Apple’s new A5 processor features a dual core PowerVR SGX 543 – the same graphics tech that’s set to be featured in the forthcoming Sony NGP, the difference being that the new PlayStation portable will double the core count, bringing an unprecedented amount of graphical power to the mobile space.
Firstly, where we are at right now…
Secondly, an interview which gives us some perspective on where we are going…
Two great resources for those of us that are excited about the future of mobile gaming.
We had decapsulated the A5 a couple of days ago, but as you could see in those early pictures, you can’t tell much of a chip’s layout from the top metal – it’s all power and ground buses. So we have to de-layer the chip down to a level where we can see the block layout of the chip; not an easy thing when there’s nine layers of metal! In fact, these days it’s easier to go in from the back and remove the substrate silicon, and look at the gate level from below. Then we can identify the circuit blocks that make up the full device.
Interesting stuff.
An amazing array of magnets, both in the iPad 2 and the Smart Cover, with polarities carefully organised, and each magnet positioned, to ensure that when you snap it on it “Just Works”. Very cool. Very Simple. Pretty much exactly how I assumed it worked. But the amount of R&D and practical experimentation that went into making sure the concept behaved as expected is obvious.
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
As usual. Excellent work by the guys at iFixit.
Apple 1GHz A5 dual-core Processor with a 200MHz bus and 512 MB of RAM.
The A5 processor has manufacture dates of late January and mid-February 2011. Production was clearly ramping up through the last minute. It looks like the A5 processor is the APL0498, replacing the A4/APL0398 seen in the iPad 1 and iPhones.
Of course what we really want now is the Apple A5 ripped apart in one of their friend’s labs.
We think the A5 is likely not built around Cortex A9 cores, but instead probably uses two [of] the same custom low-power A8 cores used in the A4. If Apple had indeed used two Cortex A9-based cores, raw performance should be more than double that of a single core A8-based design.
This makes a lot of sense. I noted in February that Apple had received custom silicon for what we expected to be the Apple A5. But that it had not had enough time to transition that silicon into iOS (or ongoing iPad 2 manufacture) for an early 2011 launch. So my best guess was that the iPad 2 would ship with an interim SoC. I suggested something like a beefed up A4, with a faster ARM Cortex A8, and a much better GPU most likely making up an iPad 2 specific Apple A4-and-a-half.
To be honest, until someone (iFixit and friends) rips the silicon in the iPad 2 apart and sticks it under a microscope, none of us will have much more than guesses to go on about what exactly the Apple A5 is. But it seems very likely that Apple has made expedient decisions to maximise performance as well as keep battery life gains.
I’ve have always maintained that Apple’s mobile silicon lineup is more than powerful enough in the CPU department, and what it really needed was a kick on the GPU side. Even the CPU in the original iPhone is still very capable. But the GPUs in all current iOS devices are constantly fighting an uphill battle with fill rate.
It remains to be seen if the iPhone 5 will get this Apple A5, or a further iteration.
Apple blew away the tablet competition yesterday. And suprised me with their update to the iPad 2.
I was expecting the new GPU, and all the other bells and whistles, but not a fully blown Apple A5.
This is the only major iPad update we will see this year. And it rocks!
Surging iPad shipments have propelled Apple to a 17.2% share of worldwide mobile PC shipments in Q4’10, placing Apple at the top of the DisplaySearch market share ranking. According to preliminary results from the DisplaySearch Quarterly Mobile PC Shipment and Forecast Report, Apple shipped more than 10.2 million notebook and tablet PCs combined, nearly a million more units than HP in Q4’10. While Apple’s iPad is benefiting from a first-mover advantage, particularly in mature markets, its notebook PC shipment growth rate continues to exceed the industry average.
Rank Brand Units Share 1 Apple* 10.2 17.2% 2 HP 9.3 15.6% 3 Acer Group 8.4 14.0% 4 Dell 5.9 9.9% 5 Toshiba 5.1 8.6%
*Including iPads.
A nice little roundup of what most people think the iPad 2 will offer…
I am hopeful of the “full monty” Apple A5 making an appearance in the iPad 2. i.e. Dual Core ARM Cortex-A9, and the all singing all dancing Imagination Technologies’ POWERVR SGX543 GPU, with OpenCL support and superb OpenGL ES capabilities – approaching OpenGL 3.x in actual fact. But I am still concerned that the silicon was only available to Apple very late last year. So we may be disappointed, or get one half of the full deal.
But all in all I think the collection of rumours Jonny Evans has gleaned from all the usual Apple web sites are pretty solid.
You can take it to the bank that all of the Apple A5 related goodies outlined above will certainly be the core of the iPhone 5.
Oh, one more thing: I don’t think the iPhone 5 will be called by that name exactly.
![[W]e’ve labeled the key blocks; the ARM cores are in the right half of the die, with ~4.5 Mb of cache memory each. We can also see the USB interface at the top, and the DDR SDRAM interfaces at the bottom right, for the memory in the top part of the package-on-package. Other I/O blocks are strewn around the edge of the die.](http://apture.s3.amazonaws.com/0000012eb9bcb288810effc7007f000000000001.APL0498_APL0498E01_Backside.jpg){kind=link}