard of a NAS?
Considering top media center apps like Plex have broken or no support for DVD/BR playback, I don't understand your logic.
The benchmarks say that the CPU of the entry-level late 2014 Mac Mini is only 3.8% slower than the entry-level late 2012 Mac Mini. However, the TDP is also 57.1% lower (from 35W to 15W).
But it's a desktop PC, sacrificing a bit of power for a lower TDP is great in a laptop but to go 2 years on a desktop and release a system with a decrease in performance with only a lower TDP to show for it is pretty lame.
In all likelihood, Apple will release a quad core update sooner rather then later. Holding off for 6 months gives them plenty of time to design the new hardware while also giving them the opportunity to make headlines once again in 6 months time.
And that's what it's about isn't it, there's no reason the richest tech company in the world couldn't have produced a quad core variant in that time but now they already have the next mac mini in reserve ready to go.
Please do not try to inject facts into a haterz rant. It's not as if Apple is better than Android in providing timely updates to all the devices they support. Or force you to wait for your manufacturer to provide the update. Or allow your carriers to screw you over by withholding updates. Oh wait...
Yes, in fact I do have a file server here, but an optical drive is useful when you want to watch a DVD without ripping it first. Since a Mac mini is x86, it can run Windows Media Center, MythTV, XBMC, or any other software.
I've got better things to do tonight than die.
Oh well.......Apple is becoming less and less relevant anyway in the computer world.
What leads you to say that?
For what it's worth, my 5s is noticeably snappier with iOS 8 than it was with 7. So at least iOS 8 doesn't make that slightly-older phone slow and dysfunctional. I can't speak for other models.
Different? We finally have iOS and Windows Phone have the same version# at the same time - 8.1!
I've installed 8.x.x on my iPad 2 and it works okay except some apps (mostly apps my 3 year old uses) now crash often (were working just fine on 7.x.x).
I've also found that some apps have some UI issues with 8.x (I've been led to believe that Apple have changed some semantics of how the touch/scroll events behave on buttons in lists) but what ever the actual reason, this has broken a few things here and there.
Never happened. True story.
I dunno, I picked up some second hand (2009) 27" iMacs for about what I could get the same quality IPS screens for. These run Linux and Windows just fine, nice stylish all-in-one PC for peanuts. Sure, they're no powerhouse, but for non resource intensive tasks they work great.
There are certainly cases where running windows/linux on mac hardware makes perfect sense.
Never happened. True story.
Yeah, where I come from I can get a car for about the price of a new iPhone.
This matches my experience also. DELL IMO are the worst (in every respect).
Comparing Apple with Dell is comparing a turn with a shit.
Well, the M4800 with 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD and what appears to be an older Intel i7 quad 2.5GHz CPU with QHD graphics, camera, microphone and 9 cell battery runs over $3900, but today, with some super sale apparently, it's "only" about $2800. I have no idea if the entire laptop has a 3 years warranty nor how well the thing works. For comparison, my recent MBP purchase was for these specs including AppleCare and arrived at the door for less than $2600. Granted, it doesn't come with an optical drive, so you could add in $79 for the super drive (although I'd buy something better).
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
Because they don't really innovate anymore and most of what they do is a regression. The Mac Mini is a perfect example. It really not only failed to advance but in some ways went backwards. The newer OS upgrades are more about selling you some crap you don't want or need than increasing productivity. Mountain Lion was the last OS that actually seemed like an improvement. My computer ran better with that installation but Mavricks really seems sluggish, so much so I wiped the drive and went back to ML. I hate that upgrades are tied to the Apple Store now. Why??? So many little things bother me whereas when I first installed OS X I found the little things to be where they excelled. I find myself using my Linux laptop more and more over the Mac for general computing use. For video work I still use it but now that I've got ffmpeg fixed from the avconv debacle I'm starting to work with Linux more in that area too. If only hardware manufacturers would support Linux more.
Because they don't really innovate anymore and most of what they do is a regression. The Mac Mini is a perfect example. It really not only failed to advance but in some ways went backwards.
Ya, definitely disappointing there. But on the other hand, doesn't it have a higher CPU-power-per-watt rating? I imagine that this matters more to some people than pure CPU horsepower.
The newer OS upgrades are more about selling you some crap you don't want or need than increasing productivity. Mountain Lion was the last OS that actually seemed like an improvement. My computer ran better with that installation but Mavricks really seems sluggish, so much so I wiped the drive and went back to ML.
Huh, I've noticed the opposite with Mavericks. I only recently (a month ago) upgraded, but I have noticed significantly better battery life with it — especially with Safari not chewing up as many idle CPU cycles.
I hate that upgrades are tied to the Apple Store now. Why???
Ya, that drives me nuts too. However, I think it should still be possible to extract a .dmg installation image after downloading the update and before installing. I did that with Lion in 2011. Downloaded it once from the App Store and installed it on multiple systems from that disk image.
So many little things bother me whereas when I first installed OS X I found the little things to be where they excelled.
Yeah, that's a good point. Not much exciting anymore. And Yosemite looks like a huge step backward in the graphic design department. It's all ugly and flat. I don't look forward to being forced to upgrade to it someday.
I find myself using my Linux laptop more and more over the Mac for general computing use. For video work I still use it but now that I've got ffmpeg fixed from the avconv debacle I'm starting to work with Linux more in that area too. If only hardware manufacturers would support Linux more.
Understandable... But how does any of this mean that Apple is becoming less relevant in the computer world? I think most people out there just don't care or notice.
Apple prides itself on producing fewer parts and models. They avoid multiple variations of anything.
So even fewer than the iterations before it? What's next? No choice in processor at all?
This supply chain philosophy goes all the way back to their founding and Steve Jobs, and is partly why they ARE successful.
Except that Mac Mini previously did have quad core options.
The fewer "options" you offer to the customer, the easier it is for them to make a purchase decision to buy. Adding more options just gives a customer more reason to delay their purchase decision.
So they eliminated the quad core option because up until now the Mac Mini line was too confusing?
Love my iPad air 2 it's an awesome bit of hardware .
I have upgraded my 4S to 8.1 and really, while it is a little slower here and there, it's perfectly useable. Why do you say it's at its death door? Mine runs just fine and I plan to use it for another year at least.
Write boring code, not shiny code!