iOS 4.3 is ready for more powerful graphics processors

Discovered deep inside the first beta SDK for iOS 4.3 is a driver for Imagination Technologies’ POWERVR SGX543 GPU. Starting with the iPhone 3GS, Apple’s iOS devices have leveraged the POWERVR SGX535 graphics processor. MacRumors summarizes the benefits of the SGX543 over the SGX535:

The SGX543 is said to deliver performance of 35 million polygons per second and a filtrate of 1 billion pixels per second when running at 200 MHz, compared to 28 million polygons per second and a filtrate of 500 million pixels for the SGX535 running at the same clock speed. In addition, the SGX543 offers support for the Apple-backed OpenCL specification that allows applications to harness untapped potential of both CPUs and GPUs for processing purposes. Finally, the SGX543 support multi-core configurations allowing for even greater performance.

This new chip will most likely work in conjunction with Apple’s upcoming A5 system-on-a-chip for iOS devices.