The Apple iPad Pro Review
by Ryan Smith, Joshua Ho & Brandon Chester on January 22, 2016 8:10 AM ESTSystem Performance Cont'd
Continuing on with our more game-like benchmarks, tests like 3DMark and GFXBench are supposed to replicate gaming workloads to help determine relative performance in most common 3D games. In the case of the iPad Pro, the GPU is a 12 cluster variant of the PowerVR Series7XT GPU architecture. This is double the number of clusters relative to the A9’s GPU, which should prove to be quite impressive judging by the GPU performance that we saw in the iPhone 6s.
The iPad Pro manages to maintain superiority in 3DMark, but we're really starting to see the limitations of this test. The physics test generates non-sequential data structures with memory dependencies, which can penalize devices with lower core count and clock speed, but the workload is able to be spread across multiple cores to exploit TLP, which benefits devices with more real cores, or virtual ones (hyperthreading). We also see that the graphics test isn't really scaling well at this point as it's just too light to take advantage of the full potential of the A9X GPU. This likely also explains why the iPad Pro isn't closer to the Surface Pro 4 in performance on this benchmark, given what we know about A9X's GPU.
In GFXBench we can see the major benefits that really come with the larger GPU. It's pretty obvious here that clock speeds are basically identical when comparing the A9 GPU and A9X GPU as the scaling is almost perfectly double. In this benchmark the iPad Pro quite handily beats the Surface Pro 4, but it's important to keep in mind that the Surface Pro 4 is running a higher level of precision and that the iPad Pro is running OpenGL ES rather than OpenGL in this test, so it isn't strictly apples-to-apples (nor is such a thing truly possible at this time). Overall though the GPU of the iPad Pro is incredibly impressive, and I doubt that anyone will really have issues with gaming performance on this device.
NAND Performance
At this point it’s pretty well understood that storage performance can often be a gating factor in performance. Although caching is an amazingly effective method of hiding memory latency, for the first hit it’s mandatory to miss the cache unless you’ve managed to prefetch the data in question. The other issue where storage performance becomes obvious are cases where it’s necessary to commit data to storage first. Some cases where this is going to be obvious is app installation or iCloud restores, especially when network performance is at the point where installation can actually be gated by writing to disk rather than downloading from the network.
In the case of the iPad Pro, Apple claims that they’ve implemented a storage controller comparable to some desktop SSDs. It turns out that this controller is a familiar one, as the storage controller identifies itself as the APPLE SSD AP0128K in the case of this review unit. It turns out that everything about this SSD is identical to what we saw in the iPhone 6s as well, down the use of Hynix for at least one of the NAND vendors and the hybrid SLC/TLC architecture discussed in previous articles. In order to test how this storage solution performs we once again use Eric Patno’s StorageBench, which provides a rough analogue to AndroBench 3.6.
It turns out that in this test, performance is basically identical to the iPhone 6s. This isn’t quite the equal of something like the Surface Pro 4’s PM951 SSD, which has the advantage of more NAND dies working in parallel, but given that the iPad Pro PCB size isn’t going to be anywhere near that of the Surface Pro 4 it’s likely that this is a concession to gain better battery life. I definitely wonder what performance would be like relative to a Surface Pro 4 if the iPad Pro had a 512GB SKU, but given that the iPad Pro tops out at 128GB this isn’t really a question with a relevant answer.
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glenn.tx - Saturday, January 23, 2016 - link
I mean't CAN"T be ignored :0MaxIT - Saturday, February 13, 2016 - link
There is absolutely no way I could (or would) use a Surface Pro as my primary laptop (or even tablet)...digiguy - Saturday, January 23, 2016 - link
I don't think anyone is saying that ipad pro is the only game in town. At least not me. As you can see I am a "multi-device" guy. I don't believe in one device for everything. And all my devices and synced via dropbox + onedrive + sugarsync.I have several activities and a lot of what I do is done via a computer. No surface pro/book or other clone could replace my main device, the one I spend most time on and from which I am writing, a 17 inch quad core i7 with 16GB of RAM, 2 SSDs, 1 HHD, lots of ports etc. I am a heavy multi-tasker and 8GB or a dual core are sometimes not enough.
But my quad core stays at home and I also work on the go (teach at university, among other things) and travel, so I have my SP3 for when I work on the go and my 14 inch ultrabook for travelling (better on my lap and on a plane).
So each device has a role and I would never dream of replacing any laptop with the ipad pro... I think very few people buy the ipad pro with this objective. For what I use it for ipad pro beats SP3 on a lot of things (size, sound, weight, touch optimization) and that’s why I bought it.
Constructor - Saturday, January 23, 2016 - link
Yeah, when backward desktop compatibility is the primary thing you need.The whole point of contention her is that some people overgeneralize their own needs to apply to absolutely every professional user, which is simply not the case.
An iPad (Pro or otherwise) can very well be a professional tool, especially when flexibility of use, portability and ease of use are critical, but of course there will still be cases where other computers will be better suited. Just not exclusively any more by a long shot.
Murloc - Sunday, January 24, 2016 - link
you won't find that kind of people (pure office workers who only need the office ecosystem and sync everything to the cloud and have no need for other software or usb ports) commenting on this review.glenn.tx - Saturday, January 23, 2016 - link
"I didn’t really notice that it had gotten significantly harder to handle in the hands than an iPad Air 2"... Are you kidding me? Find me someone else that agrees with this opinion. Every other review of the Pro notes that it's a bit unwieldy. I wish I could find another quality technical source for reviews other than Anandtech because the bias for Apple is gushing.KPOM - Saturday, January 23, 2016 - link
Most sites have said that the weight balance is good.Constructor - Saturday, January 23, 2016 - link
Most people who have handled mine have remarked how light it is relative to what they expected at its size, and that reflects my own impression as well.Of course it's bigger and heavier than an iPad Air 2, but "harder to handle" is something I can't really get together with the actual device. It's just A4-sized like any ordinary paper magazine. If you can't cope with that, you must have major problems anyway.
digiguy - Saturday, January 23, 2016 - link
I would say that the air you can hold it from one side for as long as you like, the ipad pro you'll probably want to hold it like a pizza if for more that a few seconds, but if you hold it like that you can hold it for long without feeling tired. That's not a big issue IMO.Constructor - Saturday, January 23, 2016 - link
Even prolonged sessions playing Real Racing for several hours (where it's held free without support with both hands because it also acts as the steering wheel) have not been a major problem yet.Yes, holding it with one hand at one edge is not ideal, but it's just like a stiff A4 note pad in general. Not a big problem.
One great feature is that the microfiber back side of the Smart Cover sticks very firmly to any kind of fabric, so it's perfectly comfortable to cross my legs and put the iPad on my thigh, without touching it with my hands at all. It just stays there very securely (even on a train) as if glued in place.
Actually much more comfortable than any book or magazine I've ever read while sitting down (which you always have to keep from slipping away and from trying to close by itself).
It is also very useful when typing on my lap with the onscreen keyboard, where it also prevents the iPad from slipping all over the place.
I don't know if that was explicitly a design goal, but it's definitely a great advantage and one of the reasons why I can very much recommend the regular Smart Cover. (The one for my previous iPad 3 had survived four years of regular use with minimal wear already.)