A Watch’s CPU

[Jackbequickly]

More powerful CPU will decrease battery life which is already not stellar. Do not see much of a reason to increase the CPU speed unless they add an option to a future Watch that requires more speed.

 

[bodonnell202]

More powerful CPU will decrease battery life which is already not stellar. Do not see much of a reason to increase the CPU speed unless they add an option to a future Watch that requires more speed.

It's a bit more complicated than that. Since the chip in the current watch is built on a 7 nm process (TSMC N7P to be precise) and newer more efficient processes exist now it's possible to switch to a smaller process and either improve performance while maintaining power usage or maintain performance and decrease power usage (or a little bit of both, which is often the route Apple takes with their A series chips).

 

[bodonnell202]

The original Apple Watch used a VERY slow single ARM Cortex A7. The Series 1 and 2 used a dual core model of the same chip, hence the huge performance jump, literally a 2x for multi-core, although the CPU was still quite slow relative to the custom ARM designs Apple was using in the iPhone (interestingly enough, the S1/S2 were introduced in 2016, the same year Apple introduced the A10 with Apple's first big.LITTLE CPU design). The Series 3 saw a faster version of the same (?) Coretx A7 dual core.

I always sort of wondered about this - there isn't a ton of information on what is in those early chips - we do know that the S1 had a single core Cortex-A7 at 520 Mhz with a PowerVR GPU, built on a 28 nm process and the S1P/S2 had a dual core Cortex-A7 at 520 MHz with an updated PowerVR GPU, but I don't think anyone knows for sure what process it was built on (my guess is 20 nm). There's very little info on the S3 - we know it's a 32 bit dual core and a decent speed bump from the S2, but not much else - my guess too (as you sort of alluded to) is that it is a die shrink (14 or 16 nm?) of the S2 chip running at higher clockspeeds and with a bit more RAM.

S4 chip was huge as it used technology from the A12, which was the latest and greatest at the time of it's release and was the first and (so far) only time the AW was using the latest tech. The fact that the next actual new chip they released was based on the A13 kind of suggests that at one point they planned to do an annual update to the S series chips using the latest efficiency core, but priorities changed and they slowed development. I kind of figured it would become an every other year cycle so the S8 not being a new chip kind of surprised me.

I suppose it does have it's advantages as my Series 5 still feels relevant, and plenty fast, whereas prior to the Series 4 a 3 generation old AW felt old and slow in comparison to the latest AW.

 

[pw5a29]

A more powerful CPU allows you to do the same tasks with less energy, most of the times

So a better CPU = better battery life

 

[Jackbequickly]

It's a bit more complicated than that. Since the chip in the current watch is built on a 7 nm process (TSMC N7P to be precise) and newer more efficient processes exist now it's possible to switch to a smaller process and either improve performance while maintaining power usage or maintain performance and decrease power usage (or a little bit of both, which is often the route Apple takes with their A series chips).

‘The cost of a new chip would have added to the cost of the Watch. I am sure they will update it sooner of later but for now, it is not needed. Don’t see my watch lagging while asking it to do what I expect and the Apple Watch prices did not greatly increase. Many people, including myself were surprised at the cost of the Ultra.

 

[Reggaenald]

I'm going to say either this is a brand new watch that hasn't cached anything yet, or you're trolling. I have a Series 3. I just opened my "workout app". There is no "loading wheel".

Be careful who you call a troll here, that might just get you temporarily banned as I’ve heard… luckily I’m not as sensitive as others might be in this regard.

Also, what’s this?:

A loading wheel? If only it was rainbow coloured.

 

[Reggaenald]

A more powerful CPU allows you to do the same tasks with less energy, most of the times

So a better CPU = better battery life

That’s nonsense, sorry. For example,more powerful desktop CPUs or even mobile computer CPUs are often just capable of drawing more power to achieve more, not doing more with the same amount of power.
You don’t mean powerful, but efficient. Which are two very different things. Ask Intel.

Maybe Apple should have transitioned from Intel to PowerPC instead. Oh wait.