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iPhone 4 is Faster than 3GS and Slower than iPad in Early Benchmarks

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macrumors bot
Original poster
Apr 12, 2001
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iPhone 4 results on top, 3GS on bottom

Early benchmarks of the iPhone 4 show it to be 31% faster than the iPhone 3GS according to the Geekbench 2 app. Geek Bench has been a popular benchmarking utility on the Mac that has recently made the jump over to the iPhone. As always, benchmarks are a bit of artificial gauge of performance, but can be useful in head to head comparisons.

The iPhone 4 is known to use the same Apple A4 processor that is also found in the iPad, but Apple has never revealed the processor speed of the iPhone 4. The iPad is known to have a 1GHz processor. We looked at a few benchmarking utilities to see if we could determine if the iPhone 4's A4 processor was the same speed as the iPad's. Unfortunately, the state of benchmarking on iOS seems a bit primitive, and is further complicated by the fact that iOS 4.0 does not run on the iPad. GeekBench, for example, only runs on iOS 4, so we can't compare it directly to the iPhone 4's results. A couple of other benchmarking tools available produced some inconsistent results, so we can't be completely confident in them, but it appears that the iPhone 4 is indeed faster than the iPhone 3GS but slower than the iPad.

BenchTest: 3GS: 2.298, iPhone 4: 2.514, iPad: 3.667 - This benchmark only showed a small increase in speed with the iPhone 4, but some of the results seemed strange. All the "seconds" were listed at 0.00, though a score was still generated. It's hard to say if the results are entirely accurate.

Checkup: 3GS, iPhone 4, iPad - This also showed the trend of iPad > iPhone 4 > iPhone 3GS, but running the benchmark multiple times could result in a large variance.


Article Link: iPhone 4 is Faster than 3GS and Slower than iPad in Early Benchmarks
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2010/06/23/iphone-4-is-faster-than-3gs-and-slower-than-ipad-in-early-benchmarks/
wikoogle

wikoogle

macrumors 6502a
Jun 12, 2009
929
0
Awesome, but can you guys link to more 720p videos and photos taken from the iPhone 4.

I'm sure lots of people are taking them. The one video you showed was really brightly lit and thus way oversaturated. :(
 
T

tofa.nheu

macrumors member
May 14, 2010
41
0
this is great news for the people despairing about the 512 ram in the iPhone 4 and 256 ram in the iPad :)
 
TMar

TMar

macrumors 68000
Jul 20, 2008
1,679
1
Ky
I don't see the new iphone running at 1GHz. Add the fact that it has more ram then the ipad if everything else was equal the i4 would be faster.
 
chatin

chatin

macrumors 6502a
May 27, 2005
929
598
WM calls 4 out

Walt Mosberg called iPhone 4 out for fewer bars in more places and too much searching for service. Apple told him these were bugs. He also has a white version.
 
wikoogle

wikoogle

macrumors 6502a
Jun 12, 2009
929
0
chatin said:
Walt Mosberg called iPhone 4 out for fewer bars in more places and too much searching for service. Apple told him these were bugs. He also has a white version.
Click to expand...

What? So the antenna isn't better? They made it huge though. I thought that was the point of making the whole bezel an antenna. :mad:
 
V

VillageIdiot84

macrumors newbie
Jun 23, 2010
5
0
iPhone 4 vs. original iPhone?

I'm interested to see the speed difference between the new iPhone 4 and all the other iPhone models - how much have things really moved on since the first version came out?
 
A

acslater017

macrumors 6502a
Jul 25, 2006
716
123
San Francisco Bay Area
Looks like Apple hit the sweet spot between performance/specs and battery life. From what I can tell (I've never handled one personally), apps launch near instantaneously, it has no problem recording/editing 720p video, playing 3D games, etc. Any extra "performance per watt"s should go towards increasing battery life.
 
W

Wingsy

macrumors member
Apr 19, 2007
67
0
chatin said:
Walt Mosberg called iPhone 4 out for fewer bars in more places and too much searching for service. Apple told him these were bugs. He also has a white version.
Click to expand...

They said the "bug" was in the display of the bars, not that it had less of a signal. He was always able to make/receive calls even with no bars displayed.
 
I

iJed

macrumors 6502
Sep 4, 2001
264
10
West Sussex, UK
I'd imagine the the iPhone 4 will have either an 800 or 900MHz A4. It's better to sacrifice a little clock speed to get improved battery life.
 
TMar

TMar

macrumors 68000
Jul 20, 2008
1,679
1
Ky
wikoogle said:
What? So the antenna isn't better? They made it huge though. I thought that was the point of making the whole bezel an antenna. :mad:
Click to expand...

That's a huge misconception that bigger antenna are better then smaller ones.
 
S

s1nt4x

macrumors newbie
May 25, 2010
19
0
the 3gs was running low on battery ,perhaps a fair comparison wold be with a fully charged 3gs same as 4 ?
 
R

Rend It

macrumors 6502
Oct 27, 2003
266
5
United States
p-rice said:
The iPhone4 A4 chip is probably underclocked to 800mhz.
Click to expand...

My thoughts exactly. Take the ratios of some of those Geekbench scores and multiply by the 3GS's 600 MHz and you get numbers very close to 800 MHz.

The A4 may be faster per clock cycle, but that would seem to indicate that the CPU speed would be less than 800 MHz.
 
ValSalva

ValSalva

macrumors 68040
Jun 26, 2009
3,783
259
Burpelson AFB
This test is unfortunately meaningless until we know how fast the iPhone's processor is running. It wouldn't surprise me if the iPhone is slightly underclocked because of the vastly smaller battery than the giant iPhone's. Heat may also be a problem inside the smaller case of the iPhone which is another reason to run it at a slower clock speed.
 
Z

Zunjine

macrumors 6502a
Jun 26, 2009
715
0
So what do we learn?

farqueue said:
2nd...


Brah... i always knew apple will put in some crappy A4 processor in between 600mhz and 1ghz.

Samsung Galaxy S here i come!
Click to expand...

I'm not picking on you, so please don't take this personally. You just happened to make this statement which I think illustrates our utterly irrational thinking when it comes to spec.

Have we learned nothing? You're planning to buy the Samsung Galaxy S on the strength of the faster processor? By all accounts the iPhone 4 is an utterly fantastic device, responds instantly to any action, feels great in the hand and provides real value to the user. This is forgotten or disregarded because of an abstract number attached to a chip.

I can understand if this was an issue of balance. Maybe this was just that last item that tipped you towards Samsung but I see this sort of thinking all the time. It was the same with the iPad RAM issue. Suddenly the stuff you get, the way it works and the real value to the user is lost to view behind a list of numbers and letters. No wonder Apple doesn't talk about specifications.
 
Arisian

Arisian

macrumors 68000
Sep 14, 2007
1,546
1
China
s1nt4x said:
the 3gs was running low on battery ,perhaps a fair comparison wold be with a fully charged 3gs same as 4 ?
Click to expand...

I thought the same thing. I'm not aware of any governing that the iPhones do when low on batteries. Just because I'm not aware of it certainly doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

Glad someone else notices the low battery.

Brian
 
A

army91c

macrumors 6502a
Mar 9, 2009
804
0
farqueue said:
2nd...


Brah... i always knew apple will put in some crappy A4 processor in between 600mhz and 1ghz.

Samsung Galaxy S here i come!
Click to expand...
Got troll?

You sound like my 4 y/o when she doesn't get her way. Do you really think any of us or apple for that matter care if you move onto samsung? Hit the road lil doggie, don't let the door hit your little wagging tail on the way out!
No one cares if you were 2nd, 2nd is the first loser.
 
Arisian

Arisian

macrumors 68000
Sep 14, 2007
1,546
1
China
iPhysicist said:
No, battery does not affect speed.
Click to expand...

I'm not saying you are wrong - please don't hear me picking on you. I'm not.

However, do we know this for a fact. I've read a few articles that suggest it does. I personally agreed with you right off the batt, I would strongly assume it doesn't, but I have no proof.

So my question: Are we sure that it doesn't?

Again, not singling you out or even remotely disagreeing w/ you. I tend to agree w/ you - just wondering if we know that for a fact.

Cheers,
Brian
 
X

-=XX=-Nephilim

macrumors 6502a
Feb 1, 2009
674
0
Why on earth Apple just doesn't come clean in regards to specs...


We have this much ram -> ?

We have this cpu running at -> ?

etc... etc... etc...


It's almost like they have something to hide which is silly since specs will be discovered sooner or later anyway...
 
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