iPhone 5 ‘boasts dual-core A5 chip, 1GB RAM’

Apple’s next generation iPhone will boast the same processing power as the iPad 2, a new report suggests.

It is also claimed the smartphone, which has been subject to months of speculation, will feature 1 GB of RAM.

News website 9to5mac claims the details have been acquired from an anonymous source close to the matter. It also claims the device will boast an 8 megapixel camera.

Apple has not publicly commented on its next generation iPhone, though the group is expected to hold a press conference in early October.

If the rumoured specifications are accurate, it would signal another dramatic leap forward in mass-market smartphone technology.

The iPhone 4 features 512 MB of RAM, while the original iPhone – released in 2007 – featured just 128 MB. Sony’s upcoming handheld, PS Vita, boasts 512MB as well as 128MB vRAM. The 3DS has 128MB.

The iPhone’s extra memory allocation, if true, would allow developers far more breathing space in building content. The slick iPhone operating system itself places high demand on memory.

The Apple A5 system-on-a-chip was commercially released with iPad 2 and contains a dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 CPU with NEON SIMD accelerator and a dual core PowerVR SGX543MP2 GPU.

It is believed the chip can be clocked at 1 GHz, though dynamic adjustments are made to save battery life.

Apple has famously claimed the chip is “up to nine times more powerful” than the A4 chip.