7 ms·

New iPad Pro Has Comparable Performance to 2018 15“ MacBook Pro in Benchmarks

56 points by ghobs91 8y ago

chrisper 8y ago
I wish the iPad had a useful OS rather than just a magnified iPhone. It should be the apple equivalent of the surface.
- digianarchist 8y ago
  Right. The fact that iOS is so crippled compared to OSX is putting me off buying one. CPU architecture I assume is the reason these things cannot run OSX.
  - coldtea 8y ago
    >The fact that iOS is so crippled compared to OSX is putting me off buying one. That's its main allure. If one just wants a computer to run arbitrary OS with desktop-like experience there are tons of them, it doesn't even have to be a tablet.
    - tluyben2 8y ago
      I too see this as an advantage; sometimes I want to develop and tinker, sometimes I need to to get work done that does not require that freedom but does require: stability, focus, long battery life etc and for that the iPad pro with keyboard is perfect (in my opinion). I had a Surface Pro and for that ‘just work’ kind of experience it sucks in my experience; updates, crashes, battery life etc. It turns out 80% of my work can be done really well on the iPad Pro and I indeed find myself using it far more than my laptop these days. I think a combination has to screw up that experience as it has for all other more free devices besides maybe Android but there is no iPad quality hardware for Android.
  - nradov 8y ago
    Nothing in the CPU architecture would prevent porting MacOS if they wanted to. However I suspect that Apple has a long-term plan to phase out MacOS and the Macintosh hardware line. They'll enhance iOS and iPad to make that platform meet the needs of content creators, not just content consumers. That would allow them to simplify their product catalog rather than maintaining two totally separate lines.
  - aequitas 8y ago
    CPU arch. would be the least of the problems. They can do roughly the same trick they did with the PowerPC -> Intel switch years back. The problem is that you cannot just put a keyboard/mouse centric on a touch device. The entire UX will crumble down. Same story the other way around. Small things like buttons and textfields need to be bigger and more spaced out. Entire panels need to be redesigned as the control density is lower. To get the same quality of UX you need to design for both interface methods. iOS suffers the same when attaching a keyboard to an iPad. A lot of small things like workflow shortcuts and navigating the control space with just a keyboard just don't work (yet). Forcing you in either a touch-only mode or having to switch between keyboard and touch constantly.
  - izacus 8y ago
    > CPU architecture I assume is the reason these things cannot run OSX. Not, the fact that it's taboo to control every single app binary and extract 30% tax on everything on macOS is what's making Apple not port OS X.
- pentae 8y ago
  Apple will keep iterating it until it's almost as good as a real OS but they get to control the walled garden and collect the 30% tax from the entire ecosystem inside it. They'll get there eventually, it's a very profitable long term strategy. They have absolutely no interest in encouraging adoption of a free and open internet where they don't get to collect their rent.
jdlyga 8y ago
A train also has a more horsepower than an SUV, but it can only go back and forth along tracks.
- coldtea 8y ago
  And sometimes that's all you need. You can sit back and enjoy the ride, not care for traffic, carry much larger load more efficiently, and so on...
- mattkevan 8y ago
  Ever been on the Eurostar? The experience is spectacularly good when compared to driving or flying...
  - tluyben2 8y ago
    I have been; for me flying wins. Compared to driving the Eurostar is indeed far better on those distances.
  - ericd 8y ago
    It's also $$$
    - hyperbovine 8y ago
      So the analogy holds...
- grecy 8y ago
  ... but to go really deep, you have to realize that horsepower is just a marketing term that is mostly meaningless. It was used to sell vehicles to Americans all through the 80s and 90s until now. It's torque you actually want - i.e. turning force. Horsepower is just torque X rpm. The best example of how meaningless horsepower is was the original Honda S2000, at the time, the world's highest specific-power engine (horsepower per liter of engine size). It was revvy as hell, and only developed power when really high in the rev range.. i.e. 6k-9k rpm, so many people hated driving it. You had to rev the crap out it to go anywhere. A few years later, the next revision had a bigger engine, with less horsepower. But it accelerated faster and was way better to drive. Why? The bigger engine had more torque. The horsepower figure is mostly irrelevant to drive-ability and acceleration. Interestingly, a steam locomotive has maximum torque at 0 rpm, a complete contradiction for an internal combustion engine.
goalieca 8y ago
Intel is toast.
- TwoNineA 8y ago
  Wake me up when I can run VirtualBox on these fancy iPad Pros and be able to run 1-2 virtual machines for development purposes.
  - irb 8y ago
    How about when customers with niche use cases like that are sufficient to sustain Intel at its current/similar size? Not saying I necessarily agree with the top-level comment, but that is hardly a convincing argument against it.
  - izacus 8y ago
    You would dare to run arbitrary code not throughly checked for appropriate content on iOS?!
  - aequitas 8y ago
    With more and more transition to cloud platforms this might be a short sleep. Though I still prefer a local environment for quick iterative development I often can't justify the time to spin up/manage a VM due to how quick I could otherwise do cloud native development in a browser.
  - basch 8y ago
    id love to see a "what percent of devices are sold to developers" statistic. youre not their target market. you can already run VMs on azure or aws and access them with rdp.
  - nouveaux 8y ago
    You may never be able to run VirtualBox on an iPad Pro but there is a good chance VirtualBox will run on an Apple chip in the near future.
- staticman2 8y ago
  An IPAD can't even support a mouse.
AdmiralAsshat 8y ago
Benchmarks often don't tell the whole story. I remember a similar headline from a couple years ago lauding the Nexus 9 for having comparable benchmarks to a Macbook Pro: https://9to5google.com/2014/10/16/nexus-9-benchmark-is-comparable-to-a-2012-mac-pro/ https://9to5google.com/2014/10/16/nexus-9-benchmark-is-compa... The device still got mixed reviews.[0][1][2] [0]https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2014/11/nexus-9-review-a-premium-tablet-with-a-not-so-premium-feel/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2014/11/nexus-9-review-a-pre... [1]https://www.androidpolice.com/2014/11/03/nexus-9-review-a-little-better-on-paper-than-in-practice/ https://www.androidpolice.com/2014/11/03/nexus-9-review-a-li... [2]https://www.engadget.com/2014/11/03/google-nexus-9-review/ https://www.engadget.com/2014/11/03/google-nexus-9-review/
- api 8y ago
  A major difference is in sustained performance, not peak performance. Mobile CPUs often have cores these days that are comparable to desktop/server CPU cores but they lack the cooling to sustain peak performance for very long. They're thermally throttled very rapidly. That being said you could take such a CPU and given it desktop-like power and cooling and it could perform like a desktop chip.
  - Pulcinella 8y ago
    Yeah it would be interesting to see how the apple tv performs compared to an ipad over sustained loads. It has wired power and I think the 4K even has a cooling fan.
- ksec 8y ago
  1. That was using Geekbench 3, which according to Linus, "showing partiality for ARM64 devices and being a bad performance measure of x86-based system." Geekbench 4 released in 2016 is much better. 2. The "2012" Mac Pro stated is actually using 2008 CPU, with the lowest configuration.
mrkstu 8y ago
At this point it's a good bet the next plain 'MacBook' will be an A series processor. We're looking at the leading edge of an eventual transition to Apple's full hardware stack using its own IP top to bottom, though I expect a long Intel tail for 'Pro' users.
- whitepoplar 8y ago
  I wonder how long it'll take before `brew install whatever` works reasonably well on ARM chips.
  - api 8y ago
    It's no harder than having Debian for x86, x64, arm, arm64, etc.
asdgklnionio 8y ago
Geekbench? Yeah, that's nice. https://browser.geekbench.com/processors/2134 https://browser.geekbench.com/processors/2134 If you believe a tablet can beat a 24-core $1500 server processor in a highly threaded workload, you may be interested in my upcoming ICO! Geekbench is only good as a punchline.
- akmarinov 8y ago
  Do you believe that the 24-core $1500 server processor can beat the iPad in single to minimum threaded workload?
  - asdgklnionio 8y ago
    In practice I think the iPad would throttle. But let's assume it has adequate cooling. The 7401 is clocked at two GHz. It's by no means a single-threaded monster. So maybe.
- Analemma_ 8y ago
  Even if the absolute value of the Geekbench score isn’t useful, the fact that the delta between the MBP Geekbench score and the iPad Geekbench score has narrowed from huge to zero would still be meaningful.
  - asdgklnionio 8y ago
    The delta between an iPad and a $5000 server is zero, but the iPad is $700 and draws only a dozen watts! That's why Google is throwing out all their servers and filling their datacenters with iPads. I know I'm being flippant, but I'm sick and tired of talking about Geekbench.
    - mcphage 8y ago
      What's a better metric?
- altmind 8y ago
  i also feeling something fishy here. i remember geekbench reporting different memory latencies than AIDA64 a while ago. maybe apple took geekbench and optimized their silicon for the test load(crypto)? or maybe geekbench for arm and geekbench for x86_64 may be doing the different tasks? geekbench web site have the list of benchmarks( http://support.primatelabs.com/kb/geekbench/interpreting-geekbench-4-scores http://support.primatelabs.com/kb/geekbench/interpreting-gee... ), but is light on testing methodology and there is no way to verify what/how benchmarks are performed. Unrelated: Linus Torvalds trashing gb3 in mailing list, a long thread https://www.realworldtech.com/forum/?threadid=136526&curpostid=136666 https://www.realworldtech.com/forum/?threadid=136526&curpost... Edit: added the link to gb4 benchmarks list
grecy 8y ago
Surely this has to fuel the flames on the "2019 MacPro will be ARM based" fire. At this point, it seems Apple could pull it off if they wanted to, while thumping Intel in the process.
samwillis 8y ago
I honestly think they are going in the right direction and are purposely taking their time to perfect each development before over complicating iOS. They have an opportunity with iOS to start from scratch and develop new ways of using and interacting with a computer and have decided not to rush it. My iPad Pro wish list: - A “Proper” file system - Ability to run my own code written on it (and leave it running in background, e.g. a development web server) - Terminal access - A detachable keyboard with touchpad (far better ergonomics than a touch screen when typing at a desk) - Support for a mouse (less important) Steve Jobs said they would never do a stylus, now they have one. Just wait to see what they do next.
- phireal 8y ago
  Don't all those things on your wish list just make it like every existing OS/machine?
  - izacus 8y ago
    Yeah, sounds great doesn't it? That great hardware with useful and flexible OS!
    - Balero 8y ago
      Have you considered buying a small laptop??? I use my iPad purely for consuming, and the laptop for all that you mention. I do agree that there is a gap between the two though, an Apple product similar to the Microsoft Surface (pro). But I think this is a separate product to the iPad.
  - samwillis 8y ago
    No, because they don’t have that brilliant touch screen.
    - phireal 8y ago
      Wouldn't it be easier to add the touch screen to an existing form factor and OS than to add all those things to an iPad?
foobarbazetc 8y ago
Zzzzzzzz geekbench.
maelito 8y ago
If only you could plug an Android phone in desktop mode (Samsung's Dex or Huawei's projection) to power such a perfect mobile touchscreen and keyboard. Android chips lag behind, but they're good enough for occasional development.
keymone 8y ago
how does it compare in performance/watt?
IBM 8y ago
Intel's gross margins are high enough (especially on the higher end chips) that it makes sense for Apple to design their own chips for Macs. Rumors are pointing to 2020 for when it will first happen. Macs could then be cheaper and better than the competition (or significantly more profitable).
ghobs91 8y ago
If Apple is getting this kind of performance out of their CPU/GPUs, especially the "Xbox One X level performance" they mentioned about their iPad Pro, curious if they'll turn Apple TV into a gaming console.

56 points by ghobs91 8y ago

chrisper 8y ago

I wish the iPad had a useful OS rather than just a magnified iPhone. It should be the apple equivalent of the surface.

digianarchist 8y ago
Right. The fact that iOS is so crippled compared to OSX is putting me off buying one. CPU architecture I assume is the reason these things cannot run OSX.
- coldtea 8y ago
  >The fact that iOS is so crippled compared to OSX is putting me off buying one. That's its main allure. If one just wants a computer to run arbitrary OS with desktop-like experience there are tons of them, it doesn't even have to be a tablet.
  - tluyben2 8y ago
    I too see this as an advantage; sometimes I want to develop and tinker, sometimes I need to to get work done that does not require that freedom but does require: stability, focus, long battery life etc and for that the iPad pro with keyboard is perfect (in my opinion). I had a Surface Pro and for that ‘just work’ kind of experience it sucks in my experience; updates, crashes, battery life etc. It turns out 80% of my work can be done really well on the iPad Pro and I indeed find myself using it far more than my laptop these days. I think a combination has to screw up that experience as it has for all other more free devices besides maybe Android but there is no iPad quality hardware for Android.
- nradov 8y ago
  Nothing in the CPU architecture would prevent porting MacOS if they wanted to. However I suspect that Apple has a long-term plan to phase out MacOS and the Macintosh hardware line. They'll enhance iOS and iPad to make that platform meet the needs of content creators, not just content consumers. That would allow them to simplify their product catalog rather than maintaining two totally separate lines.
- aequitas 8y ago
  CPU arch. would be the least of the problems. They can do roughly the same trick they did with the PowerPC -> Intel switch years back. The problem is that you cannot just put a keyboard/mouse centric on a touch device. The entire UX will crumble down. Same story the other way around. Small things like buttons and textfields need to be bigger and more spaced out. Entire panels need to be redesigned as the control density is lower. To get the same quality of UX you need to design for both interface methods. iOS suffers the same when attaching a keyboard to an iPad. A lot of small things like workflow shortcuts and navigating the control space with just a keyboard just don't work (yet). Forcing you in either a touch-only mode or having to switch between keyboard and touch constantly.
- izacus 8y ago
  > CPU architecture I assume is the reason these things cannot run OSX. Not, the fact that it's taboo to control every single app binary and extract 30% tax on everything on macOS is what's making Apple not port OS X.
pentae 8y ago
Apple will keep iterating it until it's almost as good as a real OS but they get to control the walled garden and collect the 30% tax from the entire ecosystem inside it. They'll get there eventually, it's a very profitable long term strategy. They have absolutely no interest in encouraging adoption of a free and open internet where they don't get to collect their rent.

jdlyga 8y ago

A train also has a more horsepower than an SUV, but it can only go back and forth along tracks.

coldtea 8y ago
And sometimes that's all you need. You can sit back and enjoy the ride, not care for traffic, carry much larger load more efficiently, and so on...
mattkevan 8y ago
Ever been on the Eurostar? The experience is spectacularly good when compared to driving or flying...
- tluyben2 8y ago
  I have been; for me flying wins. Compared to driving the Eurostar is indeed far better on those distances.
- ericd 8y ago
  It's also $$$
  - hyperbovine 8y ago
    So the analogy holds...
grecy 8y ago
... but to go really deep, you have to realize that horsepower is just a marketing term that is mostly meaningless. It was used to sell vehicles to Americans all through the 80s and 90s until now. It's torque you actually want - i.e. turning force. Horsepower is just torque X rpm. The best example of how meaningless horsepower is was the original Honda S2000, at the time, the world's highest specific-power engine (horsepower per liter of engine size). It was revvy as hell, and only developed power when really high in the rev range.. i.e. 6k-9k rpm, so many people hated driving it. You had to rev the crap out it to go anywhere. A few years later, the next revision had a bigger engine, with less horsepower. But it accelerated faster and was way better to drive. Why? The bigger engine had more torque. The horsepower figure is mostly irrelevant to drive-ability and acceleration. Interestingly, a steam locomotive has maximum torque at 0 rpm, a complete contradiction for an internal combustion engine.

goalieca 8y ago

Intel is toast.

TwoNineA 8y ago
Wake me up when I can run VirtualBox on these fancy iPad Pros and be able to run 1-2 virtual machines for development purposes.
- irb 8y ago
  How about when customers with niche use cases like that are sufficient to sustain Intel at its current/similar size? Not saying I necessarily agree with the top-level comment, but that is hardly a convincing argument against it.
- izacus 8y ago
  You would dare to run arbitrary code not throughly checked for appropriate content on iOS?!
- aequitas 8y ago
  With more and more transition to cloud platforms this might be a short sleep. Though I still prefer a local environment for quick iterative development I often can't justify the time to spin up/manage a VM due to how quick I could otherwise do cloud native development in a browser.
- basch 8y ago
  id love to see a "what percent of devices are sold to developers" statistic. youre not their target market. you can already run VMs on azure or aws and access them with rdp.
- nouveaux 8y ago
  You may never be able to run VirtualBox on an iPad Pro but there is a good chance VirtualBox will run on an Apple chip in the near future.
staticman2 8y ago
An IPAD can't even support a mouse.

AdmiralAsshat 8y ago

Benchmarks often don't tell the whole story. I remember a similar headline from a couple years ago lauding the Nexus 9 for having comparable benchmarks to a Macbook Pro: https://9to5google.com/2014/10/16/nexus-9-benchmark-is-comparable-to-a-2012-mac-pro/ https://9to5google.com/2014/10/16/nexus-9-benchmark-is-compa... The device still got mixed reviews.[0][1][2] [0]https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2014/11/nexus-9-review-a-premium-tablet-with-a-not-so-premium-feel/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2014/11/nexus-9-review-a-pre... [1]https://www.androidpolice.com/2014/11/03/nexus-9-review-a-little-better-on-paper-than-in-practice/ https://www.androidpolice.com/2014/11/03/nexus-9-review-a-li... [2]https://www.engadget.com/2014/11/03/google-nexus-9-review/ https://www.engadget.com/2014/11/03/google-nexus-9-review/

api 8y ago
A major difference is in sustained performance, not peak performance. Mobile CPUs often have cores these days that are comparable to desktop/server CPU cores but they lack the cooling to sustain peak performance for very long. They're thermally throttled very rapidly. That being said you could take such a CPU and given it desktop-like power and cooling and it could perform like a desktop chip.
- Pulcinella 8y ago
  Yeah it would be interesting to see how the apple tv performs compared to an ipad over sustained loads. It has wired power and I think the 4K even has a cooling fan.
ksec 8y ago
1. That was using Geekbench 3, which according to Linus, "showing partiality for ARM64 devices and being a bad performance measure of x86-based system." Geekbench 4 released in 2016 is much better. 2. The "2012" Mac Pro stated is actually using 2008 CPU, with the lowest configuration.

mrkstu 8y ago

At this point it's a good bet the next plain 'MacBook' will be an A series processor. We're looking at the leading edge of an eventual transition to Apple's full hardware stack using its own IP top to bottom, though I expect a long Intel tail for 'Pro' users.

whitepoplar 8y ago
I wonder how long it'll take before `brew install whatever` works reasonably well on ARM chips.
- api 8y ago
  It's no harder than having Debian for x86, x64, arm, arm64, etc.

asdgklnionio 8y ago

Geekbench? Yeah, that's nice. https://browser.geekbench.com/processors/2134 https://browser.geekbench.com/processors/2134 If you believe a tablet can beat a 24-core $1500 server processor in a highly threaded workload, you may be interested in my upcoming ICO! Geekbench is only good as a punchline.

akmarinov 8y ago
Do you believe that the 24-core $1500 server processor can beat the iPad in single to minimum threaded workload?
- asdgklnionio 8y ago
  In practice I think the iPad would throttle. But let's assume it has adequate cooling. The 7401 is clocked at two GHz. It's by no means a single-threaded monster. So maybe.
Analemma_ 8y ago
Even if the absolute value of the Geekbench score isn’t useful, the fact that the delta between the MBP Geekbench score and the iPad Geekbench score has narrowed from huge to zero would still be meaningful.
- asdgklnionio 8y ago
  The delta between an iPad and a $5000 server is zero, but the iPad is $700 and draws only a dozen watts! That's why Google is throwing out all their servers and filling their datacenters with iPads. I know I'm being flippant, but I'm sick and tired of talking about Geekbench.
  - mcphage 8y ago
    What's a better metric?
altmind 8y ago
i also feeling something fishy here. i remember geekbench reporting different memory latencies than AIDA64 a while ago. maybe apple took geekbench and optimized their silicon for the test load(crypto)? or maybe geekbench for arm and geekbench for x86_64 may be doing the different tasks? geekbench web site have the list of benchmarks( http://support.primatelabs.com/kb/geekbench/interpreting-geekbench-4-scores http://support.primatelabs.com/kb/geekbench/interpreting-gee... ), but is light on testing methodology and there is no way to verify what/how benchmarks are performed. Unrelated: Linus Torvalds trashing gb3 in mailing list, a long thread https://www.realworldtech.com/forum/?threadid=136526&curpostid=136666 https://www.realworldtech.com/forum/?threadid=136526&curpost... Edit: added the link to gb4 benchmarks list

grecy 8y ago

Surely this has to fuel the flames on the "2019 MacPro will be ARM based" fire. At this point, it seems Apple could pull it off if they wanted to, while thumping Intel in the process.

samwillis 8y ago

I honestly think they are going in the right direction and are purposely taking their time to perfect each development before over complicating iOS. They have an opportunity with iOS to start from scratch and develop new ways of using and interacting with a computer and have decided not to rush it. My iPad Pro wish list: - A “Proper” file system - Ability to run my own code written on it (and leave it running in background, e.g. a development web server) - Terminal access - A detachable keyboard with touchpad (far better ergonomics than a touch screen when typing at a desk) - Support for a mouse (less important) Steve Jobs said they would never do a stylus, now they have one. Just wait to see what they do next.

phireal 8y ago
Don't all those things on your wish list just make it like every existing OS/machine?
- izacus 8y ago
  Yeah, sounds great doesn't it? That great hardware with useful and flexible OS!
  - Balero 8y ago
    Have you considered buying a small laptop??? I use my iPad purely for consuming, and the laptop for all that you mention. I do agree that there is a gap between the two though, an Apple product similar to the Microsoft Surface (pro). But I think this is a separate product to the iPad.
- samwillis 8y ago
  No, because they don’t have that brilliant touch screen.
  - phireal 8y ago
    Wouldn't it be easier to add the touch screen to an existing form factor and OS than to add all those things to an iPad?

foobarbazetc 8y ago

Zzzzzzzz geekbench.

maelito 8y ago

If only you could plug an Android phone in desktop mode (Samsung's Dex or Huawei's projection) to power such a perfect mobile touchscreen and keyboard. Android chips lag behind, but they're good enough for occasional development.

keymone 8y ago

how does it compare in performance/watt?

IBM 8y ago

Intel's gross margins are high enough (especially on the higher end chips) that it makes sense for Apple to design their own chips for Macs. Rumors are pointing to 2020 for when it will first happen. Macs could then be cheaper and better than the competition (or significantly more profitable).

ghobs91 8y ago

If Apple is getting this kind of performance out of their CPU/GPUs, especially the "Xbox One X level performance" they mentioned about their iPad Pro, curious if they'll turn Apple TV into a gaming console.