Before this turns into a flame-fest, let me say this: The iPad Pro is shockingly fast, as Macworld’s review drives home, and Apple has again worked its mastery of hardware, software and virtually unlimited resources to build an amazingly fast chip for the iPad Pro. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. My battery of tests shows that in some things, it ain’t that fast.

How we got here
What started the "Intel and its CPUs are doomed” talk were benchmarks showing the A9X SoC in the iPad Pro overpowering Intel’s older Haswell chips and even its newest Skylake CPUs.

Many of those conclusions were based on performance results from the popular multi-platform Geek Bench 3 benchmark, as well as browser-based benchmarks such as Mozilla’s Kraken and Google’s Octane 2.0. This limited data set had the faithful buzzing that the end was nigh for x86.

If you like to test hardware, you know the weakness of the last two tests: A browser test isn’t a test of the CPU/SoC, it’s a test of the chip plus the browser and OS optimizations underneath it. On the iPad Pro the browsers are pretty much the same, as Apple makes all use its highly optimized rendering engine. On the PC, your browser pick matters. Browser-based benchmarks are hardly the best tools on the PC either.

Geek Bench 3 is different. The creators of Geek Bench 3 have stated their goals are to create a cross-platform test that isolates the CPU as much as possible, using algorithms that it believes are valid for chip performance. If you peep at the chart below, you can see what got people in a tizzy.

ipad pro geek bench single core overall
Fan boys have used Geek Bench 3’s performance results to write screeds that the x86-based PC (and Mac) are officially goners.
Yes: Whoa. That iPad Pro in single-core performance (which is a good metric to use to judge across platforms where some chips have more cores) is every bit as fast as the CPU in the newest mid-range Core i5 Surface Pro 4 in Geek Bench 3. It’s uncomfortably close to that Core i7-6600U in the far pricier top-end Surface Book, too.

For the record: Almost all of the tests in this section were run within the last few days, with the latest OSes and updates applied. The only OS that was out of date was my corporate-issue Windows 8.1 box with its 3.4GHz Core i7-2600, which I threw in for kicks.

Although I think it matters less, I’ll hit you with the results from Geek Bench 3 for multi-core too. The iPad in multi-core performance is on a par with the older Haswell-based Surface Pro 3, but it loses to the newer Skylake-based Surface Pro 4. Why? I’m not sure, but the Intel chips’ Hyper-Threading resource management could be a factor. That’s why I think the single-core performance is more meaningful.

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ipad pro geek bench multi core ovearll
The iPad Pro loses a little ground in the multi-core Geek Bench 3 result, but zowie!
Goodbye, Intel
So how do all the devices stack up in other benchmarks? First up is BAPCo’s TabletMark V3. While Geek Bench 3 attempts to create what its makers think is an accurate measure of CPU performance using seconds-long "real world” algorithms, BAPCo’s approach is actually more "real world.” BAPCo’s consortium of mostly hardware makers set out to create workloads across all the different platforms that would simulate what a person does, such as actually editing a photo with HDR, browsing the web, or sending email.

Because there’s no universal app that runs in Windows, Windows RT, Android and iOS, BAPCO set out and custom-created apps that did the same thing with the same interface across all platforms. Indeed, when you watch it run on the platforms, it looks like someone is using an application on all three doing the same task on all three.

A white paper on the benchmark discloses the approach as well as the libraries, compilers and APIs used in the test. The test runs in real time, which can take a few hours on some devices. Here’s how the iPad Pro fares.

ipad pro tabletmarkv3 overall
BAPCO’s TabletMarket V3 doesn’t look quite as dire as Geek Bench 3.
TabletMark disagrees
In TabletMark V3, the iPad Pro doesn’t look quite as threatening, does it? Even the Intel Haswell Core i5-4300u in the two-year old Surface Pro 3 easily outpaces the A9X here. It isn’t even far ahead of the tablet pack. The worst performer for x86 is the budget Surface 3 with its Atom X7-z8700. For shame, Atom, for shame.

The benchmark has two performance modules, which give you an idea of how fast the device would be in web browsing and email. The result for iPad Pro is tepid, with performance just beating the Nexus 9 and its Tegra K1.

ipad pro tabletmarkv3 email web
TabletMark’s V3 score indicates the iPad Pro doesn’t compete with Intel’s Broadwell or even older Haswell CPUs.
TabletMark V3 also measures photo and video performance, which gives the iPad Pro a healthy lead over the ARM competitors and the Atom X7-Z8700. But the A9X doesn’t come close to the Core i5 or Core i7 devices above it in the chart, or even the Core M.

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The puzzler is the performance of the Surface Pro 3 and the Dell Venue 11 Pro, which use older chips. I expected this to be in the bag for the Skylake parts, but the Broadwell-based Core M and the even older Haswell Core i5 are hanging right there.

"3DMark is designed to benchmark real world gaming performance. The Physics test uses an open source physics library that is used in Grand Theft Auto V, Trials HD and many other best-selling games for PC, console and mobile. Higher scores in 3DMark Ice Storm Physics test directly translate into improved performance in games that use the Bullet Physics Library and are a good indicator of improved performance in other games.”

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