All iPads iPad Air A14 Bionic

[Dave245]

It seems that the A14 Bionic benchmarks have appeared online. The results are very interesting, single core they beat the iPad Pro 2020 and multi-core they are less than the iPad Pro 2020, but not by much.

Fresh iPad Air 4 Performance Numbers Show the A14 Bionic Thrashing the Competition in Single, Multi-Core Workloads

If you were disappointed by the earlier A14 Bionic benchmark, here’s another look at the iPad Air 4 performance, and these figures are impressive

wccftech.com

iPad Air 4 - Single Core 1583, Multi-Core 4198
iPad Pro 2020 - Single-Core 1114, Multi-Core 4654

I think these scores are impressive, they are not that far behind the iPad Pro 2020. Personally I wasn't expecting the A14 Bionic to be that close in Multi-Core.

What do you guys think, are you impressed why these scores? will this seal the deal for you when deciding to buy the Air 4 or not?

 

[Digitalguy]

4200 is closer than expected, it's basically 10% slower in multicore and over 40% faster in single core... In general use it will feel faster than the current ipad pro, but it's not like it makes a difference, ipad pro is already fast enough. I guess it will feel like ipad pro 10.5 vs Air 3... Air 3 feels faster but the difference is small (there is also promotion, but that's not speed, that smoothness, 2 different things, I can feel the added smoothness in the 10.5 but the A12 still feels faster). Now when you move from A9 or A10, that's a much bigger jump...

 

[Shirasaki]

Judging by these scores, I am looking forward to A14X score more than before. That one should blow A14 out of the water easily.
Otherwise, A12X is still perfectly serviceable for most people and I am very happy with its performance on my iPad Pro 2018.

 

[snipr125]

Very impressive scores indeed. Significantly faster than the 2020 IPP in single core performance and just slightly behind in multi core but more efficient as the A14 is six core compared to the 8 core A12Z. The IPP 2020 is a powerhouse in terms of GPU performance though. It’s to be expected as the A14 is a brand new 5nm chip, and the A12z is 2 years old. Wish they would make the Air 4 available for purchase already!

 

[Dave245]

Judging by these scores, I am looking forward to A14X score more than before. That one should blow A14 out of the water easily.
Otherwise, A12X is still perfectly serviceable for most people and I am very happy with its performance on my iPad Pro 2018.

Very impressive scores indeed. Significantly faster than the 2020 IPP in single core performance and just slightly behind in multi core but more efficient as the A14 is six core compared to the 8 core A12Z. The IPP 2020 is a powerhouse in terms of GPU performance though. It’s to be expected as the A14 is a brand new 5nm chip, and the A12z is 2 years old. Wish they would make the Air 4 available for purchase already!

It makes me wonder if Apple are going to update the iPad Pro again. The A14X will be a monster inside the iPad Pro. As it stand the Air 4 and the 2020 iPad Pro are going to be very close.

Normally I wouldn’t believe that Apple would update the Pro again in the same year. Maybe it will be in early 2021 instead, but that leaves a while for the Air to be faster in single core.

I’m stuck in limbo, this A14 Air is faster than my 12.9” 2017 iPad Pro . I could wait for the next iPad Pro update with Mini-LED and so on, but the Air 4 would definitely do the job performance wise. It would just be a matter of going down from my 12.9” Pro screen. Decisions decisions

 

[Digitalguy]

Yeah A14 is still 6 cores (2 performance + 4 efficiency) vs A12X/Z 8 core (4 performance + 4 efficiency), with the 2 performance cores being over 40% faster, and the total 6 cores getting to 90% of the A12X performance (but 90% only when all core are used such as in some video editing apps and heavy multitasking, most of the time A14 will be over 100%, that is faster that A12X when the system will not (be able to) make use of all the cores). A14X will probably be 4+4, which means multicore should be around 55-60% faster (around 7300 in GB5, which is macbook pro 16 core i9 performance territory). And rumors about the Mac chips say it will have up to 12 cores (8 performance + 4 efficiency), which is a level of performance unheard of in laptops (13500 multicore, imac pro territory...). This definitely adds up with a single core of almost 1600, which is ahead of any desktop chip....

 

[AutomaticApple]

Judging by these scores, I am looking forward to A14X score more than before. That one should blow A14 out of the water easily.

Yeah, estimates already suggest so. I'm very excited!

 

[Dave245]

Yeah, estimates already suggest so. I'm very excited!

I just hope it’s not going to be a long wait! I want to see that A14X in the iPad Pro with Mini-LED!

 

[iLes]

Looking forward to running my simple performance test on the new Air when it’s released.

iPad Pro 2018 Performance

 

[Falhófnir]

The graphics scores (from another thread) are very interesting if accurate - the A14 contends with the A12Z, which is crazy. I wondered if Apple had something big in this area when they renewed their relationship with Imagination technologies - really impressive graphics cores will be a must for any A14 series based macs, and while they are very unlikely to put a vanilla A14 in one, the individual cores could be common across chips as they are between the A and AX chips currently.

 

[snipr125]

Yeah A14 is still 6 cores (2 performance + 4 efficiency) vs A12X/Z 8 core (4 performance + 4 efficiency), with the 2 performance cores being over 40% faster, and the total 6 cores getting to 90% of the A12X performance (but 90% only when all core are used such as in some video editing apps and heavy multitasking, most of the time A14 will be over 100%, that is faster that A12X when the system will not (be able to) make use of all the cores). A14X will probably be 4+4, which means multicore should be around 55-60% faster (around 7300 in GB5, which is macbook pro 16 core i9 performance territory). And rumors about the Mac chips say it will have up to 12 cores (8 performance + 4 efficiency), which is a level of performance unheard of in laptops (13500 multicore, imac pro territory...). This definitely adds up with a single core of almost 1600, which is ahead of any desktop chip....

digitalguy, slightly off topic here but do you think Apple will keep an Intel based Mac in its lineup for developers, like maybe the Mac Pro? They are going to need access to Windows after all right?

 

[Digitalguy]

digitalguy, slightly off topic here but do you think Apple will keep an Intel based Mac in its lineup for developers, like maybe the Mac Pro? They are going to need access to Windows after all right?

If you mean keep selling them for many years to come, no. Keep supporting them for many years yes. Latest rumors point to Macs having support for Windows on Arm via virtualization. Boot camp is dead. And the bootloader on the new apple silicon mac will be locked.
Having said that MS is going to support 64bit emulation soon. But that means that while you'll be able to run any Windows app on Apple silicon, it will be via virtualization +(in many cases) emulation, so performacne will take a hit.... (stil given the hardware performance, for non intensive app, it will be fine, just forget gaming on Windows on apple silicon...)
To answer more precisely your main question, only Apple knows when the cutoff with Intel macs will happen (= when they will stop selling any new Intel Mac...) and definitely the mac pro might be the last to be sold. Having said that I doubt they will sell it for over 3-4 more years since at some point MacOS will cutoff support for Intel Mac (based on the previous transition it will be in no less than 6-7 years from now however). And there will be Macs around sold from 3rd parties for longer than Apple and of course in the used market.... And even after the cutoff these macs will keep on working with Universal apps, just not with ARM only apps...