Apple iPad Air 2 GPU benchmarks are out: graphics neck and neck with Nexus 9's Tegra K1

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After seeing the first preliminary results from the iPad Air 2 testing revealing that the Apple A8X uses a peculiar, tri-core CPU, today the company’s new tablet appeared on GFX Bench, showing off its capabilities as a gaming device.

Silicon battles have definitely heated up this fall as Apple’s A8X arrives with a whopping 3 billion transistors, and chances are that it is also one of the first to come with Imagination Technologies’ new PowerVR GX6650 GPU with six clusters (up from the four-cluster GX6450 on the A7).

The biggest rival on the GPU and gaming front on the Android side of the fence is the Tegra K1 chip with Kepler graphics, a chip used in the upcoming Google Nexus 9. Nvidia uses a different approach to graphics with Kepler so there is no use comparing the small, 192 shader cores directly with the large, hexa-cluster setup on the Img Tec’s GPU, but benchmarks do testify that performance-wise, the two are neck to neck. Take a look below:

*iPad Air 2,Nexus 9 results are preliminary
If the T-Rex HD component of GFXBench is demanding,then the Manhattan test is downright gruelling.It's a GPU-centric test that simulates an extremely graphically intensive gaming environment that is meant to push the GPU to the max. that simulates a graphically-intensive gaming environment on the screen. The results achieved are measured in frames per second, with more frames being better.
Higher is better
Apple iPhone 6
25.8
Samsung Galaxy Note4
11.2
Google Nexus 9
22
Apple iPad Air
9.1
Apple iPad Air 2
24.1

*iPad Air 2,Nexus 9 results are preliminary
Higher is better
Apple iPhone 6
17.8
Samsung Galaxy Note4
18.5
Google Nexus 9
29.9
Apple iPad Air
13.1
Apple iPad Air 2
32.4

*iPad Air 2,Nexus 9 results are preliminary
The T-Rex HD component of GFXBench is a demanding,GPU-centric test that simulates a graphically-intensive gaming environment on the screen.The results achieved are measured in frames per second,with more frames being better.
Higher is better
Apple iPhone 6
48.9
Samsung Galaxy Note4
25.9
Google Nexus 9
41
Apple iPad Air
23.2
Apple iPad Air 2
52.2

*iPad Air 2,Nexus 9 results are preliminary
Higher is better
Apple iPhone 6
42.3
Google Nexus 9
55
Apple iPad Air
28.7
Apple iPad Air 2
70.4


Let’s also not forget that real-life performance is also dependant on software and here come APIs like Apple’s new Metal for graphics that promises to be up to 10x faster, and Nvidia’s CUDA. For all it’s worth, these two new chips are certainly setting a new standard for mobile graphics.


source: GFXBench via GSM Arena
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