Apple iPad 4 review: Marching on

Synthetic benchmarks

The iPad 4 is powered by the most powerful chipset Apple has to offer at the moment, the A6X. It packs two of their custom CPU cores along with four PowerVR SGX554 GPU cores and 1GB of RAM. We've already seen that the custom CPU blows dual-core Cortex-A9s (used in the iPhone 4S, iPad 3 and mini) out of the water and the GPU is the most powerful to be put in a mobile device yet.

Geekbench 2 puts the iPad 4 just behind the Samsung Galaxy S III and its quad A9s, but beats the Google Nexus 7. Oddly, the iPad 4 is also ahead of the four Krait cores in the LG Optimus G.

Geekbench 2

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy Note II
  2000
• Samsung Galaxy S III
  1845
• Apple iPad 4
  1756
• LG Optimus G
  1723
• HTC One X (Tegra 3)
  1634
• Apple iPhone 5
  1601
• Google Nexus 7
  1444
• Apple iPad 3
  791
• Apple iPad 2
  781
• Apple iPad mini
  745

The GLBenchmark 2.5 off-screen test shows a huge performance gap between the new GPU and the ones found in older Apple devices (and the iPad mini). The iPad 4 has a sizable lead on the new Adreno 320 used in the Optimus G too.

The on-screen test renders graphics at the native resolution of the display (instead of a fixed 1080p resolution in the off-screen test). Despite having a higher screen res than the other devices used for comparison, the iPad 4 is still on top.

GLBenchmark 2.5 Egypt (1080p off-screen)

Higher is better

• Apple iPad 4
  51.8
• LG Optimus G
  29
• Apple iPhone 5
  27
• Apple iPad 3
  25.6
• Samsung Galaxy Note II
  17
• Apple iPad mini
  14.5
• Apple iPad 2
  14.5
• Samsung Galaxy S III
  13
• Google Nexus 7
  9.1
• HTC One X (Tegra 3)
  9

GLBenchmark 2.5 Egypt on-screen

Higher is better

• Apple iPad 4
  41.5
• Apple iPhone 5
  39.4
• LG Optimus G
  33.6
• Apple iPad mini
  24.3
• Apple iPad 2
  23.2
• Apple iPad 3
  21.3
• Samsung Galaxy Note II
  17.3
• Samsung Galaxy S III
  14.1
• HTC One X (Tegra 3)
  14.1
• Google Nexus 7
  13.6

Browser performance is usually Apple's forte and the iPad 4 continues that trend. It aces both the JavaScript performance test and the general HTML5 performance test too.

SunSpider

Lower is better

• Apple iPad 4
  880.1
• Apple iPhone 5
  915
• Samsung Galaxy Note II
  972
• Samsung Galaxy S III
  1304
• Meizu MX 4-core
  1312
• LG Optimus G
  1353
• Apple iPad mini
  1432
• Apple iPad 3
  1436.9
• HTC One X (Tegra 3)
  1468
• Google Nexus 7
  1703
• Apple iPad 2
  1773

BrowserMark

Higher is better

• Apple iPad 4
  195379
• Apple iPhone 5
  189937
• Samsung Galaxy Note II
  185034
• Samsung Galaxy S III
  158953
• Meizu MX 4-core
  158404
• HTC One X (Tegra 3)
  140270
• Google Nexus 7
  131788
• Apple iPad 3
  126817
• Apple iPad mini
  123300
• Apple iPad 2
  122976
• LG Optimus G
  118126