Apple's A14 Chip Rumored to Become First Arm-Based Mobile Processor to Exceed 3GHz

[MacRumors]

Apple's unreleased A14 chip is rumored to be the first Arm-based mobile processor to officially exceed 3GHz, according to a new report by Research Snipers.

Apple's A14 processor, the successor to the A13 chip in both the iPhone 11 and iPhone 11 Pro, is expected to debut this fall in Apple's "iPhone 12" models. The report highlights the suspected Geekbench 4 score of the A14 chip, with a frequency reaching 3.1GHz. This would be 400MHz higher than Apple's current A13 Bionic chip with a frequency of 2.7GHz.

At such a frequency, the chip's Geekbench 5 running points have surged. The report mentions that the A14's single-core performance shows a score of 1658 (up 25% from the A13), and a multi-core score of 4612 points (up 33% from the A13). The extra processing power will be helpful in running simultaneous workflows, navigating through apps, and more.

Apple chipmaker TSMC is expected to ramp up production of Apple's 5nm-based A14 chipsets in as early as April of this year.

In addition to the A14 chip, rumors recently have mentioned both Arm processors with Mac Pro level performance and a Mac with an Apple-designed Arm processor are in the works.

Article Link: Apple's A14 Chip Rumored to Become First Arm-Based Mobile Processor to Exceed 3GHz

 

[MacLawyer]

In this time of unrest and uncertainty news like this is refreshing and good for morale!

 

[nathan_reilly]

this is great!

 

[mannyvel]

If only Apple would license the a14 out to server makers. A 50-core a14!

 

[fakejobs]

"In addition to the A14 chip, rumors recently have mentioned both Arm processors with Mac Pro level performance and a Mac with an Apple-designed Arm processor are in the works."

Oh, I'm getting hard.

 

[Red Oak]

The new MacBook Pro 16” w/ 8 core Intel i9 gets 1164 single and 7000 multi on Geekbench 5

The 14X version of this for iPad is going to compare very well. The A series will likely pass Intel’s fastest laptop chips in the next 1-2 generations

 

[mi7chy]

3.3% higher clock than 3GHz Microsoft SQ1 ARM mobile SoC in Surface Pro X but can they maintain boosted clocks? Apple SoCs tend to thermally throttle under load.

 

[ChromeCloud]

Do you remember that keynote when Steve Jobs actually apologized because Apple didn’t keep the promise of putting a 3Ghz G5 processor in their top of the line workstation?
Now they are putting a processor that runs circles around it, in a phone.

 

[DeepIn2U]

Blimey!

Apple’s chipset future is getting really exciting!

 

[kcslc]

It’s still going to be slowed down in a future software update though.

 

[wellander1]

Cool.
But will it be better then apples current software? I hope so.

 

[cababah]

Impressive, but the issue with mobile processors in phones is the inability to sustain those speeds due to heat issues since there is no active cooling like on a laptop (even tablets can manage better due to the heat sink effect of large aluminum surface area).

 

[mistasopz]

That's nice for the 1 second it will run at 3 GHz. Apple is the king of throttling.

 

[I7guy]

It’s a first, like 64bit. Hopefully Apple will put those extra cycles to use.

 

[cmaier]

That's nice for the 1 second it will run at 3 GHz. Apple is the king of throttling.

It’s a phone. The necessity to run for an extended time at 3GHz is dubious. Plus, power consumption is equal to C times voltage squared times the frequency, so reducing the frequency when high speed is not required is a very good idea in a phone.

Now, think about 16 of these cores, with appropriate thermal solution, in a MacBook, and we are talking about something very cool.

 

[cababah]

It’s a phone. The necessity to run for an extended time at 3GHz is dubious. Plus, power consumption is equal to C times voltage squared times the frequency, so reducing the frequency when high speed is not required is a very good idea in a phone.

Now, think about 16 of these cores, with appropriate thermal solution, in a MacBook, and we are talking about something very cool.

You must not do a lot of video exporting....

 

[cmaier]

You must not do a lot of video exporting....

From an iPhone? No. Right tool for the job.

 

[krfr]

Can‘t wait to have this in an iPad Pro!

 

[Mr. Awesome]

It’s still going to be slowed down in a future software update though.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: they don’t “slow down” the processor, they restrict the power draw from the battery. As your battery ages, it’s ability to deliver large amounts of power at a time (which Apple calls Peak Performance Capability) decreases. Since it can’t deliver as much power as the processor needs, iOS keeps your processor from drawing so much power that your battery can’t keep up. If it didn’t do that, your phone would randomly shut down.
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From an iPhone? No. Right tool for the job.

I believe he’s talking about the MacBook Pro mentioned in your original post.

 

[cmaier]

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: they don’t “slow down” the processor, they restrict the power draw from the battery. As your battery ages, it’s ability to deliver large amounts of power at a time (which Apple calls Peak Performance Capability) decreases. Since it can’t deliver as much power as the processor needs, iOS keeps your processor from drawing so much power that your battery can’t keep up. If it didn’t do that, your phone would randomly shut down.
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I believe he’s talking about the MacBook Pro mentioned in your original post.

Oh, thanks. He’s one of those guys that think Arm can’t do “serious work?” Got it.

 

[munpip214]

This has been apples main performance gain for recent generations. Easy to wow people with performance gains only to do it by increasing frequency. True architectural improvements have been fairly minor. Most of this probably came with drop to 5nm. Instead of increasing battery life Apple pushed performance.

 

[cmaier]

This has been apples main performance gain for recent generations. Easy to wow people with performance gains only to do it by increasing frequency. True architectural improvements have been fairly minor. Most of this probably came with drop to 5nm. Instead of increasing battery life Apple pushed performance.

Nope.

Frequency increase is 14%, but single core performance is 25% higher. 11% of the performance increase had to have come from architectural improvements.

And unless they added cores, the multi core performance increase of 33% means even more architectural improvements.

 

[ian87w]

3.3% higher clock than 3GHz Microsoft SQ1 ARM mobile SoC in Surface Pro X but can they maintain boosted clocks? Apple SoCs tend to thermally throttle under load.

Because we see them only on mobile devices so far, which are passively cooled and don't have a big thermal window. We have to see them in a regular desktop /laptop environment to see how they perform, and that depends on whether Apple will make one or not.

 

[arvinsim]

Meanwhile, my 2017 iPad Pro handles things just fine.

Honestly, the only thing that tempts me to buy a 2018 iPad Pro is the pencil.

Don't care about the performance bump nor the camera.

 

[travis64]

Yea but 5g causes cancer so not worth it