A7 Processor to Be 31% Faster and 64-Bit, iPhone 5S to Support Motion Tracking?

[Mr. Retrofire]

64-Bit is a bit useless on mobile platforms. The A6 supports already 128-Bit NEON instructions.

 

[H2SO4]

The biggest problem I have with some of these anti-spec arguments is that you think it somehow directly equates to the OS, rather than the apps.

Because Android phones have quad-core CPUs with 2GB ram, that must mean Android isn't well optimized.

Because the iDevices don't rely on specs as much, that must mean iOS is much better optimized.

That isn't true. The latest version of Android can run on two-three year old phones with barely a hitch. The reasons you want higher specs is for the apps. So you can work with higher resolution photos faster and better with a photo editing app. So you can have higher quality games with larger worlds and deeper gameplay that don't load as often. So you can have more tabs open in Safari. This is why you all should be more supportive about a hefty spec boost.

Right now it doesn't matter much. There isn't a single app out for a phone that uses a quad core CPU and over a GB of ram. But there eventually will be. The day is coming when tablets apps will be just as robust and capable as what you'd get on a desktop. And when that day comes, you'll want some specs.

Whilst I agree with the majority of your post the last section is wrong.
Tablet apps of the future will match the capability/speed of the desktops of today. Tablets of the future will be slower than desktops of the future is a logical assumption given that a desktop will always have access to more hardware resource, (and hence more complex software), and electrical power.

 

[fertilized-egg]

They said 31% performance boost and nowhere did they mention a 31% clock speed boost so for now we must think the whole package deal is a 31% boost over the 1.2ghz clocked a6.

No. THEY DIDN'T SAY 31% PERFORMANCE BOOST.

It's frustrating when someone argues something based on a headline that's a poor paraphrase of the source article. Here's the actual Tweet:

Sources are telling me the new iPhone's A7 chip is running at about 31% faster than A6. I’m hearing it’s very fast.

Nowhere in that Tweet the word performance is mentioned. Instead it says the chip is "running at about" and goes onto state a very specific figure, 31%, not 30%, IMHO that's a strong hint that the number refers to the clockspeed not the performance which is much more vague. It'd make a perfect sense if the chip is running at 1.7Ghz, which would mean the chip is indeed running 31% faster clockspeed-wise. Determining the performance of "the whole package deal" is impossible to that accuracy. We're not even sure what kind of benchmark to use here.

Again, I must put at least part of the blame on Macrumors' poor summary of the original Tweet. Is it really that difficult to accurately capture what a Tweet said?

 

[Mr. Retrofire]

64bit doubles the memory bandwidth and therefore the transfer from and to the GPU. That's a major improvement. It's not about address space, but bandwidth.

The memory bandwidth is a hardware limitation, not a limitation in software.

Even if the new iPhone has only 1GB of ram, there would be massive improvements to iOS' already great memory handling. In a 32-bit UNIX OS, every process needs to share the same 4GB virtual memory address space that is owned by the kernel.

No, each process has a separate virtual address space in OS X and iOS.

 

[Renzatic]

Whilst I agree with the majority of your post the last section is wrong.
Tablet apps of the future will match the capability/speed of the desktops of today. Tablets of the future will be slower than desktops of the future is a logical assumption given that a desktop will always have access to more hardware resource, (and hence more complex software), and electrical power.

This is true. I'll never expect anyone to do any hardcore render work on a tablet, but I do see a day when Photoshop, CAD programs, and all the other high end applications will have a place on one. Right now, anything more than what the iPad supports is overkill, but every overblown Android device released now makes room for better apps on the platform in the future.

Desktops will always be faster, but that doesn't mean tablets are always gonna be primarily media consumption devices. We're already seeing the push towards using them for production now, and It's only going to gain steam from here. There will eventually come a day when you pick one tablet over another because that quad-core CPU and extra 4GB of ram makes it a much more capable device in comparison to the competition.

 

[mabhatter]

64-bit seems unlikely since it would require a complete re-write of the iOS kernel, and existing 32-bit applications would need to be run in emulation. Wouldn't we have seen some signs in the developer toolkit if it were 64-bit?

The toolkit is already 64-bit because it was based on OSX. (Id bet Apple still has some guy building for POWER servers (IBM) just to keep the code from rotting) Apple doesn't need to run around renaming things, they can just pull the trigger and it "magically" appears.

That said, the 5S is the "tock" release (iPhone 5 is the "tick" of new hardware), so they probably want the feature in the wild but will use it to "just go faster" for now. This should be a good year for iPhone 5/5s folks because those devices are going to pull FAR ahead in features that were too niche to put on just the brand new 5 last year.

 

[MattInOz]

Yes, it would be dumb specifically because the storage chips are NAND Flash.

Allowing for direct addressing of the NAND flash by the CPU (and of course encouraging people to use it) decreases overall performance for at least the following reasons:
1) computation of ECC and remapping is now done by your application instead of a dedicated controller. Obviously, more work done by your CPU that it didn't need to do before means you have computing power available. Even if you added special instructions and logic to accelerate this you'd still lose compared to having a dedicated controller for a whole 'nother variety of reasons stemming from just this point.
2) your CPU has to wait for the NAND; the extra time spent context switching as you wait, if you're not hung, means that you've got less computing power available before because you're spending time doing stuff that you didn't have to do before.
3) NAND is slow. Really slow. In fact, it's possible to get in a situation where writing to NAND is slower than writing to a crappy 5400rpm spinning disk. Inadvertently letting developers who don't understand this use NAND as working memory will be unbelievably bad. If you want to get a taste of this, get a JMF601-based SSD drive, write random bits across the entire thing, and then install your OS over it. It was be abysmally slow because it'll hit all the pain points of NAND.

Basically:
1) NAND is too slow.
2) Developers wouldn't know how to properly use it.
3) Dedicated NAND controller saved the CPU a lot of work and did it in parallel; getting rid of that means the CPU has to do the work.

http://www.fusionio.com/press-releases/fusion-io-and-princeton-university-scientists-team-up-to-seamlessly-extend-memory-from-dram-to-nand-flash/

These guys don't agree with you.

 

[Rad99004]

Quote:
Originally Posted by radus
for me a larger Display ( 5" ) would be more important then a faster processor and may be swipe-keybord for iOS, an infrared sender, NFC, all possible LTE frequencies ...

I think it's time for you to try android if you haven't already done so.

A bigger screen would be nice. The only reason I bought my 4S was 4 Steve. The 5 was made taller only. I have no interest in this phone. If the 5s is just faster, I will still have no interest in upgrading. The Android hardware specs look great, if they were only running IOS. If Apple doesn't make a phone with a bigger screen this time I think I will try a windows phone.The Windows phone will hold me over until Apple starts innovating and listening to what customers want. The words "Apple gives you what you need" is no longer true. Without Steve the vision and striving for perfection is no longer there. It seems the bottom line is more important than adding requested hardware features?

 

[dampfdruck]

64bit doubles the memory bandwidth and therefore the transfer from and to the GPU. That's a major improvement. It's not about address space, but bandwidth.

No. The width of the memory bus and the width of the processor registers are independent.

 

[wesk702]

Nice road map for the CPU. Every CPU had nice boost to it.

Seriously agreed. Seems like every A chip generation, there's always a huge spec bump.

----------

Here are some simple maths.

My iphone 5 gets a 1577 geekbench score. At 31% faster the score will be 2065.

My Galaxy S4 gets a 3200 score in geekbench and my LG Optimus G pro gets a 3000. Both use the same 600 cpu but the S4 is clocked 200mhz faster. My old Galaxy Note II gets a 2000 geekbench score and its almost a year old.

Couple that sad fact with the other sad fact that apple is keeping only 1gb of ram in the 5s and you got a pretty old phone right off the get go.

Why do you need more ram? If you have to ask that then you don't deserve a response.

Amazing how they can have such a high spec performance, but they can't get smooth browser scrolling as well as an aging original iphone.

 

[Anti-Lucifer]

What is this nonsense??

I do not need my ugly iOS 7 transparent screens to be smooth - how about you forgo that extra cpu juice and instead give me something like a motorola X battery life. Right now, it's all pretty pathetic battery life vs. a droid.

The iphone 5 runs 99.9% of everything in the app store perfectly fine. On the iPad 3 and 4 the performance is sorely needed - let's just hope the ipad 5 will get a huge performance boost.

 

[Truefan31]

The biggest problem I have with some of these anti-spec arguments is that you think it somehow directly equates to the OS, rather than the apps.

Because Android phones have quad-core CPUs with 2GB ram, that must mean Android isn't well optimized.

Because the iDevices don't rely on specs as much, that must mean iOS is much better optimized.

That isn't true. The latest version of Android can run on two-three year old phones with barely a hitch. The reasons you want higher specs is for the apps. So you can work with higher resolution photos faster and better with a photo editing app. So you can have higher quality games with larger worlds and deeper gameplay that don't load as often. So you can have more tabs open in Safari. This is why you all should be more supportive about a hefty spec boost.

Right now it doesn't matter much. There isn't a single app out for a phone that uses a quad core CPU and over a GB of ram. But there eventually will be. The day is coming when tablets apps will be just as robust and capable as what you'd get on a desktop. And when that day comes, you'll want some specs.

i guess i see your point, just saying the specs, if they're not even being fully utilitized on apps/software, don't they pretty much eat up battery then? Again, apps/games seem to play well on both ios/android, but usually what i see is an android phone w/a high spec processor and at least 2 gigs of ram, in addition to seeing a hefty standard battery, at least 2000 mah. it just seems like android eats up resources moreso than ios. It would be lovely to have a 2000+mah battery on the iphone, it would last what about 33% longer? that'd be awesome

 

[pmau]

Anand Tech said:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6324/the-iphone-5-performance-preview

"The A6 has a narrower memory interface compared to the A5x (64-bits vs. 128-bits), but that makes sense given the much lower display resolution (0.7MP vs. 3.1MP)."

So, yes. I was wrong. The memory bus has always been wider than I thought, but as you can see even the iPhone5 does "only" utilize 64bit memory bus width due to the smaller display resolution compared to the iPad.

Just a FYI, I admit my initial post was wrong, but I think this might be interesting.

 

[driceman]

64-bit unlikely in A7. It's like toy bricks. Apple will add only one brick in one generation to keep you buying their products all the time. If they boost the configuration too much in one generation, there would be less excitement in the next one. Diminishing returns.

Sounds like Marketing 101 to me.

 

[juanmanas]

Ya man enjoy your 31% faster 5s dude!!!

Its such a huge performance boost! The sad part is they could of made 100% boost if they went to quad core like every other cell maker has.

in order to make the most responsive phone in the market (the iphone 5) more what?

 

[Romf]

What is this nonsense??

I do not need my ugly iOS 7 transparent screens to be smooth - how about you forgo that extra cpu juice and instead give me something like a motorola X battery life. Right now, it's all pretty pathetic battery life vs. a droid.

The iphone 5 runs 99.9% of everything in the app store perfectly fine. On the iPad 3 and 4 the performance is sorely needed - let's just hope the ipad 5 will get a huge performance boost.

totally agree with you.
iphone5 is perfect on perfs. Who cares more perfs when you can't last a day on your battery?

 

[cmichaelb]

What is this nonsense??

I do not need my ugly iOS 7 transparent screens to be smooth - how about you forgo that extra cpu juice and instead give me something like a motorola X battery life. Right now, it's all pretty pathetic battery life vs. a droid.

The iphone 5 runs 99.9% of everything in the app store perfectly fine. On the iPad 3 and 4 the performance is sorely needed - let's just hope the ipad 5 will get a huge performance boost.

Really? My iPad 4 runs everything quite well. The iPad 3 I can understand, that iPad's GPU is working very hard to power a high res display.

 

[the8thark]

Hmm...my iPhone 5 isn't slow.

Isn't slow today. But in the future with newer software it will be.

 

[dylin]

Rather excited about this

 

[anomie]

apple adding useless features (this and fingerprint reader) that people don't want, rather than a bigger screen that people DO want.

Which people? I don´t want a bigger screen.
I can afford an iPad.

 

[AppleMark]

Mine neither. It is perfect. What would make me buy a new one?

The same reason I upgraded my 'original' iPhone... The evolution and therefore demands of an evolving iOS and subsequent Apps will ultimately slow a device which cannot cope with an ever increase in hardware requirements.

Bigger and more advanced Apps and iOS becomes = The need for more power to support it.

 

[chinaboxer]

Sounds like Marketing 101 to me.

haha

 

[Jynto]

Good news. I guess all those "ios7 is laggy" remarks should not be an issue anymore when the 5S is released.

Yes, because our existing iPhones will magically morph into the new 5S?

 

[moxin]

i would love to see the faces of scamsung users now.

 

[juanmanas]

Quote:
Originally Posted by radus
for me a larger Display ( 5" ) would be more important then a faster processor and may be swipe-keybord for iOS, an infrared sender, NFC, all possible LTE frequencies ...




A bigger screen would be nice. The only reason I bought my 4S was 4 Steve. The 5 was made taller only. I have no interest in this phone. If the 5s is just faster, I will still have no interest in upgrading. The Android hardware specs look great, if they were only running IOS. If Apple doesn't make a phone with a bigger screen this time I think I will try a windows phone.The Windows phone will hold me over until Apple starts innovating and listening to what customers want. The words "Apple gives you what you need" is no longer true. Without Steve the vision and striving for perfection is no longer there. It seems the bottom line is more important than adding requested hardware features?

Was Steve an advocate of big screens?