“At its silicon core, the fourth-generation iPad is hardly an incremental upgrade, according to chip analysts,” Brooke Crothers reports for CNET.
“The new iPad’s A6X chip packs a brand-new graphics engine that boasts a serious step up in horsepower from the third-generation iPad’s A5X,” Crothers reports. “‘Nothing’s incremental about this. The A6X is one massive processing machine,’ Jim Morrison, a product manager at Chipworks, which does reverse engineering and patent-infringement analysis of semiconductors and electronic systems, told CNET.”
Crothers reports, “The graphics processing unit, or GPU, is a quad-core PowerVR SGX 554MP4 from Imagination, according to an analysis posted today by Anandtech. That SGX 554MP4 has raw performance of 76.8 GFLOPS, compared with the 38.4 GFLOPS rating for the quad-core Imagination chip in the third-generation iPad,”
Read more in the full article here.
Related article:
Benchmarks: Apple iPad 4′s A6X beats all comers in GPU performance – November 2, 2012
Great specs like these are always buried in the back pages of CNET and the other ‘rags’. CNET and others reserve headline slots for “Apple is doomed” or “iPad gets warm” stories. Pathetic.
Ironic, that the tech blogosphere is bug-eyed about blowout specs for an Android or Windows device, but swallow the whistle if Apple comes up with them. Double standard much?
So what? Really, SO WHAT? Just another “techie spec” that not one analyst on the planet understands. All anyone sees today is one piece of bad news after another about AAPL and Apple: who’s getting fired in Cupertino, which lawsuit the company is losing in which jurisdiction, which app doesn’t work or live up to high consumer standards, which record earnings don’t live up to Wall Street expectations, which workers are jumping off of buildings or rioting on the factory floor abroad, etc., etc., etc. These are truly, TRULY horrible days for our favorite company. Good luck to one and all in the coming months.
I like how your comment mirrors what it complains about.
“All anyone sees today is one piece of bad news after another about AAPL and Apple”
“These are truly, TRULY horrible days for our favorite company.”
Thanks a lot. (But I’m not quite sure of your point, MDC. Because I catalog a significant portion of what is driving Apple and AAPL down right now, I am the problem? Something about the messenger and the message comes to mind right here. Perhaps all IS well and good, and I’m just missing it. If so, apologies.)
Hahahaha, Usher must be new. The headlines about Apple have always – always – been predominantly negative. The tech media in general has hated their guts ever since the original Macintosh came out(see John C. Dvorak’s comments that nobody cared about a GUI or wanted to use a mouse).
I guess it seems alarming to a newbie, but experienced Apple followers know it’s is all just routine.
*it’s all just routine
Experienced Apple followers also fail at grammar, apparently…
It used to be so much worse which is why some of us are a little touchy about such things I guess. Even the first iMac was laughed at and seen as the last desperate move of an already dead company. People can’t stand being proved wrong.
It seems that everything in media today is driven by hatred of success. Even my elitist friends at a local university, who used to champion Apple as the counterculture computer have turned on Apple as the embodiment of greedy American corporate culture. My point is we seem to love to bash success in Western culture. I remember when success was lifted up as an economic ideal. Apple generally ignores the noise and makes decisions which are meant to increase its success. My impression is that most of Asia is more friendly to commerce, but that varies from place to place. So Apple will keep moving along, pundits and UK judges be damned. Sort of 😉
Usher102, I don’t know if you have an (anti-Apple) agenda or not. If so, then you will quickly find that your welcome is worn out around here. If not, and you actually believe that rotten Apples are falling from the tree, then read on.
Long time Apple users have been through “truly, TRULY horrible days,” and recent events do not even come close to the downward spiral of Apple in the mid-1990s. In those times, you had to battle just to keep your aging PowerMac from being “refreshed” with a new Windows PC at work. Back then, Mac sales of 1 million units in a quarter was a fantasy, OS X did not exist, and the bold new vision provided by interim CEO Steve Jobs and an empowered Jony Ive had not yet occurred. Apple (Computer) did not have a $120B cushion of cash and marketable securities, or a secure, long term supply chain providing huge economy of scale cost advantages. Apple was not diversified into music, video, cell phones, etc., and its future looked rather dim.
*Those* were the truly dark days for aficionados of the Apple way. Compared to the mid-1990s, Apple is currently experiencing nirvana. Most of the topics that you list have or will drop off of the media radar fairly quickly. For example, I doubt that you have seen any doom and gloom article on Apple Maps, recently. Everything will be just fine for Apple for many years to come. Relax…
Usher102, I don’t know if you have an (anti-Apple) agenda or not. If so, then you will quickly find that your welcome is worn out around here. If not, and you actually believe that rotten Apples are falling from the tree, then read on.
Long time Apple users have been through “truly, TRULY horrible days,” and recent events do not even come close to the downward spiral of Apple in the mid-1990s. In those times, you had to battle just to keep your aging PowerMac from being “refreshed” with a new Windows PC at work. Back then, Mac sales of 1 million units in a quarter was a fantasy, OS X did not exist, and the bold new vision provided by interim CEO Steve Jobs and an empowered Jony Ive had not yet occurred. Apple (Computer) did not have a $120B cushion of cash and marketable securities, or a secure, long term supply chain providing huge economy of scale cost advantages. Apple was not diversified into music, video, cell phones, etc., and its future looked rather dim.
*Those* were the truly dark days for aficionados of the Apple way. Compared to the mid-1990s, Apple is currently experiencing nirvana. Most of the topics that you list have or will drop off of the media radar fairly quickly. For example, I doubt that you have seen any doom and gloom article on Apple Maps, recently. Everything will be just fine for Apple for many years to come. Relax, Usher. Apple is fine.
Déjà vue!
Yep IPad 4 is the best .
Technologically leaps about other products even apple iPad mini … Or iPad 2
Just annoys me that I got caught in the surprise, mid-cycle, refresh. I know Apple doesn’t “owe” me anything, but it still sucks to have a product that was just purchased get so thoroughly trounced.
I also purchased the 3rd generation iPad, and the 4th generation was a surprise, but I’m certainly not bothered by it at all. I am still just as happy with my 3rd gen as I was when I got it.
We have to remember that Apple didn’t do a “mid-cycle” refresh – because WE are the ones who made up the cycles. Apple has never committed to a future schedule of releases. 🙂
I’m now really curious to see what the 5th generation is going to be like. I expect that we’ll see some major changes to the physical dimensions for the next one (thinner and lighter).
I wonder if the iPad 4 release is a cycle reset, ie we will now have fall refresh for the iPad? Guess it makes sense with the holiday shopping season.
Apple, a liberal company, is currently experiencing the liberal media skew and twist, and it all began when Cook gave out a dividend to a stock market who Jobs knew would push Apple off a cliff at first storm. Now, Cook apologizes for Maps, which is a great version 1 product.
ANY sign of weakness leaves you vulnerable…Jobs knew this…seems Forstall knows this, and Cook has to learn this.
Getting too personable and apologetic is the beginning of disaster…Jobs was the way Jobs was for a very good reason.