“Geekbench 3 results for the new iPad Air are starting to appear on the Geekbench Browser,” John Poole reports for Primate Labs.
“I’ve charted the results for all iOS 7 capable iPads below,” Poole reports. “If you’re not familiar with Geekbench 3, it’s our cross-platform processor benchmark. Higher scores are better, where double the score means double the performance.”
“From a performance standpoint the iPad Air is a great upgrade to the iPad (4th Generation),” Poole reports. “With most recent Mac updates showing only modest performance improvements, it’s exciting to see iOS devices do the opposite with substantial improvements between generations. I wonder how much longer Apple can keep this up?”
Read more in the full article here.
Related articles:
Bloomberg News reviews Apple’s 64-bit iPad Air: Hands-down the best tablet on the market – October 30, 2013
CNET reviews Apple’s 64-bit iPad Air: The best full-size tablet, Editors’ Choice – October 30, 2013
AnandTech reviews Apple’s 64-bit iPad Air: In a completely different league – October 30, 2013
USA Today’s Baig reviews Apple’s 64-bit iPad Air: Best of breed, superior to each and every rival – October 30, 2013
Mossberg reviews Apple’s 64-bit iPad Air: ‘The best tablet I’ve ever reviewed’ – October 29, 2013
Fox News reviews Apple’s 64-bit iPad Air: Best in class – October 29, 2013
The Independent reviews Apple’s 64-bit iPad Air: Super-light and most powerful – October 29, 2013
Maybe I should to consider replacement of my iPad 2.
Yeah, I think it’s time to replace my trusty old original iPad. It works, but god is it awful to go from my iPhone 5 to it, the performance difference is shocking and I’m sure the new iPads are even more so.
The iPad mini also has the same specs as iPad air.
Both use the A7 and M7 chip set, so would it not be just as impressive?
The iPad mini in the above tests are for last years model (A5).
I’m in the same situation as you, Michael. My 2010 iPad is beginning to get sluggish and requires re-booting more often than I’m comfortable with. At this point, the Retina Display, better bluetooth and jump to LTE may make it impossible for me not to upgrade at this point.
I’ve still got the unlimited AT&T plan which makes the provider decision pretty easy.
Nothing about my iPad 2 feels slow to me, so I don’t foresee replacing it anytime soon. I do like knowing that the moment it starts to feel sluggish, it can be replaced a 5x faster iPad (or by then, probably a 10x or 20x faster one).
I just replaced my ipad 2 with the iPad air. I’m loving it. It’s just like getting your first ipad. I was finally ready to upgrade for the retina. After getting the MBP 15 Retina, iPhone 4 and 5 with retina, it was time for an ipad with retin.
The jump from ipad 2 to 4 IS a big enough leap to go for it, and retina screens are gorgeous: just wait till you watch a movie on it!
What disingenuously does thy sayeth now oh spec-obsessed fickle floundering Fandroid? (….crickets….) I thought so.
OH yea of little understanding.
The comment was NOT about being spec obsessed.
Spec obsessed… Gee! I have a qreat quad core 64bit capable machine… aint I great… (on a system with 32 bit software that is not really multi core focused)…
Also,,,, Hey my samsung android has great benchmark speeds… but always seems to run slow when I use it (samsung has been proved to run software that makes systems run at full speed ONLY when running benchmark tests…. so your machine is fast but ONLY when running benchmark tests and no time else. )
NOT spec obsessed ……. Wow, this machine runs much faster than my old one. It runs my game in full frame mode (no dropped frames) compared to my old machine. Much more enjoyable.
Ps, Apple has been making software that is fully multicore knowledgeable and makes maximum use out of multi core systems. Its not the specification that make us happy, its the fact the systems run much better.
Just a thought.
I don’t doubt the performance gains, but I don’t currently do anything that challenges even the processor of the iPad mini. And I’m not particularly annoyed at non-retina. So I think I’m going to sit this round out.
It’s really a testament to the great job they did a year ago.
I checked out the eBay prices for iPad Mini before the event, and they were really low. So I decided not to sell mine.
Usually I can sell the old one and buy the new one with little loss. Maybe $100 or so difference. Not this time!
64 bit is a marketing ploy. Uh huh…
1GB RAM will be the bottleneck. Safari page outs, constant page reloads and apps not holding their freeze state all point towards insufficient RAM. The iPad Air has the same amount of RAM as the iPad 4 which will not address the problem of Safari page outs, no matter how fast the processor is. They should be doubling RAM to 2GB but I expect that to be implemented in the next generation.
Also iOS 7 is a deterrent to me at least of considering a new iPad. There are so many things wrong with it that it does not represent an improvement over iOS 6, from a user perspective. It looks horrible and I like my user interface to look as beautiful as Erin Heatherton.
oh… so you don’t understand how memory management works in iOS7, but bray on like a donkey anyways.
“BRAY on like a donkey”.
That is a good one! Got to remember that the next time I am confronted by a lying droid.
What do you mean by “Safari page outs”?
And you are so very qualified to make such claims because…
I happend to love iOS7. It works great on my iPhone 5 and iPad2, it works so good that I am not upgrading my iPad until later next year and I will wait one more year for the iPhone 6.
Perhaps they will implement memory compression a-la Mavericks before this becomes an issue.
There is not an issue. The lying droid is …er, “lying”.
there is definitely an issue for me but its because my iPad1 has 256 MB and Safari crashes all the time, even on Apple’s website ! And if it doesn’t its slow and laggy as hell on many web sites. I reset and I’ve even wiped and resync’d. I really wish Apple wouldn’t abandon us first adopters and release fixes for iOS5 ! At least used to wish that, I plan on getting an Air this week 🙂 Its painful using the old iPad…
I guess you haven’t seen the latest Infinity blade….where every SCENE requires more detailed data than the whole previous version of the Infinity Blade.
So let me get this straight. You refuse to upgrade to iOS 7 because it’s “ugly”, but you claim it suffers from all of those problems due to lack of RAM? How can you be an authority?
So many “turfers” reject iOS7 on merit of “looks”. I am tired of the whining over “ugly icons”. BFD. They have no concept that the “looks” are merely a thin veneer on a much improved “machine”. iOS7 is the foundation for significant mobile capabilities still to come. And the A7 rocks!
On the benchmarks alone it would be a no brainer for me to upgrade from my iPad 2. But I think I will wait a little longer until the iPad gets Touch ID.
I’m so used to simply touching in on my iPhone 5S that I find when using my iPad 2 & IPhone 4S for work I try every time to touch in rather than typing in my pass code.
I don’t understand why the iPad air doesn’t have Touch ID. Especial with ICloud Keychain activated on all my devices I do feel that my iPhone 4S & iPad 2 are less secure & my data a bit more vulnerable.
But hey that’s just what I think.
By naming the new iPad “Air”, I can’t help but wonder if they’re going to release a “Pro” version as well?
A slightly bigger screen, Touch ID, quad core A7X, 2GB memory, weighing about the same as the original iPads.
I bet we’ll see this once production ramps up on the Touch ID sensor and they’re able to move to 20nm fab.
That wouldn’t surprise in the least.
However, I don’t think it will be as heavy as the older iPads. More memory for intensive activities in audio and video and better performance for those industries… however all but unnecessary for the majority of consumers.
It’s the same pattern they took with the iMac and Mac Pro.
With the amazing benchmarks of the iPad Air, it’s hard to imagine what the iPad “Pro” would actually do better beyond out-specing devices on paper and draining batteries faster.
I guess it would help “Insufficient RAM” surf those crappy websites that require at least 2GB of RAM to load without crashing the web browser.
Larger screens for sure
At the risk of unleashing a downvote brigade, I’ll tell you why the iPad Air does not have Touch ID. Because Apple is counting on Touch ID to drive next years iPad Air upgrade sales. Exactly why the Mini did not have Retina in year one. I love Apple products as much as anybody here but that is my conclusion.
You’re probably incorrect. The rumors (perhaps substantiated?) are that those Touch ID sensors are a supply constraint on building the iPhone 5s. So, if Apple included them in the new iPad(s), there would be a shortage of both the iPhone 5s AND the new iPads, just in time for the holiday season, angering customers and leaving billions of dollars on the table. Can you imagine the screams of “Fire Tim Cook!” that would happen if people were unable to purchase the new devices?
I’m sure Touch ID is coming to every iDevice, perhaps even to Macs, once the sensors can be produced in larger quantity. It is very unlikely that Apple held back a feature just to push people to upgrade in the future. That would be short-sighted and stupid.
I seem to remember the first or second day of the iPhone 5s sales, that the Touch ID hardware was in short supply.
…was reported to be in short supply.
If that is true and is the reason the 5s is still back ordered, adding it to the iPad Air would really push orders back.
We may never know.
so, iPad Air is 47% faster than my MacBook Air (late 2010, 64bit Geekbench score=1799), which doesn’t feel slow yet…
Wow, just wow.
… iPad is over [u]5 times[/u] as fast as my wife’s old model! Impressive! So … why am I not tempted? Because the older model is “fast enough”. I’m sure there are those who would argue they need more speed. That’s them. We will wait for touch ID, I expect.
D@MN these things are getting fast! 😉
the point is, Ax chips are getting faster MUCH faster than, say, intel chips. And with MUCH faster chips, new things become possible. With intel (or AMD), meh…
The camera features in the iPhone 5s is what shows off what that 64-bit power can do.
If you never watched Apple’s video explaining the camera’s new capabilities, then spend the 2.5 minutes to check it out. These features alone make me want the iPhone 5s.
http://www.apple.com/iphone-5s/videos/#video-camera
What is the sense comparing antiquated Macs to the latest iPads?
2013 MacBook Airs score as high as 6117 on the Geekbench 3, so there remains a HUGE gulf between ARM and Intel chip performance. If _productivity_ is your primary concern, no iOS device can be your first choice. Core i7 MacBook Pros currently score ~ 14500, seven times what the latest A7 chipset can offer. ARM has in no way “caught up” to MacTel chipsets.
… and by many peoples’ standards, the first generation MacBook Airs were dogs. The Air always prioritized fashion over function.
the factor is more like 5.5 (14500/2643), not 7.
And the intel i7 chips are quad core, a A7 quad would bring the factor down to 2.8. And the i7 chips use 45W of power when active, not 2W or so. Apple has “room” to make MBAs with Ax chips pretty soon.
So nobody was productive 3 years ago on current Macs??
I’m still running on a MacBook Pro, Late 2007 model. Last time I checked it runs all my applications just fine.
Keep in mind, not every Mac is being pushed to the limit by designers, there are plenty using Office, email, web and other typical business programs and those run just fine on 5 year old equipment.
Sure, if clerical functions is all you do, then keep your hardware as long as it still runs … and don’t bother comparing your Geekbench score.
If you _are_ taking the effort to compare Geekbench scores, then it would seem you _do_ care about performance. Those people are not competing against people and businesses using 6-year old hardware. One must keep up or one falls behind — and yes, that applies to the Mac just as any other computing platform. Time is money.
So, again, what is the point of comparing Geekbench scores for non-productivity hardware?
“insane”
Well then, “Here’s to the crazy ones.”
Has anyone actually compared webpage loading speeds of an ipad air vs. ipad 3 or 4? In my experience, big benchmark improvements often mean only a slight improvement in real-world performance, and is that worth $600?
For ever?
Insane benchmarks, however, do not predict substantially faster speeds for the everyday tasks most people use iPads for. For intensive gaming and graphics, it does. I’m sticking with my ipad3.
Just a few disclaimers. There is no guarantee that Geekbench runs the same code on 64-bit or 32-bit architecture (we don’t have access to source, so we can’t see what it does).
Any comparisons can only be done between different 64-bit machines. Comparing 32-bit and 64-bit is like comparing apples and monkeys.
I have notice that the “air ” is much faster while doing linkedin queries.
That may be, but for many people the main tasks they do often have to do with email and using the web, and in side-by-side tests, I saw at most a 3 second difference on most tasks: not worth the upgrade to many unless one has too much money (if that happens to me, I’ll get an air, lol.).