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Kendo

macrumors 68020
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Apr 4, 2011
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The 6 and 6 Plus were severely underpowered because the CPU and GPU was only increased by 25% and 50%. The 6S jumps were much faster at 70% and 90% and they still run circles around any app.

Is this performance jump from A9 to A10 enough or will it be sluggish in two years like the iPhone 6?
 
The 6 and 6 Plus were severely underpowered because the CPU and GPU was only increased by 25% and 50%.
The 6 line is still faster in day to day use than most of the entire industry is selling, other than flagships. That's a phone from two years ago still being faster than the standard midrange phone bought today.

What exactly is the problem here?
 
How much faster is the new iPhone 7 compared to iPhone 6S?? iPhone 6s is 70% faster than iPhone 6
 
Is the A10 the " new A8 chip"?

Not quite. Its a better increase than the A8 was.

Don't forget in real time, the A8 was even lower than Apple's reported "25% and 50%" with CPU gains over the A7 being closer to 12% and GPU gains being closer to 38-40%

The worst internal updates were the iPhone 3G (the same internals as the original iPhone but with a 3G radio) and the iPhone 4...as the A4 was really just the 3GS chips repackaged with a higher clock speed and double ram (which helped with the higher res screen and larger assists but left performance more or less identical; GPU was the exact same)

40% is pretty solid for a non-S update on the same die size.

OP, don't forget that the A9 leap was so big partially due to the A8 being so small (an "enhanced" A7)....so the gains were greater when Apple shrunk the die size down
 
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I should add as well, the A8 is still a very capable mobile chip today.

Is it the fastest? No.

But is it still solid?

Yes. As is the A7.

More limiting to older devices right now is the RAM, as iOS runs clean with 2GB (and ample available memory) but chokes on 1GB
 
Also - most people upgrading will be coming from iPhone 6 devices, this will be a full on >2x CPU increase and 3x GPU increase....so that is huge for those users....in addition to the added RAM and all the other specs & camera features the iPhone 6s and 7 bring to the table. Should be a good update for those who wish to

But if you want to keep your iPhone 6, that device will still work wonderfully, and for most peoples needs it will meet them just fine.
 
Well I mentioned A8 is sluggish because if anyone has compared an iPad Air 2 to an iPad Pro, the A8X is really sluggish right now. I realize the A10 is a much faster chip than the A8 and A9, but I meant in terms of proportionality (the A8 feels slow today). In 2 years, I don't want the A10 to feel like the A8.
 
Let's see what happens when the CPU and gpu throttles to conserve battery life.....I still can't believe Apple is still using 1080p displays...any new age processor will be fast on a 1080p device....
 
The issue with the 6 line (for some, myself included) was RAM. Plenty fast enough albeit the attention span of a goldfish.
 
I've never had any problems with the RAM on my 6 either, but I don't do much multitasking on my phone.
 
The 6 and 6 Plus were severely underpowered because the CPU and GPU was only increased by 25% and 50%. The 6S jumps were much faster at 70% and 90% and they still run circles around any app.

Is this performance jump from A9 to A10 enough or will it be sluggish in two years like the iPhone 6?
A smaller jump from a previous model is not the same thing as underpowered.
 
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Let's see what happens when the CPU and gpu throttles to conserve battery life.....I still can't believe Apple is still using 1080p displays...any new age processor will be fast on a 1080p device....

Do you really need better than 1080p on a less than 6" screen though? Sure, the processor can handle it, but more pixels still means using more power. I don't know if it's worth it. I don't watch movies on my phone, and text and such appears crisp enough on my 6, with its 750p resolution.
 
The only thing I can tell from the A10 Fusion is that they've finally reached a point where iOS no longer gets better with a faster CPU.

If I understood what they said in the keynote, the A10 will function with the 'slower' cores almost all the time, except when playing a game or using an app that requires the full power. But most users won't ever use the full power of the A10, thus giving them more battery life.

I think this is a great implementation from Apple, give power to users that need it and give battery life to those who don't need power.

It will be interesting to see how the 'slower' cores will run, will they run like an iPhone 6 or 6S or even slower. Interesting indeed.
 
Do you really need better than 1080p on a less than 6" screen though? Sure, the processor can handle it, but more pixels still means using more power. I don't know if it's worth it. I don't watch movies on my phone, and text and such appears crisp enough on my 6, with its 750p resolution.

And when the iPhone 8 has oled and quad hd next year your words will change......quad hd has been here for over 3 years...you would think Apple would move on by now...we will be at 4K screens next year
 
I'll start with saying that the 6 plus I used (two different phones since one got warrantied out) was indeed sluggish. Overall worst iPhone I've ever owned and I've owned, or at least had in the immediate family, them all now minus the 5c.

I don't think the scenario is the same here. With the 6 plus we jumped to a much higher screen and resolution than we are now (in actuality we aren't changing that spec at all this time around).

The bottom line is there isn't anything extra to compensate for, minus maybe the camera, and that's not going to eat into CPU or you cycles during regular operation.
 
Well I mentioned A8 is sluggish because if anyone has compared an iPad Air 2 to an iPad Pro, the A8X is really sluggish right now. I realize the A10 is a much faster chip than the A8 and A9, but I meant in terms of proportionality (the A8 feels slow today). In 2 years, I don't want the A10 to feel like the A8.
You can always stay on the software Apple released the A10 with which is ios 10 and it will never be slow , but on the other hand you will miss new features ... Even right now if u pair an iphone 5 with ios 9 its slow af but if u install IOS 6 on it it smooth and works like a charm .
 
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