AnandTech reported today as part of its report on Apple’s custom ARM chip design for the A6, that the improved graphic performance on the new iPhone 5 is due to a triple-core PowerVR SGX 543MP3 GPU. For comparison the iPhone 4S has a Dual-Core GPU on it’s A5 processor, and the new iPad has a Quad-Core GPU on its A5X mobile processor.

The [SGX 543MP3] is sort of the best of both worlds. You don’t take a huge die area penalty and at the same time don’t run at a significantly higher frequency, and you can get to that same 2x value.

The [SGX 543MP3] option is the most elegant and likely what Apple chose here.

AnandTech has posted a new bit about the processor where it has a picture from UBM TechInsights showing the layout of the A6 processor. This picture confirms the three graphic cores as AnandTech previously predicted.

“The image above shows two 32-bit LPDDR2 memory channels and three GPU cores. We’re likely looking at a PowerVR SGX 543MP3 running at 266MHz.
UBM estimates the die size at 95.04mm2 and the manufacturer as Samsung.”

This is the first of many A6 processor analyses that will inevitably be posted through out this week and beyond, but this is very interesting to know how Apple balanced powerful processing power, and efficient energy usage.

Via: MacRumors