The new iPad 8 is only a “speed bump” version of the seventh-generation model, but it certainly offers a noticeable increase in performance. Benchmarks show this recently released tablet is about twice as fast as its predecessor.
iPad 8 vs. iPad 7 performance
Apple always keeps quiet abut some of the specs of its tablets. So while it said at the launch that the iPad 8 moved from an Apple A10 Fusion processor to an A12 Bionic, it didn’t give any specifics about this chip.
Now that this computer is in customers’ hands, we know that its A12 has six cores. And the maximum speed for these is 2.49 GHz. There’s 3 GB of RAM.
Compare that to the iPad 7, which has only four cores at 2.3 GHz, two for speed and two for power saving. There’s also 3 GB of RAM.
As a result, the iPad 8 pulls in much higher benchmark scores. The multi-core score on Geekbench 5 gets as high as 2945, according to Primate Labs. For comparison, the average score for the iPad 7 on this test 1373.
And the 2020 iPad Pro too
As the eighth-generation iPad uses an A12 Bionic, and the 2020 iPad Pro includes an A12Z Bionic, some have wondered how their performance will compare.
The Pro model boasts eight processor cores, though these also run at 2.49 GHz. This tablet includes 6 GB of RAM — twice as much.
The result is that Geekbench 5 multi-core scores for the iPad Pro go up to 4721. Compare that to the 2945 score for the iPad 8 on the same test.
More about the iPad 8
So much of the focus for the iPad 8 is on the performance because the only real difference between this tablet and its predecessor is the new processor.
Just like the seventh-gen version, Apple’s latestlow-cost tablet has a 10.2-inch 2160-by-1620-pixel resolution display. There’s a Home button with Touch ID, and an 8 MP rear camera. The front camera is 1.2 MP. And it’s the last tablet with a Lightning port — all Apple’s others have moved to USB-C.
It’s sold with either 64 GB or 128 GB of storage. The base model is ordinarily $329, but for a limited time it’s available for almost 10% less.
