Larry Dignan for ZDNet:
Apple took direct aim at Nvidia’s Tegra 3—a processor for a new batch of superphones—as it launched its latest iPad. The problem: Apple showed a chart with 4X the performance of Tegra 3, but provided no benchmarks or footnotes.
…
Ken Brown, a spokesman for Nvidia, said that it was “certainly flattering” to be called out by Apple, but the performance claims are sketchy without more data.
Nvidia’s invested a lot to convince Android hardware and software developers that its Tegra platform is the way to go for maximum performance for games and other demanding apps, so it’s unlikely to take Apple’s claims lying down. Not that the A5X is a design choice any Android developers have anyway.
I’m skeptical, too, for the exact reason Nvidia’s spokesman states. I’m sure the A5X is faster in some respects than the Tegra, but I doubt it’s 4x faster across the board.
But if I was NVidia, I doubt I’d make a public statement to that effect. When developers get ahold of the A5X, that skepticism will be mentioned in every “Apple A5X not really 4x faster than Tegra only 2.5x faster” (for example) story. That statement will keep the story about the Tegra getting spanked in the news longer than it would be otherwise.
Assuming, of course, the A5X really is faster than the Tegra. But I doubt Apple would make the misstep of crowing about performance if it wasn’t. It would have been easy for them to leave the Tegra out and compare only to the iPad 2.
I am skeptical about Nvidia’s skepticism. It is, ironically, a sign of “Nvy”.
Funny.