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I am curious what are the real-world benefits to the average iPhone user for a faster CPU? I am still using XS Max and really have not seen an advantage to upgrade in my case. That doesn't mean one exists and perhaps I am missing it.
Performance is a function of efficiency per watt. You also get better battery life.
 
So, we're led to believe Apple is the golden standard that will outperform now, and future phones?

Apple haven't time traveled have they? No doubt the A14 is "that good", but there must be a silver lining somewhere.
 
These are Anandtech’s benchmarks. They are under no obligation to make a particular vendor look good.
These are not Anandtech benchmarks - the vendor supplied these. Anandtech is publishing them as news/preview not an independent review.
 
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Longevity. These processors are impressive and certain Apps definitely benefit from the horsepower, but I think it’s more for future proofing. I think it’s why Apple supports their devices so long.
Who is keeping their phones for more than 2 years?? I guess my mom does. 🤷‍♂️
 
So, we're led to believe Apple is the golden standard that will outperform now, and future phones?

Apple haven't time traveled have they? No doubt the A14 is "that good", but there must be a silver lining somewhere.

What does this mean? I have several questions.

1) Your first sentence, which is a rhetorical question: are you saying that you don’t believe that Apple is the gold standard re: phone performance? If that’s not what you are saying, what is that question about?

2) re: the time travel question: what does that mean? Why would apple have to time travel?

3) “but there must be a silver lining somewhere”: what does this mean? A silver lining is defined as a bit of good news that is a consolation for bad news. What is the bad news to which you refer? Who needs a silver lining? What does this mean?
 
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What does this mean? I have several questions.

1) Your first sentence, which is a rhetorical question: are you saying that you don’t believe that Apple is the gold standard re: phone performance? If that’s not what you are saying, what is that question about?

2) re: the time travel question: what does that mean? Why would apple have to time travel?

3) “but there must be a silver lining somewhere”: what does this mean? A silver lining is defined as a bit of good news that is a consolation for bad news. What is the bad news to which you refer? Who needs a silver lining? What does this mean?
I can't answer most of these but I *think* he's confused how people could know that the A14 will out perform future phones - i.e. he doesn't understand the concept that this Snapdragon chip isn't being used yet in phones and therefore, based on the reported benchmarks, the current iPhones using the A14 will outperform the upcoming phones using a Snapdragon 888.
 
Multi-core looks good enough but a little extra oomph is needed for single core performance. In truth the Apple performance gap is quickly closed when all competitors switch to 5nm. Apple has the lead for a short period but they're climbing a ladder that doesn't have many rungs left. When Intel switches to 5nm then the performance gap will be gone. It'll be a LOT harder for Apple to get OFF 5nm to another process. It'll be equally hard to out-run Intel as nobody is as focused to crush the competition when they play catch up than Intel.
Hmmm ... I would dispute that Apple's advantage is merely from process node advantage (especially as chucker23n1 pointed out that Qualcomm's 888 is on the Samsung's version of 5nm and even if that were the case, again as chucker23n1 has said, the foundry is TSMC who seem to be moving forward well with its future process nodes). This is similar to the pre-Zen vs Core era except reversed. Yes, Intel had a foundry advantage in those days, but the reality is AMD's architecture also couldn't keep up. People on this forum and others far more knowledgeable about chip design than me (like cmaier above) have said that, for different reasons obviously, Zen 3 and A14 are simply better than Intel's newest Lake processors. And wrt to the A14, Intel and x86 in general will struggle to catch up to its PPW.

Now in those bygone days, sure Intel could simply out muscle its competition even when that competition had an architecture advantage (like in the early 64bit days against AMD pre-Core 2). But now? Their foundry process is floundering and the competition is coming from everywhere with some having deeper pockets than Intel's got and entrenched markets that Intel can't touch. They're still fighting against AMD in x86 (and losing) and a non-exhaustive list of who ARM licenses its tech to includes Apple, Ampere, Qualcomm, Amazon, Google, Samsung, and (reportedly) Microsoft. The last one hurts the most as, like Apple, Microsoft not only represent lost revenue, but a lost partner. If Microsoft decides to fully embrace ARM and push its adoption for both servers and consumers, Intel's x86 platform is in even deeper trouble than by Apple leaving it.

It's not a matter of others outrunning Intel, but of Intel surviving the coming onslaught. Could they do it? Can Intel maintain dominance through x86? Maybe. Weirder things have happened in the history of the world. Having been top dog for so long means there will be some inertia in the market. But it's going to be *very* tough for them to survive in their current form. They've not faced a deficit in both technology and economics quite like this.
 
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The import thing is..... it's Catching up! And that's awesome!
Because Apple is screwing up a lot lately and my latest Android phones are rock solid
I also don't like the direction of the Mac with ARM. So GO INTEL.

I also don't like massive performance improvements and crazy long battery life on the very first generation of these new chips either. Being able to run almost everything through incredibly good emulation is also a big downer. The insane performance coming across the high end versions of these chip will also be disappointing. GO INTEL.
 
I don’t know why this is even worth writing in an article. Saying the newest Qualcomm chip is slower than the newest Apple chip is like saying Intel just released another 14 nm processor. Are we supposed to be surprised or something 🤷‍♂️😂
 
I don’t know why this is even worth writing in an article. Saying the newest Qualcomm chip is slower than the newest Apple chip is like saying Intel just released another 14 nm processor. Are we supposed to be surprised or something 🤷‍♂️😂
True. It won’t be “man bites dog” until Qualcomm actually releases a chipset *faster* than Apple’s.
Heck, it would be big news if they released a chip that was faster than a 1 year old Apple chip.
 
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True. It won’t be “man bites dog” until Qualcomm actually releases a chipset *faster* than Apple’s.
Heck, it would be big news if they released a chip that was faster than a 1 year old Apple chip.
What’s crazy is that’s Qualcomm’s fastest chip only featured in a few top Android phones. Even many expensive Android phones like the Pixel 5 get a much slower processor. What android phones need is competition in that area but for some reason it hasn’t happened. Samsung tried and that didn’t go so well.
 
What’s crazy is that’s Qualcomm’s fastest chip only featured in a few top Android phones. Even many expensive Android phones like the Pixel 5 get a much slower processor. What android phones need is competition in that area but for some reason it hasn’t happened. Samsung tried and that didn’t go so well.
Samsung will still be making chips, just not custom cores anymore. They're going to use ARM reference designs like Qualcomm from now on. With Qualcomm going conservative on X1 implementation, the next X1-based Exynos *could* go more power hungry and faster but we don't know (yet) the thermal properties of the X1 in any implementation relative to the A14. There may be a reason Qualcomm didn't clock the X1 as high or put in as much as cache as the design can putatively take. Regardless, Qualcomm's hold on the mobile modem market lets them also be the main CPU supplier for Android devices which reduces competition more than you might have expected there to be in the Android ecosystem - at least in respect to where the CPUs are sourced from if not the quality of CPUs from even that one source.
 
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This video shows a benchmark of a Samsung S21+ using the QualComm Snapdragon 888. The Geekbench score is 1115 for single core and 3326 for multi-core. It could be that the 888 is being throttled in the S21+ for battery life.

 
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Samsung will still be making chips, just not custom cores anymore. They're going to use ARM reference designs like Qualcomm from now on. Qualcomm's hold on the mobile modem market let's them also be the main CPU supplier for Android devices.
I know Samsung would make chips for their phones sold outside of the US. They were considered inferior to the Qualcomm version. I think they have a monopoly on the modem market because of patents
 
I don’t know why this is even worth writing in an article. Saying the newest Qualcomm chip is slower than the newest Apple chip is like saying Intel just released another 14 nm processor. Are we supposed to be surprised or something 🤷‍♂️😂
It’ll please you to know that Rocket Lake, coming Q1, will be 14 nm.
 
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Samsung will still be making chips, just not custom cores anymore. They're going to use ARM reference designs like Qualcomm from now on. With Qualcomm going conservative on X1 implementation, the next X1-based Exynos *could* go more power hungry and faster but we don't know (yet) the thermal properties of the X1 in any implementation relative to the A14. There may be a reason Qualcomm didn't clock the X1 as high or put in as much as cache as the design can putatively take. Regardless, Qualcomm's hold on the mobile modem market lets them also be the main CPU supplier for Android devices which reduces competition more than you might have expected there to be in the Android ecosystem - at least in respect to where the CPUs are sourced from if not the quality of CPUs from even that one source.
There are benchmarks posted for the Exynos 2100 used in the Samsung S21 for Europe.

Exynos2100.jpg


 
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I know Samsung would make chips for their phones sold outside of the US. They were considered inferior to the Qualcomm version. I think they have a monopoly on the modem market because of patents
Aye the Samsung M-series cores became increasingly disappointing. But now that they’re switching to ARM reference cores they should get a boost though how they’ll differentiate themselves from Qualcomm remains to be seen.

Patents are part of their dominance, but they also seem to make good modems.
 
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Longevity. These processors are impressive and certain Apps definitely benefit from the horsepower, but I think it’s more for future proofing. I think it’s why Apple supports their devices so long.
Not really. The performance of the chip was never a reason for dropping support (2 years max) in the Android world, at least in the high-end segment. Another thing I would like to add is that new low-end phones that come with the newest Android versions often come with way slower SoCs than flagships from 5-6 years ago which haven't received OS updates for ages.
 
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Not really. The performance of the chip was never a reason for dropping support (2 years max) in the Android world, at least in the high-end segment. Another thing I would like to add is that new low-end phones that come with the newest Android versions often come with way slower SoCs than flagships from 5-6 years ago which haven't received OS updates for ages.
True but the above poster still has a point in that, for Apple, it’s the previous generation phones/phone CPUs that are (in) their low cost options. (Well ... low cost for Apple anyway 🙃)
 
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