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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MaxIT - Saturday, February 13, 2016 - link
Reality check: the "nonplussed" product sold more than the well established surface pro in the last quarter.... So maybe you are just expressing YOUR opinion, and not "everyone's "....lilmoe - Friday, January 22, 2016 - link
The performance is "great" for iOS, FTFY. It would suffer on anything "Pro"....ddriver - Friday, January 22, 2016 - link
Performance is better than a high end workstation from 10 years ago, a system which was capable of running professional tasks which are still nowhere to be found on mobile platforms. And it has nothing to do with performance. It has to do with forcing a shift in the market, from devices used by their owners to devices, being used by their makers to exploit their owners commercially. And professional productivity just ain't it. Not content creation but content consumption. People flew in space using kilohertz computers with kilobytes of memory, today we have gigahertz and gigabytes in our pockets, and the best we can do with it is duck face photos. That's what apple did to computing, and other companies are getting on that train as well, seeing how profitable it is to exploit society, it is in nobody's interest to empower it.Phantom_Absolute - Friday, January 22, 2016 - link
I just created an account here to say...well said my friendlilmoe - Friday, January 22, 2016 - link
I was trying really hard to understand what you were trying to say.Computers didn't get us to the moon. They sure helped, a LOT, but it was good ole rockets that did.
Anyway, point is (and I exaggerate), even if you shrink the latest 8 core Xeon E3 coupled with the fastest Nvidia Quattro into a 3-5W envelope and stick in an iPad, it won't make it anything close to a "Pro" product. It's about overall FUNCTION.
An iPad "Pro" with a revamped version of iOS, more standard ports, and a SLOWER SoC would be a much better "Pro" product than what we have here.
Even Android sucks for Pro tablets. Only Microsoft has a thing here.
ddriver - Friday, January 22, 2016 - link
What I am trying to say is mobile hardware IS INDEED capable of running professional workloads. Of course it won't be the bloated contemporary workstation software, but people have ran workstation software on slower machines than that, and it was useful. So yes, this device has enough performance for professional tasks. There is no hardware lacking, only the software is.I can assure you, no matter how many rockets you have, you will never reach the moon absent computer guidance. The rocket is merely power, but without control, power never constructive and always destructive.
lilmoe - Friday, January 22, 2016 - link
"There is no hardware lacking""The rocket is merely power, but without control, power never constructive and always destructive"
You seem convinced that you can be productive on a screen with only a fast SoC attached. I don't know where to start.
With all due respect, your analogies are ridiculously irrelevant (hence why I was having trouble understanding them). Workstations in the past had much more FUNCTION that any iPad today. IT'S NOT ONLY ABOUT THE COMPUTING POWER. These workstations, despite lacking power by today's standards, were built with certain function in mind, and were used for their intended tasks.
iPads are consumption devices, first and foremost. Apple did nothing for "computing", but they did a lot for consumerism. iDevices got popular because they addressed consumption needs by lots of consumers that they didn't even know they needed/wanted, I'll give them that. But Apple's *speed* of forcing "new technology" on people's throats, and turning perfectly functional products unusable is unprecedented, and bad. Your "Pro" device is NO exception, and isn't going to last, nor function, as long as the _workstations from 10 years ago_...
The Pro moniker is being abused. What does it even mean now? Relative speed? Function? Value? Multiple products in one? I don't know anymore. But I'd like to believe that Microsoft's definition of a Pro products sounds easier on my ears.
You seem to be extremely sold on marketed idea that disposable technology with a timed bomb to obsolescence is a good thing. Technology that does nothing but harm the industry and its consumers. To each their own I guess.
ddriver - Friday, January 22, 2016 - link
You are ridiculously ignorant. Both a workstation from 10 years ago and this product are in terms of hardware general purpose computers. What specifies one as a workstation and another as a content consumption device is the software that runs on that general purpose computer. A 10000$ contemporary workstation would only be good for content consumption without the workstation grade software. Much the same way that this device can be good enough for workstation use with the proper software. Once again, clean up your ears - there is no limitation on a hardware level. It is all about the software.Your problem with understanding my analogies stems from the fact you are a narrow minded person, and this is not an insult but a sad fact, most propel are, it is not your fault, it is something done to you, something you are yet to overcome. You are not capable of outside the box thinking, you are conceptually limited to only what is in the box. Why is why you perceive outside the box opinions as alien and hard to understand.
lilmoe - Friday, January 22, 2016 - link
lol, I should really convert to the Apple religion just to stop being ignorant. Take care man.ddriver - Friday, January 22, 2016 - link
You should just sit down and carefully reevaluate your whole life, I mean if "apple religion" is what you were able to take out of all the apple bashing I went through :D Since you obviously missed that obvious thing, let me put it out directly - I am criticizing apple for crippling good hardware to useless toys.