Iphone 3GS CPU/GPU

With the due launch of the Iphone 3GS next week, it is important for consumers to be advised as of the new 'S' means. The new Iphone 3GS is equipped with a 600mhz ARM Cortex A8 CPU and a PowerVR SGX graphics accelerator. The ROM has increased to 256MB from 128MB.

The new CPU is rated at 600mhz, utilising a 65nm processing, rather than the 90nm manufacturing process of both the 1st generation Iphone and the Iphone 3G. It has a 13 pipeline stages. It comes with 32KB L1 cache and 256KB L2 cache.This is a vast improvement from the Iphone 1st/2nd generation where the old cpu runs on a 8 pipeline stages and comes with 16KB of L1 cache without any L2 cache.The CPU on the Iphone 2G/3G can only take one instruction per cycle as compared to the Iphone 3GS which can take in two instructions per cycle. That is not all, the GPU is another issue over here.

The Iphone 3GS's GPU is optimised for power and speed. The PowerVR SGX for the Iphone 3GS most probably works around 200mhz and it is capable of handling 7M pixels per second! This is a vast difference when you compare to the existing Iphone 2G/3G of a clock speed of 60mhz with 100M pixels per second! Wow... I am totally blown away!!! However...

If you are asking me whether I am going to buy the Iphone 3GS this year, I will have to tell you that I will not fork out any money for the Iphone 3GS. Do you know why? Well, there is a perfect reason for it. There is an upcoming cpu/gpu for OMAP which is the Cortex A9 which supports multi-core.Although the technology is two years old (for the Cortex A9), I think Apple might just get their hands on the Cortex A9 next year. When it happens, my contract would have ended and I can upgrade by then. Well, I think I will have to make it a pass this time as I think I like the idea of a multi-core cpu/gpu for a change. The aging Pentium 4-M 2.2ghz's fan is spinning like nobody's business. I think it is high time for me to change to a dual core, perhaps?

More details could be found here.