iPad 2 Benchmarks Reveal 900MHz Dual-Core A5 Processor But Ready to Rock Your World

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The iPad 2 has been out for just a couple of days and it has already sold-out in the Apple store, not to mention its partners’ stores. In case you want to order yours now you’ll be waiting for a few weeks for Apple to ship it but you can spend that time to find out more about your upcoming tablet.

Today we’re looking at software benchmarks that show us what the new tablet can do for you. Apple introduced a new chip with the iPad 2, the A5, which will probably be used in the iPhone 5 too later this year and which is ready to impress at dual-core speeds. But while we assumed it’s going to be a 1GHz dual-core processor when Apple announced the tablet a few weeks ago, software benchmarks have revealed that the processor is dynamically clocked at 900MHz.

Some people might be troubled by that particular speed and conclude that the iPad 2 might not be as powerful as the competition, but the same benchmarks showed that the new Apple tablet is ready to zoom past the Xoom (a great device which we have recently reviewed,) not to mention the iPad 1.

The most impressive new spec of the iPad 2 seems to be that dual-core PowerVR SGX543MP2 GPU, which will offer you a great user experience when it comes to games or graphic-rich apps. GLBenchmark showed that the iPad 2 can offer 57.6 frames per second while the Xoom stopped at 26,7fps, almost 10fps higher than the iPad 1’s 17.6fps. But is that really “up to 9x faster graphics?”

The simple conclusion is that yes, the iPad 2 is more powerful than the original iPad, and yes, it can face the competition. Add to that the popularity of Apple’s iTunes environment, which includes all the content you’d want to access on a tablet, music, TV shows, videos, apps and eBooks, and you’ll understand why Apple will still be king of the tablet hill for at least another year, even if its market share will drop compared to 2010.

How’s your iPad 2 treating you?