The 2018 iPad Pro has graphical performance comparable to the Xbox One S

[fktech]

I want the ability to plug it into my computer and transfer files......

 

[Squid Surprise]

The only surface that is more powerful would be a several thousand dollar one. $799 is an excellent price point with that much power. The $799 surface pros don't even come close, not even remotely.

However, I still prefer windows on the go for work and for some old school windows games. IOS is too restrictive for me. I like roms, old school games, etc and I want to run my work cloud and programs which Apple can't. It is mostly a compatibility issue.

Maxing out the 12.9" iPad costs you $1,899... a Maxed Surface is $2,299.... For the extra $400, you get a GPU that DESTROYS the iPad, and an i7 CPU that beats the A12 (albeit not by as much as it used to). You also get 16GB of RAM (iPad doesn't state its RAM, but it's probably no more than 8GB), way more ports (iPad only has 1 USB-C port, while Surface has bunches - plus surface connect to a dock that has even more), and Windows 10 Pro.

Not to mention the Surface Pen and Keyboard accessories are cheaper than the iPad Pro accessories ($99 and $129 vs $129 and $199)... so you get $100 back there since they really are must haves...

As the years go by, I see the Surface Pro getting lighter (it's .3 pounds heavier than the iPad Pro this year)... which is the only real place Apple has MS beat. Battery life now is about a wash - iPad USED to crush Surface, but now the Surface Pro 6 has about 9.5 hours of battery, and the iPad Pro claims 10...

Check out https://www.laptopmag.com/articles/apple-ipad-pro-2018-vs-microsoft-surface-pro-6 for some more reading...

 

[Theinsanegamer]

Yeah, sure, in a benchmark. AMD's vega also dominates based on certian benchmarks.

Lets see the ipad actually run xbox tier games and see what happens.

 

[RaXoR]

Xbox One S is a 2013 Xbox One SoC with a die shrink and mild clock bump. Fundamentally it's the same chip. By mild we're talking about 7 percent more GPU performance. It makes absolutely no practical difference to the comparison.

Xbox One had frankly embarrassing performance even when it was just a few months old! It was never considered powerful, brand new. I remember laughing at how Titanfall ran at 1408 x 792 and averaged about 45FPS.

This was ridiculously weak performance for a new $400+ console. You could buy a Radeon 7850 for about $150 which was 18 months older than said new console. It destroyed it on that game at comparable settings. 1080/60 no sweat. Twice the resolution AND a much better frame rate. Pathetic.

The issue was they used a mobile gpu part essentially. That made it both expensive and weak. a 7970m GPU was comparable, which would have been top of the line at the time, but mobile GPUs were terrible compared to desktop ones back then, unlike the gtx 10 series now. That gpu was expensive. They should not have opted for a mobile gpu or a SOC in my opinion, but they didn't want heat or failures to be an issue like Xbox 360. Now the CPU, that was the weakest no matter how you cut the cake.

Xbox one X is ok for it's time on the GPU end, but I cannot believe they stuck with the cpu they did. I've heard rumors PS5 will go back to a discrete GPU. If they put in a similar priced desktop component we are talking a really nice next gen.

Apple will have a hard time catching up to that on the GPU end.

I got off track though, this Ipad is seriously powerful. There is no doubt of that.

I think you don't understand what the Xbox One/S/X and PS4/Slim/Pro contain hardware-wise. All of them utilize an APU manufactured by AMD based off the Jaguar architecture. Yes, even the X uses this APU. The differences between each iteration comes down to clock speeds and dye shrinks. Also the implementation of GDDR5 and DDR3 RAM as well as an increase in RAM capacity in the X's case. In case you're not familiar with what an APU is, it implements both the CPU and GPU into one single dye. It dedicates a small amount of the cores for graphical processing while the rest are part of the CPU.

 

[Theinsanegamer]

Xbox One S is a 2013 Xbox One SoC with a die shrink and mild clock bump. Fundamentally it's the same chip. By mild we're talking about 7 percent more GPU performance. It makes absolutely no practical difference to the comparison.

Xbox One had frankly embarrassing performance even when it was just a few months old! It was never considered powerful, brand new. I remember laughing at how Titanfall ran at 1408 x 792 and averaged about 45FPS.

This was ridiculously weak performance for a new $400+ console. You could buy a Radeon 7850 for about $150 which was 18 months older than said new console. It destroyed it on that game at comparable settings. 1080/60 no sweat. Twice the resolution AND a much better frame rate. Pathetic.

The issue was they used a mobile gpu part essentially. That made it both expensive and weak. a 7970m GPU was comparable, which would have been top of the line at the time, but mobile GPUs were terrible compared to desktop ones back then, unlike the gtx 10 series now. That gpu was expensive. They should not have opted for a mobile gpu or a SOC in my opinion, but they didn't want heat or failures to be an issue like Xbox 360. Now the CPU, that was the weakest no matter how you cut the cake.

Xbox one X is ok for it's time on the GPU end, but I cannot believe they stuck with the cpu they did. I've heard rumors PS5 will go back to a discrete GPU. If they put in a similar priced desktop component we are talking a really nice next gen.

Apple will have a hard time catching up to that on the GPU end.

I got off track though, this Ipad is seriously powerful. There is no doubt of that.

I think you don't understand what the Xbox One/S/X and PS4/Slim/Pro contain hardware-wise. All of them utilize an APU manufactured by AMD based off the Jaguar architecture. Yes, even the X uses this APU. The differences between each iteration comes down to clock speeds and dye shrinks. Also the implementation of GDDR5 and DDR3 RAM as well as an increase in RAM capacity in the X's case. In case you're not familiar with what an APU is, it implements both the CPU and GPU into one single dye. It dedicates a small amount of the cores for graphical processing while the rest are part of the CPU.

I think YOU dont understand what you are talking about. The xbox one has a 768 core GPU, the xbox one X has 2560 cores! Hardly a clock rate increase, the one X's APU is significantly larger then the one's. You also mentioned the increase in the one x's memory capacity and type, but failed to mention the dramatic increase in memory bandwidth (326GB/s vs 68gb/s)

Do some research next time, that took a literal 10 second google search to find.

 

[crazypostalbob]

You understand that the iPad is not trying to "compete" with the Xbox. Apple is simply using this as a guide post to show off how capable this battery powered mobile device is and hopefully this will encourage some of the big names to produce for this platform as well! Think about it Microsoft could bring out an amazing Halo series that would rival what we have seen on past consoles. Sure those would pale in comparison to new Xbox One X versions but still a real revenue stream. Blizzard could bring out Diablo III and Overwatch. We are talking about a platform that will quickly grow to tens of millions of devices that is binary compatible with devices that range in the hundreds of millions.

More money for game development, means better games and everyone wins.

I do indeed. I'm aware. I am mostly saying compete because I'm rebuttling what others here have said in comparisons.

 

[crazypostalbob]

I know you are being positive in a somewhat negative way. Most PC's don't run PC games in the way your are talking about, but with limitations many people still enjoy them so to that I'd say it is not over played and it is already at the point of running VIRTUALLY ALL PC games (just not maxed out). As for who will produce for the platform? Apple doesn't impose limits on who produces for the iOS so it is simply a matter of how many people on a platform will pay and how hard it is to bring the title forward. I think many indies will see value moving to iOS>

Your last comment simply isn't true. They won't allow roms, and this isn't due to not being able to pay. They are restrictive with their apps.

Regarding my commentary: I'm being realistic. There are many games that simply won't come to the IOS, and I'm not talking about running at max settings. It is highly doubtful any tablet can run Assassin's creed Oddyssey without having it remade from the ground up, ergo why they have said it can run a mobile assassin's creed at 120fps. I like where Apple is going, but there are indeed still power restrictions, platform restrictions, compatibility restrictions (porting games to a mobile A12 processor will not be easy, they are going to have to actually help fund developers or open up their platform if they want this to occur). Apple is going to have to do a huge shift. I'm hopeful, I'm not necessarily positive in a negative way. I'm cautiously optimistic. I've said every time for the last 5 years that xbox 360 quality games are coming! They never did. It got powerful enough, where are my xbox 360 games, or ports? They never arrived. I mentioned back in the day we could see call of duty on mobile. Where is it? It has been able for a while. They did a zombies port, that's about it. Then they gave up. I want Diablo III on ipad, and it could already have done it. But it hasn't.

 

[crazypostalbob]

I think YOU dont understand what you are talking about. The xbox one has a 768 core GPU, the xbox one X has 2560 cores! Hardly a clock rate increase, the one X's APU is significantly larger then the one's. You also mentioned the increase in the one x's memory capacity and type, but failed to mention the dramatic increase in memory bandwidth (326GB/s vs 68gb/s)

Do some research next time, that took a literal 10 second google search to find.

Why can't I see the original reply on this? Was it deleted?

The APU used was to lower heat and power consumption, it may as well have been a 7970m rough equivalent, though it has less cores. This was the implementation of a mobile GPU into an APU.

I understand well what they did, and it ticked me off for years. A discrete GPU is the way to go. The GPU put in wasn't dated, the way they set up the console was just complete and utter shotty work. They could have worked on heat dissipation and console case design to deal with the issue, but instead, they wanted to avoid the red ring of death and went with what is essentially 2 jaguar 4 core cpu's welded to a gpu that sits between a 7870 and 7970 (there are 8 asynchronous compute engines in it, whereas the 7970 desktop part has 2, so the custom 7870 is much more on the 7970m side). The very fact that they used an APU was the problem, they basically made it a mobile laptop style chip, with a mobile GPU welded on. This was a huge mistake.

What is promising though for apple gaming, is the CPU core in the xbox cannot be understated how weak it is. The Ipad long ago surpassed it. If the xbox one cpu can run games, the Ipad definitely will, it won't be CPU bound. I would not doubt that the CPU in the new pro could handle 60fps if it were not for gpu related bottlenecks. This means that low settings on the Ipad, if they run say Grand theft auto V, could be 60 fps whereas Xbox one never could be. The CPU in the ipad is already insane. It outperforms the i5's. The issue I have is whether the gpu in the Ipad has chokeholds and bottlenecks, which it almost certainly would on a memory bandwidth issue and whether apple IOS will become more friendly to triple A games, as well as whether it will be easy to develop for, and whether the games will actually get ported. In this sense time will tell. Apple has done a great job so far, I want to see it move forward.