tequila bomb

This is the first definitive set of GPU benchmarking for the iPad 2, courtesy of AnandTech…

Developers with existing titles on the iPad could conceivably triple geometry complexity with no impact on performance on the iPad 2.

With a lit triangle, a simple test for fragment shader performance…

While the PowerVR SGX 535 in the A4 could barely break 4 million triangles per second in this test, the PowerVR SGX 543MP2 in the A5 manages just under 20 million.

Texture fetch…

5x increase in texture fetch performance. This has to be due to more than an increase in the amount of texturing hardware. An improvement in throughput? Increase in memory bandwidth? It’s tough to say without knowing more at this point.

Those of us working with multiple FBOs for post processing effects, should be very pleased with both the increase in fragment shader performance and the apparent increase in texture fetch throughput.

GLBenchmark 2.0 app & Infinity Blade tests…

While we weren’t able to reach the 9x figure claimed by Apple (I’m not sure that you’ll ever see 9x running real game code), a range of 3 – 7x in GLBenchmark 2.0 is more reasonable. In practice I’d expect something less than 5x but that’s nothing to complain about.

There are more in depth details in the full article, and they promise follow ups.

But for a simple head to head comparison running GLBenchmark 2.0 Egypt…

Apple iPad 2 (1024 x 768) : 44 FPS

Motorola Xoom (1280 x 800) : 11.8 FPS

Apple iPad (1024 x 768) : 8.1 FPS

It’s pretty apparent right now that PowerVR SGX 540 still holds the lead, though the new 45 nm Qualcomms with Adreno 205 are a huge jump forwards from Adreno 200 performance wise. It’s interesting that it looks like we’re GPU or memory bandwidth bound on those new Qualcomms, as evidenced by the similar results the myTouch 4G and G2 post despite a 200 MHz CPU clock disparity.

When you note the results from the iPhone 3GS results against those of the iPhone 4 and the iPad (which all use the same GPU; the PowerVR SGX 535) it is clear that the size of the iPad’s screen and the iPhone 4′s Retina Display is killing fill rate. Reducing the benchmarked frame-rate by up to a third for newer iOS devices. This is something I touched on the moment we heard the specs of the iPad, and the iPhone 4.

Here is GLBenchmark 2.0 running on the Nexus S…

So, the benchmarks. Neocore gives us some weird results, with the Galaxy Tab hitting the same 54 fps cap we’ve seen before on the Galaxy S smartphones, but Tegra 2 only managing 28.1 fps. Neocore is a Qualcomm benchmark and is likely optimized for tile based architectures, and not for NVIDIA’s. A performance advantage here isn’t unexpected. In our Quake 3 benchmark though, Tegra 2 comprehensively beats Hummingbird – 49.1 fps versus 32.1, a 53% increase.

This is pretty much in line with what NVIDIA said about Tegra 2 potentially beaten in theoretical graphics benchmarks, but delivering better real-world gaming performance. With only two graphics benchmarks, it’s impossible to give a full conclusion on the graphics performance, but it looks like Tegra 2 has the potential to be the best SoC for Android gaming, making it a really attractive platform for tablets. The question is how well will it handle existing 3D content that’s likely optimized for Qualcomm and Imagination Technologies GPUs.

But for now, we can say that Tegra 2 is the most powerful SoC on the market at present and makes for a very capable tablet platform.

There are two ways you can look at the new 11-inch MacBook Air; it’s either a much smaller but slower MacBook Pro, or a much faster but larger iPad.

This is exactly the point I was making in an article I wrote for Touch Reviews before the weekend…

What Apple would really like to do is bring the MacBook Air into the iPad ecosystem. But it is unlikely that we’ll have that kind of performance from mobile ARM based SoCs for another 12 months or more in cost effective packages.

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So forgive the fact that the MacBook Air is not quite the fire-breathing all new uber-portable semi-laptop that we perhaps dreamt of. Rather marvel at its svelte design overall. And remember that it’s a rare glimpse into a more Darwinian than Moores style evolutionary phase of our computer ecosystem.