Oops! The M2 iPad Air Has One Less GPU Core Than Apple First Claimed
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It seems that Apple’s latest M2 iPad Air may be slightly less powerful than we were first told. Apple has quietly updated its specs page to reveal that the M2 chip packed into its latest 2024 iPad Air has only nine GPU cores, not the ten that Apple initially advertised.
Over the past week or so, Apple quietly updated the specs page for the M2 iPad Air — at least in the US — to reflect that it now includes a “9-core GPU.” The change was made sometime after May 21, as that’s the last copy of the page available on the Internet Wayback Machine that still shows a 10-core GPU.
Interestingly, Apple hasn’t yet updated its tech specs in several countries outside of the US. For instance, as of this writing, the M2 iPad Air in Australia shows a 9-core GPU, while the same models in Canada and the UK are still listed as having ten cores. Apple’s Compare iPad Models pages in each country appear to be following suit.
There’s some speculation that Apple may still be selling versions of the M2 iPad Air with 10 GPU cores in some countries. However, unlike the iPhone, Apple mostly sells the same iPad Air models worldwide; only China gets a country-specific model, so it’s likely just a matter of time before those pages are updated. It’s also worth noting that Apple hasn’t updated the specs in its online documentation for the M2 iPad Air.
Unlike the M4 iPad Pro, Apple didn’t say much about the M2 chip in the iPad Air during its Let Loose event last month. When iPad Product Design Director Melody Kuna spoke about the new chip, she mentioned how much faster the CPU, GPU, and Neural Engine were but didn’t go into how many cores the chip contained.
Nevertheless, this was more than merely a gaffe on the specs pages. Apple’s press release accompanying the event clearly called it a “10-core GPU,” repeating many of the other comparisons that Kuna shared on the virtual stage.
The M2 chip brings another big boost in performance to iPad Air, featuring a faster 8-core CPU and 10-core GPU. M2 is a powerful chip that offers a number of improvements over M1, delivering a huge leap in performance for those upgrading from previous-generation iPad Air models.
What’s Going On?
The most obvious explanation for this sudden change is that somebody goofed up somewhere along the way — that the M2 chip in the iPad Air only had nine GPU cores to begin with, and somebody inside Apple wrote down the wrong number, which spread to the press release and all related web pages.
However, it’s also possible that the M2 iPad Air was supposed to have a 10-core GPU, but Apple had problems producing enough chips with all ten cores working and forgot to tell everyone when it dropped that number to nine.
Like most of its M-series chips, Apple engages in an age-old practice known as “chip binning.” Fabricating integrated circuits with billions of transistors is a tricky business; some will inadvertently come out performing slightly below par, but rather than tossing those out, Apple disables a dodgy core or two and markets them as less capable chips.
What’s unusual about the M2 chip in the iPad Air is that it’s the first time we’ve seen a 9-core GPU. Last year’s lowest-end M2 MacBook Air came with an 8-core GPU, but every model above that had the full ten cores. This suggests that Apple’s fabrication process may have improved, and it’s being forced to bin one less core in its newer M2 chips.
Although Apple only recently changed the specs, it’s unlikely that any M2 iPad Air models were sold with 10 functioning GPU cores. Geekbench scores for both the 11-inch iPad Air and the 13-inch model show GPU (Metal) scores in the 41,000 range, compared to over 45,000 on an M2 MacBook Air that has all 10 GPU cores operating.
Apple has not commented on the change, but it’s not something most folks will notice beyond the paper specs. A single GPU core on a tablet like the iPad Air won’t make a noticeable difference in everyday performance, and the kind of users who demand top-tier performance would have likely skipped the iPad Air and gone straight to the M4 iPad Pro. Nevertheless, some customers may still be concerned that they didn’t get what they believed they were paying for.
Update: In a statement to 9to5Mac, an Apple spokesperson confirmed that the company is updating its website “to correct the core count for the M2 iPad Air” while adding that “All performance claims for the M2 iPad Air are accurate and based on a 9-core GPU.”
