Apple A9 SoC

[Entropy]

The thing that strains credibility more than this would be them lying about it to the entire internet in their live-streamed broadcast.

Which is why tri-core and quad-core makes for a comfortable hypothesis. :smile2: It didn't seem as if Rys was trolling us though, and if he didn't, I tend to trust him.
I actually don't think they are making too outrageous claims, even though those presentations are marketing events. The numbers are specific enough to refer to actual if selective benchmarking.

 

[Grall]

Which is why tri-core and quad-core makes for a comfortable hypothesis. :smile2:

Yes, however we saw what looked like a die X-ray shot during the presentation, and it didn't resemble a triple or quad-core. It might have been the old A8 chip though, I don't have any images handy for comparison...

What hasn't been discussed enough so far in this discussion is Apple adding SMT. It was mentioned once early on I think, and then people sort of forgot about it. Them doing that could bring another 20%-ish of performance to the table in sufficiently threaded situations; intel chips certainly seem easily capable of ending up inside that envelope.

 

[wco81]

Which tablet to choose depends which eco system you prefer.
Myself I'm not tied to a single eco system, but use all of them.
If you are a single eco system user, than you have either limited or more choice.

Personally I've an iPad air 2 and a Galaxy Tab S.
Both are great devices. The latter has better value for money.

I considered a Nexus 7 instead of the iPad mini 2 but I wanted the LTE model, because it has LTE bands for the US, Europe and Asia. I've used it several times in trips to Europe. Android devices generally have different SKUs for different regions with just LTE band support for those regions.

I paid for the $629 model, 32 GB with LTE. FWIW, iPad mini 4 for $629 would have 64 GB now.

 

[iMacmatician]

I actually don't think they are making too outrageous claims, even though those presentations are marketing events. The numbers are specific enough to refer to actual if selective benchmarking.

I was surprised at the specificity of the numbers, in particular, that the 90% was not just rounded up to 2x.

Yes, however we saw what looked like a die X-ray shot during the presentation, and it didn't resemble a triple or quad-core. It might have been the old A8 chip though, I don't have any images handy for comparison...

It's not any of the older A-series chips at least.

 

[idsn6]

The thing that strains credibility more than this would be them lying about it to the entire internet in their live-streamed broadcast.

They blatantly lied in the same broadcast about the iPad mini 4 having the "power and performance of iPad Air 2".

 

[Grall]

They blatantly lied in the same broadcast about the iPad mini 4 having the "power and performance of iPad Air 2".

Oh yeah, you're right. Good catch there! During the presentation I assumed it was the A8X SoC driving the device, and when the reveal came it's the regular A8, I'd forgotten the presentation (I don't care much about ipad mini).

So yeah, they lied about that.

 

[Voxilla]

It's not any of the older A-series chips at least.

There shouldn't be many CPUs around where you can pinpoint the embedded M9 motion processor.

 

[Entropy]

There shouldn't be many CPUs around where you can pinpoint the embedded M9 motion processor.

True enough.
On the other hand, I can't say I'm able to judge the number of cores from the image of the die shot I have seen. My limitations are not necessarily shared by others, and maybe there is a better image floating around, or the people who were there have a clearer picture of what was shown.

 

[Grall]

On the other hand, I can't say I'm able to judge the number of cores from the image of the die shot I have seen.

The image from the most recent presentation showed CPU cores that occupied a roughly proportional area compared to its immediately prior ancestors; A8 and A7. So it's probably not a triple or quad core design.

 

[Voxilla]

I think the previous comment of imacmatician is accurate enough:

• Bottom right: 2 CPU cores + L2 cache (far right)
• Middle: 2 SRAM blocks
• Top center to top right: 6 GPU cores, I can see what looks like three copies of the same structure

 

[xpenryn]

Chinese ministry of industry have just release some details of iPhone 6s.
http://shouji.tenaa.com.cn/Mobile/MobileDetail.aspx?code=wYX43Sz3OXR0w8odTKE4e4ApJEToK3q4
It confirmed that A9 has 2 cores running at 1.8G, with 4M L3 cache.

 

[xpenryn]

According to other source which leaked those info months ago, the GPU of A9 is running at 770MHZ.

 

[xpenryn]

Codename of A9's CPU is confirmed as Twister.

Nand interface of A9 is upgraded to PCIe 2.0, from PCIe 1.0 of A8.

 

[Grall]

It confirmed that A9 has 2 cores running at 1.8G, with 4M L3 cache.

Interesting. 4M L3 is what Apple has used ever since the A7/iPhone 5S IIRC. I'm curious as hell to know what they've done to increase performance so much compared to A8...

NAND interface is also a surprise. Typically, mobile devices use eMMC, not PCIe. I didn't even know there were flash chips with PCIe interfaces on them.

 

[xpenryn]

Interesting. 4M L3 is what Apple has used ever since the A7/iPhone 5S IIRC. I'm curious as hell to know what they've done to increase performance so much compared to A8...

NAND interface is also a surprise. Typically, mobile devices use eMMC, not PCIe. I didn't even know there were flash chips with PCIe interfaces on them.

Other info includes: Some pecents of 2gb ram are used only by GPU, maybe 512m or 768m. USB 2.0 interface is accelerated from 480Mbps to over 1Gbps.

Waiting for GB scores...

 

[Lazy8s]

A GT7600 @ 770 MHz + dual core Twister @ 1.8 GHz with some improved rebalancing of memory access for the GPU should yield quite a bit more than 90% better GFXBench scores.

The GPU is probably clocked lower.

 

[wco81]

Is it creepy that the Chinese ministry is divulging these details, which Apple tries to guard?

There's a story that the Chinese govt. is demanding that US tech companies sign some pledge of compliance including installing possible backdoors:

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...panies-to-sign-prism-like-cyber-loyalty-pact/

 

[Grall]

USB 2.0 interface is accelerated from 480Mbps to over 1Gbps.

USB connection doing what exactly, some form of internal I/O I assume. It can't be the lightning interface, since there's just a regular ole USB connector on the other end of that cable. Wifi or cellular radios, perhaps? Anyway, I would have guessed a more efficient interface was used for these kinds of connections; USB is bad at maxing out the full bandwidth, and is CPU intensive too. For random junk like audio codecs, sensor chips and things like that, USB would be unproblematic, but those kinds of devices don't need 1Gbps speeds. So unless they've also messed with the protocol and not just the interface clockrate, I'm kinda wondering what the hell they're smoking...

 

[french toast]

Yes, however we saw what looked like a die X-ray shot during the presentation, and it didn't resemble a triple or quad-core. It might have been the old A8 chip though, I don't have any images handy for comparison...

What hasn't been discussed enough so far in this discussion is Apple adding SMT. It was mentioned once early on I think, and then people sort of forgot about it. Them doing that could bring another 20%-ish of performance to the table in sufficiently threaded situations; intel chips certainly seem easily capable of ending up inside that envelope.

Yea this what ive been thinking for a long time, would be a great fit for big ARM cores IMO.

 

[iMacmatician]

On the other hand, I can't say I'm able to judge the number of cores from the image of the die shot I have seen. My limitations are not necessarily shared by others, and maybe there is a better image floating around, or the people who were there have a clearer picture of what was shown.

Here's a picture from the 1080p podcast video from Apple.

My guesses as to some of the components are below, besides the M9 whose location was given by Apple. The above picture is at native resolution, this one is upscaled.