Apple iPad 2 GPU Performance Explored: PowerVR SGX543MP2 Benchmarked
by Anand Lal Shimpi on March 12, 2011 3:04 PM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Apple
- iPad
- GLBenchmark
- iPad 2
- Mobile
- Tablets
GLBenchmark 2.0
GLBenchmark 2.0—as its name implies—tests OpenGL ES 2.0 performance on compatible devices. The suite includes two long benchmarking scenarios with a demanding combination of OpenGL ES 2.0 effects - texture based and direct lighting, bump, environment, and radiance mapping, soft shadows, vertex shader based skinning, level of detail support, multi-pass deferred rendering, noise textures, and ETC1 texture compression.
GLBenchmark 2.0 is the best example of an even remotely current 3D game running on this class of hardware—and even then this is a stretch. If you want an idea of how the PowerVR SGX 543MP2 stacks up to the competition however, GLBenchmark 2.0 is probably going to be our best bet (at least until we get Epic to finally release an Unreal Engine benchmark).
Without AA, the Egypt test runs at 5.4x the frame rate of the original iPad. It's even 3.7x the speed of the Tegra 2 in the Xoom running at 1280 x 800 (granted that's an iOS vs. Android comparison as well).
With AA enabled the iPad 2 advantage grows to 7x. In a game with the complexity of the Egypt test the original iPad wouldn't be remotely playable while the iPad 2 could run it smoothly.
The Pro test is a little more reasonable, showing a 3 - 4x increase in performance compared to the original iPad:
While we weren't able to reach the 9x figure claimed by Apple (I'm not sure that you'll ever see 9x running real game code), a range of 3 - 7x in GLBenchmark 2.0 is more reasonable. In practice I'd expect something less than 5x but that's nothing to complain about. We'll be doing power analysis over the weekend so expect more detail in our full review.
Putting the PowerVR SGX 543MP2 to Use: Infinity Blade
As we pointed out in our iPad 2 Preview, at least one developer already picked up on the amount of extra GPU horsepower in the new iPad 2. Epic put out an updated version of Infinity Blade with support for the iPad 2. Run it on an iPad and you'll get the same old Infinity Blade, but run it on an iPad 2 and you'll get more detail, higher resolution textures and anti-aliasing.
Remember that iPad and iPhone devices are more closed than your PC. There's no adjusting detail settings or resolution, so the target frame rate is usually what's fixed. Developers are simply able to deliver a better looking experience at roughly the same frame rate with upgraded hardware. In the case of Infinity Blade, load times are reduced thanks to the Cortex A9 CPU cores and there is some improvement in frame rate but the biggest impact comes from the improved visuals.
Below is the comparison beween Infinity Blade on the iPad and iPad 2 we ran in this morning's preview:
Mouse over to see Infinity Blade on the iPad 2
There's far more detail in the character models as well as the environment. Lighting looks improved and the AA is definitely appreciated.
Mouse over to see Infinity Blade on the iPad 2
The gallery below has a bunch of side by side shots showing the improvements made to Infinity Blade for the iPad 2 vs. what you get when you run the game on a first generation iPad.
To Be Concluded...
We're still hard at work on our full iPad 2 review. We've got no less than four units running through battery life tests right now and there's still more to talk about in the review. We'll keep you posted, thanks for reading!
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tipoo - Saturday, March 12, 2011 - link
Way more powerful than the PSP, and eons ahead of the DS. The PSP2/NGP will use the quad core version of this same GPU though.TEAMSWITCHER - Saturday, March 12, 2011 - link
The Android fan-boys have spent a good deal of smack-talk on the Tegra-2 processor. I assumed they knew what they were talking about, and the iPad 2 would be a bit anemic in the graphics department. This is a huge revelation - I hope more mainstream web sites pick up on this story.bplewis24 - Saturday, March 12, 2011 - link
If you didn't see this coming you probably don't have the best grasp of the subject matter. It has been very clear for a while that the PowerVR SGX543 would be better than the GeForce ULV GPU in Tegra2.The CPUs are fairly close in performance, with Tegra 2 generally maintaining an edge in the synthetic benchmarks so far. Go read other reviews (including on this site) for that info, but the GPU performance of the A5 SoC is superior.
The "smack talk" was not wrong, your interpretation of it was. And until we get the full iPad2 review from Anandtech, it still remains to be seen which overall hardware/software package is better. Remember, the Xoom has Android 3.0 while iOS 4.3 is still pretty much inferior from a tablet perspective.
Brandon
TEAMSWITCHER - Saturday, March 12, 2011 - link
Sorry, I didn't fully understand the subtleties of low-voltage GPU specifications. I was under the impression that the Xoom and other Android tablets would have more competitive silicon - maybe the others will.solipsism - Sunday, March 13, 2011 - link
"Remember, the Xoom has Android 3.0 while iOS 4.3 is still pretty much inferior from a tablet perspective.”Remember, that’s a load of crap. Apple designed iOS for iPad long before Honeycomb was even on Google’s radar. The fact is that iOS for iPad is much better designed for the tablet than any other mobile OS on the market. Android 3.0 as some nice features but it’s still playing performance catch up to an iPad OS that was demoed over a year ago.
UltimateTruth - Monday, March 14, 2011 - link
"Honeycomb" was in development for tablets for several years. Long before the iPad. Having some tweaks,the iOS is really no different on the iPad than it is on the iPhone. It's the SAME OS!solipsism - Monday, March 14, 2011 - link
Same OS as on Macs? Sure, they all use Darwin.Same CocoaTouch development platform for the main I/O? Sure, they are both iOS?
Same OS that can be moved from device to the other with only a few tweaks as you suggest? Not even close. We’re talking an entirely new UI to accommodate the aspect ratio, size and pixel density differences.
bplewis24 - Tuesday, March 15, 2011 - link
So, Anand's Xoom/Honeycomb review is a "load of crap" huh? Maybe you should check it out:"Simply put: the Xoom puts the iPad to shame. Particularly over WiFi the web browsing experience is just awesome. It’s like using a netbook, which in this case isn’t meant as a knock but rather a compliment.
It’s not all about performance though, functionally the Honeycomb Browser is a huge improvement over anything else out there: it supports tabbed browsing. I can’t stress how much better this makes browsing on a tablet. "
"Honeycomb feels a lot like Google’s take on iOS without sacrificing any of what makes Android unique. It’s a healthy combination of the appliance-like iOS without giving up any of the user facing customization & flexibility that Android users love."
"I’m impressed with what Google has done with the UI. It’s a definite modernization of what Android is all about. There are elements of the Android UI we’re used to within Honeycomb but they aren’t all that prevalent at the surface. This looks and feels like a brand new OS for Google."
"Am I more likely to use the Xoom than the iPad? Yes. The hardware is faster but more importantly, the software is better suited for multitasking. I’m a bigger fan of Honeycomb’s multitasking UI & notification system compared to the double-tap-home and passive notifications you get with the iPad and iOS. I can be more productive with the Xoom than I can be with the iPad as a result. I don’t believe Honeycomb’s UI is perfect by any means, it’s just more multitasking oriented than iOS is at this point."
Nice try, though.
rquick - Sunday, March 13, 2011 - link
"Remember, the Xoom has Android 3.0 while iOS 4.3 is still pretty much inferior from a tablet perspective." That was a joke, right? Pretty funny.metafor - Monday, March 14, 2011 - link
Actually, as an iOS user who played with Honeycomb for the first time a week back, I have to say, iOS is showing its age. It was a great interface for its time but many advances (better notifications, widgets, stacks, homescreens, fast multitasking, consolidation of different social networking feeds, etc..) in other OS's UI's like WebOS, WP7 and now Android have pretty much surpassed it.Time will tell if iOS will change to catch up to these features. Folders are godawful and awkward; that and program switching seem "tacked on" rather than an intuitive part of the OS. Then there's the lack of consolidated hubs, which makes checking facebook, then email, then thumblr kinda cumbersome.