“Working on analyzing various Apple SoCs over the years has become a process of delightful frustration. Apple’s SoC development is consistently on the cutting edge, so it’s always great to see something new, but Apple has also developed a love for curveballs,” Ryan Smith reports for AnandTech. “Coupled with their infamous secrecy and general lack of willingness to talk about the fine technical details of some of their products, it’s easy to see how well Apple’s SoCs perform but it is a lot harder to figure out why this is.”
“Since publishing our initial iPad Air 2 review last week, a few new pieces of information have come in that have changed our perspective on Apple’s latest SoC,” Smith reports. “As it turns out I was wrong. Powered by what we’re going to call the GXA6850, the A8X’s GPU is even better than I thought.”
“Ut has become clear that with A8X Apple has once again thrown us a curveball,” Smith reports. “By drawing outside of the lines and building an eight cluster GPU configuration where none previously existed, the A8X and its GXA6850 GPU are more powerful than even we first suspected. Apple traditionally aims high with its SoCs, but this ended up being higher still.”
Read more in the full article here.
Make it so good the competition can’t keep up.
I finally broke down and picked up a 128gb space gray iPad Air 2 Monday.
Holy crap it’s fast.
Can’t believe how light and fast it is, there is no competition.
It’s always nice surprises with Apple and rampant disappointment with Samsung. doubt this trend will change anytime soon.
And the reason Apple might want to publicly divulge unnecessary competitive technology details is…?
Because Apples iPad Air 2 is setting up Apple to be able to release the iPadAir 3 next fall and … add what?
Maybe OSX dual boot? Apple is going to walk all over their competitors.
Speaking for myself I don’t need or want a tablet that boots OS X. Got plenty of other devices for that. Your mileage and others may vary and options/choices aren’t a bad thing. Apple IS walking all over their competitors. 🙂
I respect everyone’s differences in their digital needs.
That is why Apple produces the expanding variety of devices it makes.
What is 100% certain is Apple is rapidly upping the ante to play in the digital hardware arena.
I would never deny someone else something I don’t need. Different strokes and a bigger better ecosystem is great. As an Apple stockholder I agree, whatever gets ’em in and buying.
‘Better than expected’?! But but but, how is that possible? Steve Jobs is dead! 😉 😆
Yet there are still those saying how Apple doesn’t innovate anymore. As far as I know, Apple is the only mobile device company designing their own mobile processors. Anything Apple comes out with is either overlooked or considered some cheap marketing gimmick by the mobile or computer industry pundits. Unless the feature ends up on some major market share Android device it’s considered useless.
Expected. Four decades and still ain’t learned.