The Apple iPad Air 2 Review
by Joshua Ho on November 7, 2014 9:30 AM EST- Posted in
- Tablets
- Apple
- Mobile
- iOS
- ipad Air 2
GPU Performance
On the GPU side of things the iPad Air 2 seems to have a GX6650, which should provide a healthy boost to GPU performance when compared to the GX6450 in the A8. Apple has placed a strong emphasis on gaming for their iPad line, so there are some obvious comparisons to be made between NVIDIA's Tegra K1 and the A8X as well. To test this, we use a suite of benchmarks that can give a good idea of real world gaming performance.
In practice, while we see that the A8X's GPU is extremely close to Nvidia's single Kepler SMX across the board, with the sole exception of 3DMark which seems to be due to the dependencies present in the physics test that dramatically lower the overall score. NVIDIA's Tegra K1 seemed incredible for its GPU performance earlier this year, so it's just as surprising to see Apple successfully rival NVIDIA in this area. Of course, GPU performance is a function of both peak performance and sustained performance, so we'll have to look at the GFXBench battery rundown test to get the full picture here. If Apple can deliver far superior performance and battery life in such a situation, it's pretty clear that the jump to 20nm will be critical to pushing the limits on what's possible in a mobile device.
NAND Performance
As we've seen before on some tablets, poor storage performance can cause major issues with the overall experience as I/O pauses can far exceed just a few frame drops that one might expect from cases of UI lag induced by insufficient performance elsewhere. In order to attempt to quantify this performance we use a custom utility developed by Eric Patno. While such testing is far from a complete look at performance, this can give a rough idea of what to expect.
Overall, it seems that Apple does quite well on the storage tests. It seems that the iPad Air 2 shares its storage solution with the iPhone 6. While I don't have an iPad Air on hand for testing, it should match quite closely to the iPhone 5s. This represents a generally high-quality NAND solution, but as mentioned before random I/O could stand to improve a bit. Compared to most of the lower-cost Android tablets it's definitely as good as it gets though.
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Reckoning - Friday, November 7, 2014 - link
That's cool. Enjoy having a slower device because of your prejudice and ignorance.blackcrayon - Friday, November 7, 2014 - link
Well you almost get your wish, the Nexus 9 seems fine in benchmarks but it lags as if it offers half the performance... Count me in the list of people who use software on a device other than the "OS".darwinosx - Friday, November 7, 2014 - link
Poor hughlle knows nothing about iOS and probably not much about Android. The Nexus 9 has been trashed in one review after another including Android sites like Android Police.What do you like about Android? The malware? The inferior app quality? I know, Google monitoring and selling to advertisers all your activity! Awsum! Maybe fragmentation? How about terrible build quality and support? So much to like....
sonicmerlin - Friday, November 7, 2014 - link
I'm curious if lollipop finally got rid of android's lag and garbage collection stuttering. Otherwise I'll stick to iOS.NEDM64 - Sunday, November 9, 2014 - link
Lollipop can't get rid of garbage collection alone, all apps would have to be rewritten.rdjg22 - Saturday, November 8, 2014 - link
Yes, because Android is so optimized for tablets. I'm an android fanboy too when it comes to phones (N5 is my daily driver), but you'd have to be a blind and dumb fanboy to think android offers a better tablet experience.KoolAidMan1 - Tuesday, November 11, 2014 - link
You choose an OS with substandard apps, weak developer support, and almost no tablet optimized apps over a platform with faster hardware and better apps in every single category?Weird.
TechShark - Wednesday, December 17, 2014 - link
amazon has the iPad Air 2 for $50 off. http://bit.ly/13dl0ssJRX16 - Wednesday, January 7, 2015 - link
I played around with a Nexus 9 recently and found it disappointing. You couldn't pay me to take that over an iPad Air 2. Browsing a graphics heavy website like The Verge was almost impossible, the lag and stutter was unacceptable and made it unusable. With so much power, something is dramatically wrong with either Android or Chrome that it can't handle a website that an old iPad 4 handled with ease. Also, stock Android Lollipop has zero tablet features so it has no benefits over iOS. At least Samsung adds things to make use of the larger screen like split screen multitasking or windowed multitasking. But then their tablets are terrible in terms of performance and battery life. Can't win. The iPad remains king because it gets so much so right.bmbw2010 - Friday, November 7, 2014 - link
I'd love to see what performance they could get out of an A8X in Apple TV hardware, with some higher clock speeds and better cooling.