How fast are the original iPad Air and iPad mini 2 compared to one another? How fast are they compared to their predecessors?

In the company press release, Apple boasts that the original iPad Air provides "up to twice the CPU and graphics performance" of the iPad 4th Gen replaced and the iPad mini 2 provides "up to four times the CPU and eight times the graphics performance" of the original iPad mini.

Impressive, certainly. However, as the iPad Air models -- the iPad Air (Wi-Fi Only), (Wi-Fi/Cellular), and (Wi-Fi/TD-LTE/Cellular - China) -- as well as the iPad mini 2 models -- the iPad mini 2 (Retina/2nd Gen - Wi-Fi Only), (Retina/2nd Gen - Wi-Fi/Cellular), and (Retina/2nd Gen - China) -- both use the Apple A7 processor, which has a 64-bit architecture, and earlier models only have a 32-bit architecture, it would be reasonable to assume that the performance boost would be substantial.

As the original iPad mini effectively is similar to the much older iPad 2 internally (with half as much RAM as more recent models), it likewise would be reasonable to expect the iPad mini 2 to provide a particularly significant speed boost.

Independent benchmarks and real-world testing not only can be useful to verify the official numbers, but also can be useful to estimate the performance of the iPad Air and the iPad mini 2 models compared to one another and to determine how much of this performance difference actually is "felt" in real-world use.

Performance Overview

For a solid general overview of the performance differences between the original iPad Air and the iPad mini 2 and the models each replaced as well as other iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch models, Everyi.com's own Ultimate iComparison makes it quick to compare side-by-side Geekbench benchmark averages for each device.

According to Geekbench 3.0, the iPad Air is roughly 6% faster than the iPad mini 2 and 88% faster than the iPad 4th Gen replaced. Likewise, the iPad mini 2nd Gen is a jaw dropping 404% faster than the original iPad mini.

Independent Tests

Geekbench can be great for the overall theoretical performance difference between different iPad models, but other benchmarks and real-world perspectives also can be useful.

In a pair of reviews, ArsTechnica tested both the iPad Air and the iPad mini 2 and reported:

We can say that there's a drastic improvement in responsiveness and overall smoothness if you're comparing the iPad Air to the A5 or A5X in the iPad 2, iPad mini, or third-generation iPad, but in current apps and games it's more difficult to tell the difference between the A7 and the A6X in the fourth-generation iPad. There's nowhere that the iPad 4 trips up (occasional dropped frames while looking at iOS 7's still-obnoxious transition animations, for example) where the iPad Air doesn't also occasionally trip up. You'll notice the speed increases the most in CPU-heavy applications like iMovie, where the A7 exported a 60 second 1080p clip in about half the time it took the A6X, but if your usage is limited to browsing, reading, or even gaming, you aren't going to see a big leap going from one generation to the next. . .

[In onscreen GFXBench benchmarks] the Retina mini manages to be two to three times faster than the old one despite pushing a display with four times as many pixels. When the first Retina iPad came out, its actual onscreen GPU performance could just about break even with the older iPad 2's. The Retina iPad mini manages to offer both a better display and a nice graphical upgrade.

Focusing on real-world benefits, iLounge noted the still relative lack of software to truly take advantage of the 64-bit Apple A7 processor, but did discover:

There are some concrete examples of the A7's improved performance if you know where to look for them. For instance, importing 50 photos using Apple's Lightning to SD Card Reader takes 15 seconds rather than 25 on the prior iPad, and using iPhoto to prepare five photos for social media sharing is almost instantaneous on the iPad Air while requiring 10 or more seconds on the fourth [Gen] iPad.

BareFeats also compared the iPad Air and iPad mini 2 to earlier full size iPad models, the iPhone 5, and the iPhone 5s using a variety of benchmarks and found that the newer iPad devices were "truly twice as fast" as the iPad 4th Gen in some benchmark tests, but fell short in others.

Performance Video

Numbers and commentary can be quite helpful indeed, but if you're the type who prefers a time-based comparison for perspective, this video from Tom Rich (site no longer online) effectively demonstrates how long it takes the iPad Air, iPad mini 2, and original iPad mini to complete the Geekbench and SunSpider benchmark tests:

Performance Summary

Ultimately, the original iPad Air is modestly faster than the iPad mini 2 and substantially faster than the iPad 4th Gen it replaced. The jump in performance for the iPad Air compared its predecessor is impressive, but the speed boost can "feel" less significant than "twice as fast" in some real-world tasks.

On the other hand, the iPad mini 2's complete annihilation of its predecessor is quite impressive, period.