The iPad Pro has an A9X chip which offers performances close to those of Intel Core M processors implemented by various PC manufacturers in ultrabooks, these displaying the low-end versions of the Intel processor series.
In a very complex performance test, The iPad Pro with its A9X chip was compared to the MacBook Retina 12 inch, Transformer Book T300 Chi and ASUS ZenBook UX305CA, the first two having low-end Intel Core M processors, while the ASUS product has a Skylake Intel Core M3 processor.
In the SPECint2006† benchmark, the iPad Pro won half of the performance tests compared to the MacBook Retina 12 inch and the ASUS ZenBook UX305CA, with the Transformer Book T300 Chi beating it in all the tests that were performed.
Although the iPad Pro won some tests compared to those products, when it comes to general performance, Apple's product does not come out victorious, but it has results close to those offered by low-end Intel Core M processors.
A9X can compete with both Broadwell and Skylake Core M processors, and that's something Apple couldn't claim even a generation ago. That it's only against the likes of Core m3 means that Apple still has a way to go, particularly as A9X still loses by more than it wins, but it's significant progress in a short period of time and I'll wager that it's closer than Intel would like to be, especially if Apple puts A9X into a cheaper iPad Air in the future.
Apple has invested a lot of money and continues to invest in the development of high-performance chips for the iPhone and iPad, and what it offers in the iPad Pro proves that in the future the differences between processors for mobile terminals and those for computers will be even smaller.
The A9X chip of the iPad Pro has a processor with two cores clocked at 2.2 GHz, but also 4 GB of DDR 3 RAM.
