While Apple believes the mainstream cares more about iPad 2 experience and feeling than feeds and speeds, Anandtech clearly favors the latter and using an array of tests, they claim they've deduced that -- as suspected -- the Apple A5 system-on-a-chip is indeed powered by an ARM Cortex A9 CPU and Imagination PowerVR SGX 543MP2 GPU. It's also fast, beating out not only the 2010 iPad's A4 but the 2011 Motorola Zoom's Tegra 2 in a number of benchmark tests.

In the CPU and JavaScript render tests iPad 2 was a little faster than iOS 4.3 on iPad 1 and Android 3.0 Honeycomb on the Xoom. In GPU tests it was devastatingly faster. Faster as in it digs a hole, stomps them into the mud, refills the whole, stomps it again, and repeats ten more times before the others even try to fight back. It's fast.

What all these geekily benchmarked numbers mean in the real world is faster access to your web pages, especially JavaScript-heavy pages like Facebook, and far smoother, more detailed, and more high-performance graphics in everything from OS transitions to full 3D games.

In other words, Apple may have changed the specs into an experience fight, but they're more than got the SoC specs to make that experience.

(Can't wait for this to come to iPhone 5, can you?)

[Anandtech x2]

Just like the original iPad debuted with an Apple A4 chip, iPad 2 is coming with an Apple A5 chip. What does that mean? In typical fashion Apple has been short on details saying only that it's dual-core, 1GHz, 2x faster for computational tasks and 9x faster for graphics, all while preserving the 10 hour battery life that made the A4 famous. They don't think we need to worry about what CPU or GPU they're using and how much RAM is on board to let that power breathe. But here's the thing -- many of us want to know exactly that.

This is the chip that will also power the 2011 iPhone 5, iPod touch 5, and Apple TV. We want answers. We can handle answers! So... stick with us after the break for everything we know about the new Apple A5 chip... and what we can guess.

CPU

Here's what Apple has to say about the new dual-core CPU:

Two powerful cores in one A5 chip mean iPad can do twice the work at once. You’ll notice the difference when you’re surfing the web, watching movies, making FaceTime video calls, gaming, and going from app to app to app. Multitasking is smoother, apps load faster, and everything just works better.

iPad, like all iOS devices is ARM-based. The original iPad used a single core Cortex A8 processor sped up to 1GHz, presumably by the geniuses at Intrisity -- a company Apple subsequently acquired. Apple is still a massive ARM licensee and the successor to the Cortex A8 is the multicore Cortex A9. This chip is forming the heart iPad competitors and it makes sense that Apple is using it in iPad 2 as well.

The Cortex A9 can scale upwards of 2GHz and while some may be disappointed Apple is sticking to 1GHz for iPad 2 there are always trade offs to be made, including temperature and most importantly -- battery life. If 2 times 1GHz cores are enough to give Apple the performance they want, the flexibility to do things like driving the iPad with one core and the HDMI-out display mirroring with the other, and keep 10 hours of battery life, that's a huge win.

UPDATE: It could also be dual ARM Cortex A8 cores.

GPU

And here's Apple on their new graphics performance:

With up to nine times the graphics performance, gameplay on iPad is even smoother and more realistic. And faster graphics help apps perform better — especially those with video. You’ll see it when you’re scrolling through your photo library, editing video with iMovie, and viewing animations in Keynote.

Apple has been using Imagination's PowerVR GPU's in iOS and since they own a stake in the company that's also unlikely to change. The latest generation PowerVR SGX543 is a likely candidate here, perhaps dual core as well. Apple is not only pushing tons of pixels for video and gaming on-device, but offering up to 1080p out as well. 9x graphics performance is a big claim, but this chip with its OpenGL 3.2 support is big enough to match it.

It will also be interesting to see if Apple is using their own OpenCL in A5, which lets the GPU help out the CPU when it's not otherwise engaged.

RAM

Apple doesn't talk about RAM in iOS devices. Not ever. The original iPad had an anemic 256 MB of RAM. That wasn't even enough to keep a few Safari pages in memory. iPhone 4 has 512 MB and wild internet rumors aside, that's the minimum we should see in iPad 2.

Competing tablets are going to ship with 1GB of RAM and it would be great to see Apple match that but given the economics of hitting a $499 price point, they'll try to get the most performance they can out of the least hardware they can so I'm not getting my hopes up.

Battery life

Hey, it's still phenomenal:

Even with the new thinner and lighter design, iPad has the same amazing 10-hour battery life.1 That’s enough juice for one flight across the ocean, or one movie-watching all-nighter, or a week’s commute across town. The power-efficient A5 chip and iOS keep battery life from fading away, so you can get carried away.

And Apple's making it a huge priority, which again means balancing out multiple cores, cycles, and memory with power efficiency.

The tear-down will tell

Apple won't be talking about A5 in detail any time soon, so we'll have to wait for March 11 and the iPad 2 to ship before it gets torn down and we find out for sure. Until then, those are my best guesses. What are yours?

Citing sources, AppleInsider claims Apple is not only going dual-core for their rumored iPad 2 and iPhone 5-bound Apple A5 chipset's CPU, but also its PowerVR GPU as well.

the company will not only be upgrading its video core, but also going to multiple cores, a feature that is designed into the SGX543 design. The most likely configuration of Apple's next custom chip is reportedly the SGX543MP2, which pairs two SGX543 cores to work as one, offering around four times the capability of the previous A4 in graphics and video tasks.

The SGX543 core is designed to parallel as many as 16 cores together, in a way that is transparent to higher level software, meaning that apps don't have to be rewritten specifically to benefit from the new speed boost. Imagination supplies intelligent core management that automatically determines the number of cores available and accelerates the graphic tasks by distributing them across the available cores.

Hey, all that power certainly would come in handy if iPad 2 really does have a 2048x1536 Retina Display...

AppleInsider

The iPhone 3.2 SDK for iPad has officially outed the PowerVR SGX as the graphics core inside Apple's A4 chipset:

Using OpenGL ES on iPad is identical to using OpenGL ES on other iPhone OS devices. An iPad is a PowerVR SGX device and supports the same basic capabilities as other SGX devices. However, because the processor, memory architecture, and screen dimensions are different for iPad, you should always test your code on an iPad device before shipping to ensure performance meets your requirements.

Since Apple is a major stakeholder in PowerVR creator, Imagination, this was widely assumed, Bright Side of the News had suggested otherwise.

Whether or not it's the same PowerVR SGX in the current iPhone 3GS, or the latest generation announced back in January at CES remains unknown. We're hoping for the latter, of course, and that the 4th generation iPhone gets it as well...

[Via MacRumors -- Happy 10th anniversary from everyone at TiPb!]

Imagination, which counts Apple as one of its owners, has provided the GPU (graphics processing unit) for every iPhone to date, including the current iPhone 3GS PowerVR SGX, so it's not unreasonable to assume the latest, greatest PowerVR SGX545 introduced at CES will be in the 4th generation iPhone, likely to be announced in June/July (and the iPod touch to follow):

SGX545 will also deliver OpenGL ES 2.x and OpenGL 3.2 to deliver class leading 3D graphics performance, and will also support OpenCL 1.0 full profile capability which will enable mobile and embedded applications to take maximum advantage of the capabilities offered by these GPU APIs for both 3D graphics and general purpose applications.

Could we see this spun into a new, ARM Cortex A9 multi-core cpu by Apple's own PA Semi? We've already got great 3D gaming, what's this one designed to do, burn our eyeballs into the back of our Avatar-scorched skulls?

[Imagination via 9to5mac]

MacRumors is reporting that Apple's new iPhone 3GS, while indeed using Imagination Technologies' PowerVR graphics core, may just have a little more under the hood than previously thought:

iPhone developers, however, have discovered that the iPhone 3GS has extension files named "IMGSGX535GLDriver" suggesting that the new iPhone uses the more powerful graphics processor intended for "high end" mobile devices. This may not be entirely conclusive evidence by itself but it is consistent with a report from a Anandtech commenter who claims to have heard directly from Apple engineers at WWDC that the iPhone 3GS does indeed use the SGX 535.

Zoom. Zoom.

In a related story, Apple has apparently raised their stakes in Imagination Technologies to 9.5% on the heels of Intel's 16%.

Anandtech gives their usual in-depth look at the processors inside Apple's new iPhone 3G S. First the CPU, the new ARM Cortex A8 and the short of it is -- if the iPhone 2G and 3G were old 486 PCs, the iPhone 3G S would be a Pentium:

As for the GPU, the PowerVR SGX -- even if it's clocked down to half-speed, it's rendering geometry 3.5x faster with a fill rate 25% higher as well:

Their take away? Well, they say the iPhone 3G S packs a similar hardware punch to the new Palm Pre, but while webOS uses some of that power for 3rd party multitasking, Apple's "highly optimized software stack" will bring the speed.

And that only scratches the surface. For the gritty details, check out the full article.

[Thanks to Damon for the tip!]

Apple Insider reveals that:

Sources have now reported that Apple has detailed that Imagination's PowerVR SGX is indeed the graphics processor used in the iPhone 3G S, and that it is "designed for OpenGL ES 2.0." The new 2.0 specification of OpenGL for Embedded Systems eliminates most of the fixed-function rendering pipeline for a programmable approach to 3D rendering using shader programs.

So while we're not yet getting that PA Semi + multicore ARM/PowerVT + OpenCL + Papermaker + ATI gurus system on a chip we've been fantasizing about this year... we're still getting a clear focus on speed from Apple. And that's a Good Thing.

Oh, and yeah, that's totally the Kingdom Come Flash trouncing his golden age and silver age counterparts in the graphic above. /geek.