Apple A5X quad-core confusion, explained

http://www.ubergizmo.com/2012/03/apple-a5x-not-quad-core/

by dazbradbury • 14 years ago

47 43 14 years ago

trotsky2• 14 years ago

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.

doe882• 14 years ago

Strange, maybe you read a bad reporting somewhere. I followed the presentation via Engadget live blog and did not get confused on this point http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2012/03/apple-...

wmf2• 14 years ago

GigaOM published a "quad-core" headline and I'm sure they weren't the only reporters who were confused.

ajross3• 14 years ago

"Quad-core" is a term very well established in the CPU market, and well understood by the public in that context. Using it to refer to a GPU feature is non-standard and just asking for confusion. Doing it as they did in that presentation, next to "A5X" (which the public understands to be the "CPU", only geeks know what a SoC is) IMHO borders on deliberate disinformation.

rsynnott2• 14 years ago

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.

mladenkovacevic• 14 years ago

I don't think any one SoC rules all the benchmarks, which is why it's easy for these companies to cherry-pick the ones that make them look good. There is no one chip to rule them all... yet.

masklinn• 14 years ago

> 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.

ChuckMcM• 14 years ago

I was thinking you were joking and then I realized you were serious. Were you? Did you see how you used the same phrase to mean two different things?

  ... they clearly stated 'quad-core graphics'
  ... as opposed to the A5's *'dual-core graphics'*

All of Apple's messaging around the iPad and 4S are 'dual core' means two CPUs. And with the 'New iPad' (nobody calls it an iPad 3 I notice) they said the A5X with 'quad core graphics'. They are being imprecise in their messaging and since it is uncommon for them to be imprecise it seems to reflect they are perhaps a bit touchy about the Tegra-3's claim of being quad-core.

So it was painfully easy for a non-technical person to come away from both the announcement, and the 'features' on the web site, thinking that there are four CPU cores in the new iPad. We can debate if that was an honest mistake or a calculated risk, I expect it will turn out badly for Apple either way.

[1] "The dual-core A5 chip delivers even more power. ..." https://www.apple.com/iphone/features/

[2] "The A5X chip with quad-core graphics drives four times the pixels of iPad 2" https://www.apple.com/ipad/features/

trotsky2• 14 years ago

I'm not sure where I read the specs yesterday - the ipad isn't of a lot of interest to me, so I wasn't doing something like following a live blog as suggested elsewhere.

As I was just browsing the print WSJ a bit ago I did find an excellent example of why people like me might be confused. Note in the picture the chart the WSJ published of the specs shows: Processor - Quad Core (new ipad) - Dual Core (ipad 2)

pic: http://desmond.imageshack.us/Himg69/scaled.php?server=69&...

zmonkeyz• 14 years ago

You're right its a non-issue. Apple clearly states they have a quad core gpu. It's clear on their site and the tech specs state it has a dual core cpu and quad core gpu. Anything to get some traffic I guess.

kenrikm• 14 years ago

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.

sliverstorm• 14 years ago

At least they didn't put in a dual-core CPU, a dual-core GPU, and call it a quad-core device.

tvon• 14 years ago

> (...) lord knows if someone like samsung pulled a trick like this the condemnation from the true believers would be severe.

Interesting, it seems to me that Apple gets far more scrutiny than any other company in tech.

gurkendoktor• 14 years ago

> 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.

jsz0• 14 years ago

I wasn't very confused to start with. Is it fast enough? Yes/No? Yes.

jarek• 14 years ago

Very hacker-like attitude indeed. /s

oemera• 14 years ago

At the end of the day this is what counts. Is it fast or not. What else are more cores for if not for more speed and performance.

I don't like that attitude calling someone not hacker-like because he doesn't cares about cores! It's all about creating something better and that has nothing to do with counting cores.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacker_(hobbyist)

batista• 14 years ago

Actually it IS very hacker-like.

Hackers care about using the machine to DO (as in "hack") stuff. Faster, ok, better. Most top notch programmers could not care less if they have a state of the art CPU or not.

What it is not, is very tinkerer-like.

Tinkerers use the machine just to use the machine, and they eat precise specs for breakfast.

tehayj• 14 years ago

no surprise apple is just pulling marketing stunts like always

ricardobeat• 14 years ago

After all the bickering, he ends the article with

> 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

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.

te0x• 14 years ago

You must not have read the article.

Steko2• 14 years ago

http://www.anandtech.com/show/5072/nvidias-tegra-3-launched-...

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.

techblock• 14 years ago

Is the dual-core in the A5X faster than in the A5, excluding the GPU?

pwthornton3• 14 years ago

Unknown. We'll have to wait for some benchmarks to see the clock speed.

Steko2• 14 years ago

On Anandtech today they say the actual speeds may be 250 Mhz and 333 Mhz. The same math basically holds.

sigzero• 14 years ago

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.

6ren• 14 years ago

Tegra 3 vs. A5 benchmarks (Transformer Prime vs. iPad 2) http://www.anandtech.com/show/5163/asus-eee-pad-transformer-...

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.

bilbo0s• 14 years ago

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.

pwthornton3• 14 years ago

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.

pwthornton3• 14 years ago

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.

Apple A5X quad-core confusion, explained

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