With all the talk of the new A9 processor intended for the new iPhones, and the new A9x processor supposedly intended for the new iPad Air 3. What will the new iPad Pro get? If expected, the A9 to have 2 cores and A9x to have 3 cores similar to their previous generation counterparts. Will there be an additional SoC for the iPad Pro that will feature 4 cores, or will it be the A9x clocked at a higher speed and with more RAM.
My CPU and GPU performance assumptions are as follows: A8 < A8X < A9X and A8 < A9 < A9X (the existence of the A9 and A9X are implied).
I've been thinking about this for a while. There have been conflicting rumors about whether or not the iPad Air will be updated this year, some rumors say yes, others say no (see near the bottom of
this page). That's not the case for the iPad mini—from what I remember, every rumor about it this year has claimed that it will actually get an update this year. This situation reminds me of the iPad mini rumors last year, so I have a suspicion that the iPad Air 3 could be at most a minor update, similar to the iPad mini 2 to iPad mini 3 update.
If so, then I would expect the iPad Air 3 to retain the A8X, which I think would imply one of these possibilities:
- It is not true that A8X < A9 in both CPU and GPU performance, and the A9X is not suitable for the iPad Air.
- The A8X was the preferred SoC for the iPad Air 3 for reasons other than performance or power.
If the A9 falls short of the A8X in CPU or GPU performance, then it probably won't be a good A8X successor. An A9 with three CPU cores or two CPU cores with large per-core improvements and a GT7600, which I think isn't particularly far-fetched, should be able to meet or exceed the performance of the A8X. But I don't think that's the whole picture. According to what I've read (from posts on Beyond3D forums as well as
this), the 14/16 nm nodes are supposed to be very expensive, and that might affect the choice of SoC in the iPad Air 3. For example, if the A9 costs more than the A8X and doesn't have a significant performance increase over it (say, ≤ 20% in both CPU and GPU), then I am not sure if it is worth it for Apple to update the iPad Air with an A9, especially if the iPad "Pro" rumors are true.
Question: what do you folks expect the cost of an A9 with 2 CPU cores and 4 Series 7XT GPU clusters to be (assuming the CPU cores don't grow by a lot)? What about an A9 with 3 CPU cores and 6 Series 7XT GPU clusters?
I suspect that the A9X will be very powerful and be designed with the iPad "Pro" in mind. My current guess is 4 CPU cores and a 12-cluster Series 7XT GPU (maybe 16 but that takes a bit more optimism than what I have). I also expect one of Apple's areas of focus for the iPad "Pro" to be on new apps that are not feasible on an iPad Air 2 but are on a 13" tablet with 1.5-2x the computing power.
According to the rumors so far, the iPad "Pro" will have these features that the iPad Air 2 does not have.
- 1.8x the display area and point resolution (1366x1024 vs. 1024x768)
- A more accurate touchscreen
- Optional stylus
- Stereo speakers on the top and bottom
- Force Touch
- USB-C port [maybe]
- A larger, wider onscreen keyboard that resembles a desktop keyboard
The following features are not necessarily rumored, but I think they are sensible predictions.
- A9X SoC with a decent performance jump over the A8X
- It will be long enough for a full-size physical keyboard (the display seems a tiny bit too small for a full-size onscreen keyboard but it might be passable)
Many of these features can in principle be brought to a iPad Air-sized device as well. The important observation is which features can't:
- A9X SoC with a decent performance jump over the A8X
- 1.8x the display area and point resolution
- A larger, wider onscreen keyboard that resembles a desktop keyboard
- It will be long enough for a full-size physical keyboard
I expect the iPad Air of 2016 or 2017 to match or exceed the performance of the iPad "Pro," so the performance advantage of the iPad "Pro" over the iPad Air of the same year is only an advantage in the long-term for the tasks whose minimum requirements are also increasing over time at similar rates.
Perhaps Apple will leverage the larger display area and higher resolution to open the door to more "professional" software and other apps that show lots of information on a display. 1366x1024 is in laptop territory by the numbers, and while a straight comparison is not possible due to factors such as touch target sizes, some pieces of information are not particularly dependent on the input method of the device it's on. I would also assume that a fair number of these apps could benefit from a full-size keyboard or USB-C, which justifies the latter on the iPad "Pro" (the former follows from the iPad's size). Now how does this relate to the SoC? Well, if Apple goes in this direction, then I think they will spec the A9X so that it is powerful enough to handle any software, new or existing, that the iPad "Pro" will be running, so all the way from note taking to advanced video editing and high-resolution gaming.
Those are my thoughts. But I was way off on my A8 predictions so….
