Tablet Chip Showdown: Nvidia Tegra 3 vs. the New iPad's A5X
When Apple announced the new iPad earlier this month, CEO Tim Cook claimed that the new iPad's new A5X chip offers four times the performance of Nvidia's quad-core Tegra 3 CPU. Now that the new iPad has hit the street …
Context & Ripple Effects
Apple’s A5X arrived amid reports that Apple was developing both an enhanced A5-family chip and a separate A6 design, making the iPad launch a visible test of its silicon roadmap. The preceding debate over what “quad-core” means for A5X also showed why CPU-core counts alone were an inadequate comparison.
Nvidia had already introduced Tegra 3 as a quad-core mobile processor. A direct A5X-versus-Tegra comparison turns Apple’s performance claim into a concrete competitive benchmark for tablet buyers and device makers.
First-order effects
- Apple and Nvidia face a like-for-like scrutiny of A5X and Tegra 3 performance rather than competing through core-count labels alone.
- The new iPad’s chip becomes a central part of Apple’s hardware differentiation, while Tegra 3’s positioning with tablet manufacturers is tested against Apple’s in-house design.
Second-order effects
- Tablet makers using Tegra 3 gain a clearer reference point for how their products compare with the iPad, increasing pressure to compete on measured performance rather than processor branding.
- Nvidia’s mobile partners, including its announced LTE collaborators Renesas Mobile and GCT Semiconductor, have added reason to pair connectivity and processing advantages where raw-chip comparisons favor neither side.
Third-order effects
- The comparison points to a tablet market in which system-on-chip design is a product-level competitive lever: vertically integrated device makers can tailor silicon to their own hardware, while merchant-chip vendors must prove broad performance value across partners.
- As display and graphics demands become more prominent in tablet launches, processor comparisons are likely to move beyond CPU-core counts toward workload-specific measures.
The trend: Tablet competition is shifting from headline core counts toward integrated silicon designs judged by the workloads their devices are built to run.