Apple iPad Air 2 GPU tested, outclasses Tegra K1

23 October, 2014
GFXBench's offscreen and onscreen tests show the Apple iPad Air 2 as a tremendous graphics performer.

Sort by:

  • F
  • Freddyb
  • jBu
  • 29 Nov 2016

iPhone is King, 24 Oct 2014Android users are boring. They have lousy apps and 8bit gam... morePlease, Android users dont have to worry about internal storage as we are able to expand our storage up to 2TB of adoptable storage, while apple users are forced to spend hundreds more for iPhone models with sufficient internal storage, or purchase apples own iCloud storage. Funny you mention this because the only people I know who constantly have to clear their storage are iPhone users, as Android users can simply expand their internal storage (which iPhone users cannot) ! Seems like iPhone users get sucked into a monopoly. Android phones are universal, easy to customize, modify and we don't get sucked into the strict closed source IOS circle.

    • k
    • kornu
    • gxJ
    • 27 Dec 2014

    Anonymous, 29 Oct 2014And nobody talks about power consumption... Tegra K1 draws... moreIt actually uses 5W

      • D
      • AnonD-153078
      • mpc
      • 31 Oct 2014

      Anonymous, 23 Oct 2014Oh....yeah....let me tell you. All of you going around bra... moreThe Tegra K1 Denver is a dual core CPU which handily beats the Apple A8X on single core and dual core CPU Geekbench3 benchmarks, and these are what really matter for real life performance - which is why Apple has focussed of dual core performance in the past while others have used quad core processors. The reason is that UI responsiveness is primarily dependent on single core performance, and most apps do not spawn enough execution threads to make full use of more than 2 cores, especially smartphone/tablet apps. What has happened here is that Apple's made their most advanced chip to go into the iPhone 6 - the A8 - and made that a dual core 64 bit ARM chip, and built it in the most advanced production available right now (20nm FinFET instead of 28nm planar which everybody else is using). The difference move to 20nm FinFET from 28nm planar should produce a 50% increase in speed. Then along comes nVidia with cleverly designed dual 64bit ARM chip on a cheap 28nm planar process with fewer transistors, which trounces the A8 on both performance and cost by increasing the number of operations that can be carried out in parallel on a single core. Apple's response? add "go-faster" stripes onto the beaten A8 in the form of an extra core to produce the three core A8X, in order to win bragging rights on the 3 core multi-core GeekBench score, followed by massive bragging and hype.

      What about the GFXBenchmarks which seem to put Apple's A8X ahead? Well, that seems to have been cherry picked by Apple to make the A8X look good. They picked the GFX benchmarks which are rather less well known as opposed to the FutureMark gaming benchmarks which are widely recognised and give a broader indication of GPU performance than the GFX benchmarks. The Tegra K1's GPU beats the A8X by a considerable margin (about 33% faster) on the FutureMark benchmarks, but performs particularly badly on GFX benchmarks. This may be something to do with the current OpenGL drivers, as the Tegra K1 trounces the A8X on the broader based FutureMark benchmarks.

      The thing that really stands out here about the Tegra K1 though, is the fact that it manages to match and even best Apple's A8X in terms of real life performance with a chip which is based on the older, cheaper and slower 28nm planar process, and with fewer transistors. While Apple has shifted to 20nm to try to get an advantage over its rivals, its competitors have skipped the 20nm node to go straight to 14nm/16nm when it is available. Imagine what happens in Q3 2015 when all vendors will be shifting their premium devices to 14nm/16nm - Apple's processor speed will increase by about 40%, while the Tegra K1 will approximately double in speed. In parallel with that, nVidia will still have the 28nm planar Tegra K1 version which will be far cheaper to produce than either 20nm or 14nm/16nm chips for the mass market.

        • ?
        • Anonymous
        • akv
        • 29 Oct 2014

        And nobody talks about power consumption...
        Tegra K1 draws about 6w for these benchmarks so does the A8. A8X has a triple core CPU and an uograded even more power hungry GPU. It certainly uses 7+ watts to achieve these scores

          • D
          • AnonD-322791
          • KsM
          • 25 Oct 2014

          Anonymous, 24 Oct 2014Uh, bruh, Google Play has a bigger app store than Apple doe... morelmfao the ignorance in this comment is astonishing.. have you ever heard about App Store exclusive apps? and did you just say the play store has all Apple applications ?! lmaooooooo

            • D
            • AnonD-237024
            • nEQ
            • 24 Oct 2014

            The amount of Android/Apple fanboys in this thread is beyond amazing.

              • ?
              • Anonymous
              • k9q
              • 24 Oct 2014

              SamX, 24 Oct 2014who gives a crap about sd slots, i have a Z2 with 16gb buil... morepeople who want to watch movies on their tablet, maybe? why are you so stupid??

                • ?
                • Anonymous
                • k9q
                • 24 Oct 2014

                iPhone is King, 24 Oct 2014Android users are boring. They have lousy apps and 8bit gam... moreUh, bruh, Google Play has a bigger app store than Apple does, as well as Android versions of almost every single app written for iOS. So, uh...? Don't act like an idiot and think you're being cute, please, it's really damn annoying.

                  • D
                  • AnonD-323607
                  • 4wT
                  • 24 Oct 2014

                  Guys I have iPad air 2 in my hands and I have the shield tablet.
                  I ran all the benchmarks more than once and the real numbers are
                  Gfx:
                  IPad:
                  Manhattan off screen: 2018 (32pfs)
                  Trex off screen: 3946 (70pfs)
                  Manhattan: 1522 (24fps)
                  Trex: 2957 (52.8)
                  Shield tablet (same order)
                  1972(31.6fps)
                  3645 (65fps)
                  1870(30 fps)
                  3128(55.9 fps)

                  An tutu 3d graphics
                  IPad 24500
                  Shield:25030

                  3d storm (total)
                  IPad: 21854
                  Shield 32650
                  Graphics only:
                  IPad: 31760
                  Shield: 39700

                  So the fact is that these GPUs performance are very similar.
                  In some iPad has a slight edge in other shield has an edge.

                  Just to be clear: I have both iPhone 6 & 6 plus, both note 4( 805 and exynos) because I have 2 lines and I switch the phones per line (business line: iPhone and personal: Notes) (plus my old devices: note 3, Galaxy S4 and S5 etc)
                  I am as neutral and objective as you can imagine.
                  Mobile (and all other consumer hi tech) is my hobby.

                  I can tell you that in CPU tests (that I TESTED, cause I don't have nexus 9 yet) iPad air has both highest geekbench 3 scores: 1806 and 4509. When nexus 9 comes out, I expect it to beat the single core score of ipad, because Denver is a bit more potent CPU design.
                  On the 2nd place is Exynos note 4: with 1320 single core and 4059 multicore. But let's remember that exynos 5433 is a 64 BIT CHPSET: exynos 7 octa that runs in 32 bit mode. But ARM A57 design is inferior to both Apple cyclone and tegra Denver.
                  Antutu is really not accurate for iOS devices (to compare with android) because is gives UX scores is 16000 and up when you run it 2 and 3rd time (heck I ve seen the 90000 anutu score for iPhone 5S:) on the top 20). But if you make the adjusment it runs same as Nvidia tegra K1 in my shield: 55-58000 (shield does from 52-57K depending on home many APS are in background). Generally A8x beats in the single core integer.

                  So basically, by expanding the transistor count to 3 mil A8x at 1.5ghz is able to have a slight to moderate edge on 32 bit tegra K1 running at 2.2 GHz.
                  But it runs extremely similar in multicore to exynos 5433 with exynos having 20% edge in floating point performance...

                    • i
                    • iPhone is King
                    • PGX
                    • 24 Oct 2014

                    SamX, 24 Oct 2014who gives a crap about sd slots, i have a Z2 with 16gb buil... moreAndroid users are boring. They have lousy apps and 8bit games only.

                    So 16gb is all they need hahaha. Nothing worth downloading. Just listen to music and videos from their sd slots daily.. and spend hrs each day filling and deleting their sd slots.

                    Leave those high quality games, and top of the line apps for iPad / iPhones.

                      • X
                      • X
                      • mSu
                      • 24 Oct 2014

                      http://gfxbench.com/compare.jsp?benchmark=gfx30&D1=Apple+iPad+Air+2&os1=iOS&api1=gl&D2=Google+Nexus+9&cols=2
                      That's the GPU comparison.
                      See you next year:)!
                      BTW, those benchmarks are adapted for the iPad's Air 2 screen resolution since iPad 3. There is no sclaing on iPad apps/benchmarks, just Android boys grasping for straws.

                        • A
                        • AdamBoy64
                        • Fv4
                        • 24 Oct 2014

                        Congratulations Apple. What an incredible device.

                          • X
                          • X
                          • mSu
                          • 24 Oct 2014

                          GPU comparison with Nexus 9:
                          http://gfxbench.com/compare.jsp?benchmark=gfx30&D1=Apple+iPad+Air+2&os1=iOS&api1=gl&D2=Google+Nexus+9&cols=2
                          CPU comparison with Nexus 9:
                          http://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench3/compare/1080158?baseline=1061742
                          Take it anyway you like, the A8X is better than the competition and it will stay so for one year. Period!

                            • S
                            • SamX
                            • th6
                            • 24 Oct 2014

                            Anonymous, 24 Oct 2014Ipad Air 2 won't have micro sd card slot so don't care anyw... morewho gives a crap about sd slots, i have a Z2 with 16gb built it and im not even using the sd card and the built in storage is not yet even full

                              • ?
                              • Anonymous
                              • q8Q
                              • 24 Oct 2014

                              Now don't take this wrong.

                              Most people even if you don't like apple understand that those are impressive gpu scores.

                              But the only people whining are those of you exaggerating it and acting like it means the while world.
                              There are many more aspects and this is a brand new power vr compared to older released chips. Just like the chips it's beating now are more powerful than the older chips from apple.

                              And anyone really using ios knows the benchmarks don't represent many of the bugs and issues it has.
                              I have and have been using ios for years. You can't fool me about its crashes and lags.

                                • ?
                                • Anonymous
                                • P%C
                                • 24 Oct 2014

                                Ipad Air 2 won't have micro sd card slot so don't care anyway.
                                And it gonna be more expensive than tegra tablet which have micro sd card slot.

                                  • ?
                                  • Anonymous
                                  • P%C
                                  • 24 Oct 2014

                                  AnonD-323140, 23 Oct 2014"The A8X even beat the i7 U-4500 at geekbench. Its a d... moreIt was a notebook processor not desktop, i3 desktop would probably smoke them both.

                                    • D
                                    • AnonD-85193
                                    • 3Wd
                                    • 24 Oct 2014

                                    heynekko, 23 Oct 2014All graphic test on iOS uses upscaling of smaller resolutio... moreYep seems you are correct, that's really sly.

                                    https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8300945

                                    All existing apps will be rendered into the current 320x568 frame buffer and scaled up. It's really no different to an iPhone app running on an iPad in that respect.
                                    I'd imagine the scaled up apps will also look slightly blurry, but how much is to be seen once we get the devices.
                                    A developer has to build the app under iOS 8 SDK with new launch images for the iPhone 6 and 6+ to use the native resolutions of those devices.
                                    The frames will then be 375x667 and 414x736 for the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6+ respectively.
                                    So the auto scaling is a stop gap, you really need to have the app running at the native resolutions to look as best they can.

                                      • l
                                      • lol
                                      • MFX
                                      • 24 Oct 2014

                                      Anonymous, 24 Oct 2014Actually it's much more logical to assume it does. No it isn't. A8 upscaled because 750p and 1080p were new resolutions and app was not updated. iPad retina res has been used for 2.5y.

                                        1 of 7