Dec 02 First Nvidia Tegra 3 Benchmarks attain the Quad-Core Chip Slightly Faster than Apple’s A5

Forget that specs do not matter for a minute. The first bit of competitive benchmarks of the Nvidia Tegra 3 is just now striking, all thanks to the Asus Transformer Prime. Nvidia’s quad-core mobile platform will be expected to be the de facto chipset to power Ice Cream Sandwich tablets; it will be available everywhere next year. Nvidia has long flaunted the Tegra 3′s processing power, uttered that the platform will absolutely beat all competitors including the aging dual-core Apple A5. That doesn’t seem to be the case nevertheless. Early benchmarks are stating the A5 keeps up just fine.

Hot Hardware and AnandTech both got their hands on a Transformer Prime tablet and ran it through their meticulous tests including a number of benchmarks. In most tests the Tegra 3-powered Transformer bests the iPad 2, but only just slightly. Most of the benchmarks used test real world activities such as web browsing and JavaScript. However, graphic interpretation was tested also tested and only when using GLBenchmark 2.1 does the Transformer Prime completely destroy the iPad 2. The A5 in the iPad 2 actually outpaces the Tegra 3 in BaseMark ES 2.0′s frame per second OpenGL test.

The tests do show that the Tegra 3 is a big step up over the Tegra 2.

Of course these early benchmarks could be slanted in a number of ways. The benchmark smudge software might not yet be optimized for the quad-core Tegra 3. GLBenchmark’s Android app was last updated in September. Also, there isn’t a benchmark yet available on both platforms that tests CPU performance. The Tegra 3′s quad-core setup will likely clobber the A5 when unswervingly compared.

The Tegra 3′s interpretation and OpenGL performance is just one part of the chip’s plea. The quad-core chip actually features a fifth so-called companion core for low-level and background processing that will ultimately perk up battery life. The Tegra 3 also offers developers a much more stout system, which will hopefully improve the overall Android ecosystem.

Once again, specs (and benchmarks) are becoming less momentous. The average consumer doesn’t care about cohort cores or Javascript performance. Simply stating that a tablet is powered by a powerful processor that’s easy on the battery should satisfy most. But the iPad once again wins if that same consumer is told Apple’s tablet features a just slightly less-power chip but ten times the amount of available apps. Content is still sovereign.