CES: GPU candidates for Apple's next iPad, iPhone are 20 times more powerful
Imagination Technologies announced on Tuesday that its next-generation PowerVR Series6 GPU core family, which could find their way into Apple's future iPhones and iPads, will offer 20 times more performance than the current generation.
The PowerVR G6200 and G6400 GPU IP cores are the first in the Power VR Series6 GPU family from Imagination Technologies. The chipmaker said its latest mobile processors are a new benchmark for high performance with low power consumption.
The G6200 will feature two compute clusters, while the G6400 will sport four clusters. Imagination Technologies said the chips will find their way into smartphones, tablets, PCs, consoles, cars, TVs and more.
Of course, one of the biggest users of Imagination Technologies chips is Apple, which features their graphics processors in its custom-built ARM CPUs that power the iPad, iPhone, iPod touch and even the Apple TV. The A5 chip found in the iPhone 4S has a GPU clocked at 800MHz, which is 73 percent faster than the A4 processor that powered the iPhone 4.
The new Series6 GPUs are based on the PowerVR Rogue architecture, which Imagination said will enable devices to provide "ultra-realistic gaming" and more complex applications. The Series6GPUs can deliver 20 times or more of the performance of current GPU cores through an architecture that is five times more efficient than previous generations.
"Based on our experience in shipping hundreds of millions of GPU cores, plus extensive market and customer feedback, we have been able to set a new standard in GPU architecture, particularly in the areas of power, bandwidth and efficiency -- the key metrics by which GPUs are now judged," Imagination Chief Executive Hossein Yassaie said. "We are confident that with the Rogue architecture we have a very clear technology advantage and an exceptional roadmap for the PowerVR Series6 family which our partners can depend on."
Imagination announced last June that the "Rogue" processors were being licensed to six partners. Apple was not named among those partners, but is a major shareholder in Imagination Technologies. AppleInsider first reported in 2008 that Apple had purchased a 3 percent stake in the company, and its share grew to 9.5 percent in 2009.
Though there haven't been any concrete indications about Apple's next-generation mobile processor, it's possible that a so-called "A6" chip, rumored to appear in Apple's third-generation iPad, could feature Imagination's Series6 GPUs. Apple is rumored to launch its next iPad in March, a year after the iPad 2 was introduced.
Comments
If true, holy cow! Twenty times more power ... Sheesh. This will make gaming pretty amazing.
sometimes benchmarks such as that mean that the max performance of all the registers etc on the chip are equal to 20 times the predecessor - which does not necessarily translate into 20 times the overall performance. especially when you consider bus interconnects and the rate at which bits can be pumped into and out of the unit. CPUs for example have a given number of registers available to process bits in every tic of the clock - but if the threads running don't have data that needs to be processed by a given register in a given tick of the clock - that component goes unused for that tic of the clock.
in addition - there may be capabilities in the chip that only a subset of applications will use - anyone remember Alti-Vec?
not trying to be a downer here and I certainly do not know the technical details of either the current or the future chips - just pouting out that typical bench-marketing has a long history of taking the single data point that looks best in a presentation and promoting that - when in reality the truth is something more like maybe twice the overall performance in a real world setting with some operations seeing no benefit and special cases with re-written code getting that advantage.
also keep in mind the weakest link in the chain is often what determines the user experience and to fully utilize the new chip may also require other components to be upgraded as well before the full benefit is realized.
Showing OpenGL ES benchmarks are now old generation.
On the fly augmented reality matching 3D models with real world objects making for millimeter^3 precision in physical positions.
Want to fix your car, bring up the virtual mechanic who will highlight where to look for what.
Want to locate a name at the The Wall? (Vietnam Vets memorial) Point the phone camera at it, it will highlight it.
Want to find a person in a crowd who wants to find you too? Their phone will help your phone do it and it will be real world visual, not birds eye view pin positions.
Just think of the MMOG applications!
It takes a distinct lack of willingness to imagine to think that mobile GPU power isn't usable.
http://www.intomobile.com/2011/02/22...et-crazy-fast/
http://www.itproportal.com/2011/02/1...gpx-fill-rate/
http://www.itproportal.com/2011/02/1...graphics-leap/
Of course, with claims like those you're better off waiting for benchmarks. Anyone would still be dumbfounded with a 20x performance increase.
I would have guessed that Apple would use a SGX543MP4+ (like that used in the Sony PlaystationVita, along with quad-core ARM Cortex-A9) and hold off on the SGX 600 series for 2013 products.
Hey, if they're plan to use the SGX 600 for 2012 iOS products, maybe there's hope that Apple will also incorporate dual-core ARM Cortex-A15s (instead of quad-core ARM Cortex-A9), which is more power efficient and a better performer.
If both of these are delivered, what's coming in 2013?
Oh, Intel. All your eggs in one basket: Windows PCs.
And iMacs, and Power Macs, and MacBook Pros, and MacBook Airs, and several components (other than CPUs) in iPods, iPhones and iPads. And data centers, and IT services, and really, they're actually a research company.
Also don't be surprised if relatively soon, Intel does start fabbing and even co-designing the SOCs for iPods, iPhones, iPads and Apple TVs as well.
If true, holy cow! Twenty times more power ... Sheesh. This will make gaming pretty amazing.
The specs of the chip put it in the region of the Geforce 540M GPU:
http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-...M.41715.0.html
This isn't too far off the 6750M in the entry 15" MBP. Add in 1GB of shared memory and you'll be able to play pretty much every desktop game out today.
The current state of mobile graphics is already decent:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4Grut2xr1Q
and we're starting to see some full game ports like GTA 3. Maybe we'll get a large back-catalog of PC games ported over to iOS. It should easily handle the full Modern Warfare titles although games will probably be downsized to prevent hefty download times or even split into parts.
On the fly augmented reality matching 3D models with real world objects making for millimeter^3 precision in physical positions.
Want to fix your car, bring up the virtual mechanic who will highlight where to look for what.
Want to locate a name at the The Wall? (Vietnam Vets memorial) Point the phone camera at it, it will highlight it.
Want to find a person in a crowd who wants to find you too? Their phone will help your phone do it and it will be real world visual, not birds eye view pin positions.
Just think of the MMOG applications!
It takes a distinct lack of willingness to imagine to think that mobile GPU power isn't usable.
Interesting ideas and no offence, but this seems like all pie-in-the-sky futurist stuff to me.
There's "lack of willingness to imagine" and there is "my imagination is working so hard I have no clue what's real anymore."
The extra graphic power touted here is basically all about games.
This other stuff won't arrive until iPhone version 15 or so.
Oh, Intel. All your eggs in one basket: Windows PCs.
Agree. Intel got fat, happy, and lazy over the past two decades. An entire generation of Intel employees has no idea what it means to actually compete. Intel crushed AMD by designing their compiler to create sub-optimal code that crippled anything other than genuine Intel CPUs. They won the "megahertz race" against PowerPC by ramping their clock speed while lengthening their instruction pipeline. With no effective performance improvement for end-users.
And now all they're doing is milking the old x86 design for as long as they can get away with it. They're running into the wall with respect to Moore's Law. Sure, they might still be doubling transistor density every two years, as Moore's Law predicts. But the benefit to the end user from that doubling is negligible.
Oh wait. I said "all they're doing is milking the old x86 design." That's not true. They're also getting crushed in the GPU market, with no foreseeable end to that particular misery. It's getting so bad that they actually faked an Ivy Bridge graphics demo. On stage, at CES, with the tech media in full attendance. An Intel stooge pretended to play a game being displayed on a large screen behind him when, in fact, it was a pre-rendered video playback. The VLC media player control panel was the giveaway. He even admitted that the demo was being run "from backstage."
And one more thing: Intel is dead on arrival in the mobile market. The hottest market. The market that is being overrun by ARM-based devices. And no amount of fake demos or outright lies can hide that fact.
Intel Atom - Big in netbooks. But netbooks are a dying breed, a holdover from the 20th century.
Intel Tegra - An inefficient, power-hungry ARM implementation. Used in quite a few failed Android pads.
If Intel doesn't up their game, they'll be left behind, along with Microsoft. Stuck in the past, when desktop computing was the freshest thing cracking. Trying to relive the glory days of the '80s and '90s and failing. Times change.
And iMacs, and Power Macs, and MacBook Pros, and MacBook Airs, and several components (other than CPUs) in iPods, iPhones and iPads. And data centers, and IT services, and really, they're actually a research company.
Also don't be surprised if relatively soon, Intel does start fabbing and even co-designing the SOCs for iPods, iPhones, iPads and Apple TVs as well.
Intel makes for pc and mac
Intel is positioning itself to compete directly with arm. They will eventually make for android and hopefully apple.
Interesting ideas and no offence, but this seems like all pie-in-the-sky futurist stuff to me.
Sorry, I can't let this stand. The iPhone itself, with it's insane screen, processing and graphics power and connectivity would have been considered "pie in the sky" vision stuff 5 years ago. Things are moving so fast and developers are finding ways to use whatever can be offered them. Hiro may not have the specifics (though they look interesting to me) but I have no doubt that power will be used--and fast...
Sorry, I can't let this stand. The iPhone itself, with it's insane screen, processing and graphics power and connectivity would have been considered "pie in the sky" vision stuff 5 years ago. Things are moving so fast and developers are finding ways to use whatever can be offered them. Hiro may not have the specifics (though they look interesting to me) but I have no doubt that power will be used--and fast...
disagree. Technology is progressing just fine. iphone is not pie in the ski technology.
was in japan. They have 75 mg LTE with 32 mg as the norm.
Now that I think about it... Apple should reinvest in ARM again as well.
Oh, Intel. All your eggs in one basket: Windows PCs.
In the sense that Intel need Windows 8 to be a success in order to maintain the status quo, yes.
However Intel doing stuff outside of Windows, see the Medfield Smartphone Reference Design and Lenovo Medfield Tablet.
They also have the best fabs on the planet, and if x86 tanks I wouldn't be surprised to see them fall back on ARM.