Credit: Tom's Guide
Posted on 11/05/2018 7:27:11 PM PST by Swordmaker
When Apple introduced the new iPad Pro, the company boasted that its slim slate is more powerful than 92 percent of PCs out there. Now that we've benchmarked the 12.9-inch iPad Pro for our review over at Laptop Mag, it looks like that claim could very well be legit.
The 7-nanometer A12X Bionic chip processor inside the iPad Pro packs four performance cores and four high-efficiency cores, and there's a new GPU that promises twice the graphics performance as the A10X processor inside the last iPad Pro.
And the benchmark results are quite impressive.
On Geekbench 4, which measures overall performance, the iPad Pro notched a score of 17,995. That blows past the Surface Pro 6 with a Core i5 CPU and even the Core i7 version of the Dell XPS 13.
Samsung's Qualcomm Snapdragon 850-powered Galaxy Book 2 (3,945) doesn't even come close to Intel-based PCs, nevermind the iPad Pro. The 13-inch MacBook Pro with a Core i7 chip was just slightly below the iPad Pro at 17,348.
To test the A12X Bionic's real-world power, we turned to Adobe Rush, a video editing app. We took a 12-minute 4K video and transcoded it to 1080p at 24 frames per second. And once again the iPad Pro blew away the field.
Apple's tablet took just 7 minutes and 47 seconds to complete our task. It took the 13-inch MacBook Pro 25 minutes and 53 seconds, and the Dell XPS 13 (31:03) and Surface Pro 6 (31:54) both took over half an hour.
We then turned to Adobe Lightroom to see how long it would take to export 50 RAW images to the JPEG format, and the iPad Pro once again outperformed the competition--though not by as large a margin.
The iPad Pro took 59 seconds to complete the batch export, while the Surface Pro 6 (1:35) and 13-inch MacBook Pro (1:36) were about 30 seconds behind. Strangely, the Core i7 XPS 13 took 2:01 on this test.
If you're wondering how efficient the A12X Bionic processor is, you'll probably be glad to know that the new iPad Pro offers pretty great battery life. On the Laptop Mag Battery Test, which involves web surfing at 150 nits of screen brightness, Apple's tablet lasted for 13 hours and 41 minutes.
The Surface Pro 6 lasted about 4 hours less at 9:20 and the Dell XPS 13 with Core i7 and 4K display mustered 8:53. The Qualcomm-powered Galaxy Book 2 came closest to the iPad with 10:41.
The new iPad Pro's sheer speed is undeniable. In fact, if I were Apple, I would be finding ways to bring this chip over to the Mac. But keep in mind that performance is just one consideration when deciding between the iPad Pro and a more traditional PC.
If you prefer a desktop interface, the Surface Pro 6 is the better choice, and it also offers a better keyboard with touchpad and built-in kickstand. But if you can see yourself working within iOS, the iPad Pro should make quick work of whatever you need to do.
And even after ten years, that old Mac still has resale value . . . substantial resale value. . . which helps pay for our upgraded new Mac.
Because idiots take portrait movies to display on 4k screens that cause more of the screen to be black than display of a movie.
If you use it to work out the value of pi to the umteenth place does that make it apple pi?
Does it have “Tint Control”?
I said in post 12 that it was an Apples to Oranges comparison. It is an impressive achievement for Apple.
You are twisting words, meaning, and the original intent of all parties involved including myself.
From the article, “When Apple introduced the new iPad Pro, the company boasted that its slim slate is more powerful than 92 percent of PCs out there.” Who knows what Apple meant by that. It is a meaningless statement made up by marketers. The article in Laptop Mag compared it to the Dell XPS 13 9370 (2018) and the Microsoft Surface Pro 6. They listed the Samsung Galaxy Book 2 (Not tested) and the “Category Average (as of 10/31/18). This is not a comparison of 92% of anything... current, discounted, or closeouts.
“On Geekbench 4, which measures overall performance, the iPad Pro notched a score of 17,995. That blows past the Surface Pro 6 with a Core i5 CPU and even the Core i7 version of the Dell XPS 13.”
The Dell XPS 13 with a current generation portable Core i5 tests out at 13747 on Geek Bench 4. The i7 version they “tested” that got a score of 14,180 most likely had last year's portable i7 installed. So no it is not exactly current. The Surface Pro 6 with a Core i5 was not built to be a high performance machine. No laptop with the portable version of the Core i5 is meant to be a high performance machine.
Apple's statement intentionally does not specify what they are talking about. Obviously they are not talking about high performance computers or even laptops that have current generation high performance processors - not the portable versions. Even older generation performance Core i7 based computers blow the new iPad Pro out of the water. Tom's Guide and Laptop magazine obviously understood this which is why they compared the iPad Pro only with computers with a similar form factor. So Swordmaker you don't get a banana either.
After Microsoft screwed me on a Nokia rt I won’t buy another surface. Had terrible ghost gesture problems an MS never fixed or exchanged it. Will go Linux or mac.
I’m a Mac user and I appreciate Sword’s articles detailing the Mac’s new products.
I don’t think you’ve bought FreeRepublic, nor do I think you’ve been appointed its administrator, so I really think you should stop ordering him around and let him do what we thousands of Mac users appreciate him doing...posting articles about our choice of computers.
I use Parallels to work in Win7, I wonder if new MP’s will allow that if they are no longer Intel based?
bookmark
A lot if apps won’t run in the new OS, that’s why I’m still at 10.9.
Ed
Every one of my old Macs are still functional and useful...from my Quadra 800 to my G4, G5, PowerPC, liquid cooled Power Mac and my current trash can Mac, which is getting a bit long in the tooth, I wish they’d quickly replace it!
But they’re all built to last.
Why would one need a headphone jack when one expects everyone else in the cafe/airport/train/funeral parlour to listen to the same head-banging pop as oneself?
Elsewhere some say there is no ability to add external storage. While you can connect to external drives or thumb drives - nothing happens. True? False?
I will never send a dollar to “Being gay is God’s greatest gift to me” Apple!
How is this anything BUT an advertisement?
I honestly hope you're feeling better. But this is beyond even your extreme fanboy-ism and is a blatant advertisement.
It's ok, I'm sure your Lord-and-Gods of Apple can afford all the advertising they want and the iZombies are a loyal lot.
But if it makes you feel better to be a "help", then enjoy yourself I guess. d;^)
That white device plugged in on the side must be putting quite a strain on the connection port. I bet it will be a cause for many repairs. Also why is that cable so short that the white device hangs like that?
Ya. It's stuff like that, that keeps me away from Apple computers. I like and respect the hardware, but I need a bit more flexibility in my life.
I recently put together a new media server based on the Intel NUC platform. It is directly comparable to the Mac Mini in form-factor and general specs. I'm amazed at the performance I get out of the thing, especially considering it is a fanless PC. I loaded Linux Mint on it and generally find the box to be a better performer overall than my desktop. Of course, my desktop is about 8 years old, so that's hardly surprising, but it's still cool to see how this stuff keeps progressing.
I've actually considered building another with more ram, and a bigger drive as a desktop replacement, but upon thinking about it, I like the flexibility I get with a more traditional case. I'm probably going to wait 2 more years before building a new desktop. It ought to scream like a bat outta hell.
I know,and I apologize-——bad night.
I have an iPod touch,which my kids bought for me because I refused to buy one myself-——I absolutely LOVE it.
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I’m a programmer. I’m used to reading benchmark tests with specifics. This article was like reading a critique of a new sports car with no details on torque, top speed, or acceleration.
Still no specifics on processor speed, memory clock speed, transfer rate for long time storage, and how many cores it has for multi-tasking. You know. The stuff that matters if you want to call it a technical review.
Nor is there anything on what the benchmark tests were. For example, for all we know the iPad was horribly slow at long-term storage, but fast at RAM access. So the specifics of the benchmark tests matter.
At least to us programmers.
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