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NVIDIA disputes Apple's claim that A5X processor outperforms Tegra 3
During yesterday's Apple event, senior VP of worldwide marketing Phil Schiller took the stage to tout the power of the new A5X processor that inhabits the innards of the latest iPad. Schiller stood in front of a chart showing the relative graphics performance of the NVIDIA Tegra 3, the Apple A5 (2x the performance of the Tegra 3), and the new A5X (4x the performance). Not surprisingly, NVIDIA is now taking exception to Apple's claims about the performance of the A5X. NVIDIA spokesman Ken Brown was quoted on ZDNet as saying that "We don't have the benchmark information. We have to understand what the application was that was used. Was it one or a variety of applications? What drivers were used? There are so many issues to get into with benchmark." As a result, NVIDIA is planning to get a new iPad once they hit the streets on March 16 to do some comparisons. Says Brown, "At some point it will become more clear what the performance really is. For now, Apple has a really generic statement." To quote our very own Chris Rawson, "Prediction: Once NVIDIA runs A5X benchmarks and finds out it trounces the Tegra 3, we hear nothing more from them about it." What do you think, TUAW reader? Do head-to-head benchmarks of GPUs really make that much of a difference to your purchase decision? [via BGR]
iPad 3 logic board with 'A5X' chip purportedly snapped by Mr. Not-so-Blurrycam
Well, if it looks real, sounds real and is halfway logical, we probably should distrust it all the more. Yes, it's the time when all the rumors, photoshops and general hysteria around Apple's next slab reaches its apex. The photo above was grabbed by the steady hand of sas126, a blurrycam snapper in name only, and posted to Chinese site Weiphone, purporting to be the logic board for the iPad 3. The big news (if true) is the "A5X" silicon, suggesting we'll see an incremental enhancement rather than the wholesale revolutions evident in the A4 and A5 chips that accompanied its predecessors. The SoC (with the Apple logo, to the right of the two Hynix memory modules) carries a date-stamp of 1146, suggesting it was produced in the 46th week of last year. Of course, now that we're getting so close to the actual event, whatever Tim Cook whips out on stage will never match whatever we'd conjured up on our own hearts: so try to dampen down that rampant excitement because we've still got 17 days left to wait.
