Benchmark proves iPad 2 is twice as powerful as original tablet claims Daring Fireball
As part of a wider review of Apple's iPad 2 which is now on sale in the US technology blogger John Gruber of Daring Fireball has taken a detailed look at the tablet's graphical prowess.
Running a custom test app writen by iOS developer Guy English, both parties were able to draw one, major conclusion: from a developer perspective, iPad 2 is easily twice as powerful as its predecessor.
Testing the waters
The app, which renders up to a few thousand sprites moving around the screen, suggests iPad 2's graphical improvements go beyond those developers might typically expect from the new CPU.
"On my original iPad, with 200 on-screen sprites, the framerate dropped to 45 fps," Gruber reports in the entry.
"On the iPad 2, with 400 on-screen sprites, the framerate remained at 65 fps. On the iPad 1, Guy's demo app dropped below 60 fps with about 100 animated sprites; on the iPad 2, it didnt drop below 60 fps until there were over 750 animated sprites."
Apps on the up
The most important element for developers, however, is that improvements will be evident in existing apps, written for the original iPad.
Studios won't need to alter code to see a performance upgrade in their titles.
"The results show that the iPad 2 is easily about twice as powerful as the original and that this speed gain is a freebie you dont need to change your code structure in order to see significant gains," English, who has worked as a contractor for Tapulous and Disney, told the site.
"The differences in the amount of time spent rendering indicates that the GPU is really much faster than the original. The original iPad had a comparatively weak fill-rate and it was an issue for the device. The second generation really leaves that behind and it looks like itll be able to do some really incredible things graphically."
However, by the same token, English concludes that developers that do take the time to get the most out of the new hardware will be rewarded with an even greater improvement in graphical performance.
Equally, use of the SunSpider browser-based JavaScript benchmark seems to demonstrate that the Android 3.0-based Motorola Xoom tablet was faster than iPad 2, although this is a test of hardware and software.
[source: Daring Fireball]