Apple's A15 Chip Faster Than Company's Own Claims in Independent Tests

[leman]

It's been forever since I heard about a AAA game coming to iPhone... or any game, really.

Well, mobile gaming is bigger than PC and consoles combined, and Apple owns around 1/3 of the mobile gaming market, so...

Of course, all these games are utter garbage, but people like what they do, so companies deliver.

I hear that Apple keeps making money off games on the iPhone, but I never hear about games actually being any good on the platform. Obviously good graphics and good games aren't the same thing, but I don't hear about either on the iPhone.

iPhones has concisely better graphics than Android, since iPhone has better GPUs. The Anandtech article does mention it explicitly. As to good games, I would agree, since I don't find any of the popular mobile games even remotely interesting (but I also don't find console games interesting). Still, apparently enough of games do, given that the gaming on iOS is a multi-billion business.

 

[falkon-engine]

With pleasure!

Regarding 2:

https://browser.geekbench.com/v5/cpu/search?utf8=✓&q=8257U

Even in low power mode, the iPhone 13 Pro A15 Bionic chip still embarrasses the competition

It is well-known that Apple has a significant lead over the competition in terms of both the performance and efficiency of its Arm-based designs. However, even in low power mode, Geekbench 5 shows that the A15 powering the Apple iPhone 13 Pro is still powerful enough to embarrass the competition.

www.notebookcheck.net

Regarding 3:

GFXBench - Unified cross-platform 3D graphics benchmark database

The first unified cross-platform 3D graphics benchmark database for comparing Android, iOS, Windows 8, Windows Phone 8 and Windows RT capable devices based on graphics processing power.

gfxbench.com

A15 Chips are impressive no doubt.

However, notebookcheck notes “To the best of our knowledge (this has not been publicly documented), Apple deactivates the two high-performance 'Avalanche' cores in A15 Bionic when in low power mode.” i was wondering how the performance of the little cores was isolated, as I wasn’t aware that Apple gave the user the ability to disable the performance cores.

Also just to technically correct, if only the little cores are running during low performance mode, the single core score in Geekbench is technically behind of Snapdragon. Although not by much. And the multicore score is very impressive. Thanks for the citations. And have a good day.

 

[subi257]

The problem hasn't been hardware or performance for a while now. It's about utilizing it. iOS or even iPadOS is simply not using all that performance. No pro apps. Locked down OS. At this point, all these advances in performance is almost a mockery, as if they want to say "Yes we have the best chip - but you can't really use it to its max potential".

I'll agree with the first part, but I will always go with the locked down "walled garden" OS

 

[cocoua]

lets see the final version of the snapdragon 898, Apple still ahead, but lets see how much

 

[ikramerica]

I remember when 256K of cache was a big deal

 

[huge_apple_fangirl]

Glad to see Apple focused on GPU improvement. Bodes well for M2 MacBook Pros.

 

[Orange Bat]

We are getting to a point where a majority of us do not need to concern ourselves with the processor in our devices. Apple knows this, hence why they didn’t make a big deal out of the A15. Who cares what it can do? Just know that it can do everything you need and more. I bought a Mac Mini in the spring and it hasn’t missed a beat from my Intel Mac. Yes, it does some things faster, but what is most impressive is that Rosetta runs Intel apps faster than they did on my Intel machine. That’s incredible and offers a (mostly) seamless experience from my Intel MacBook Pro.

This is what I don’t get too eager for an M2 or M1X. The M1 is already pretty good. What’s more interesting to me is the graphics performance. It will be awesome when the day comes that we don’t need to concern ourselves with graphics cards. We’re still a few years away from that, but the day is coming.

 

[leman]

However, notebookcheck notes “To the best of our knowledge (this has not been publicly documented), Apple deactivates the two high-performance 'Avalanche' cores in A15 Bionic when in low power mode.” i was wondering how the performance of the little cores was isolated, as I wasn’t aware that Apple gave the user the ability to disable the performance cores.

Also just to technically correct, if only the little cores are running during low performance mode, the single core score in Geekbench is technically behind of Snapdragon. Although not by much. And the multicore score is very impressive. Thanks for the citations. And have a good day.

Yes, I was wrong about this bit, I have updated my post accordingly.

 

[Hokie804]

I’ve been quite impressed by my 13 PM. Only limitation to its potential here in Tx, is my being a VzW customer.

 

[GuruZac]

In my opinion, Apple’s chip development is the one area where Apple continues to be miles ahead hardware wise. I would argue some Androids have more advanced hardware, but it’s often compromised and a me first thing because none of the Androids have the user base Apple has. They have to deliver the latest and greatest often gimmicky hardware to get the attention of non-loyal user base. But when it comes to chips, Apple’s A series continue to blow away the competition by a significant margin, and not just in performance, but efficiency.

On a somewhat related note, I remember some people talking down the performance of the Apple’s AxX chips in the iPad Pros saying that they only power iOS/iPadOS, but Apple demonstrated with the A12X/Z and M1 (A14X) chips that the performance and efficiency was real, in desktop level hardware too. It’s crazy how phenomenal Apple’s chip team has been.

 

[citysnaps]

Impressed with early tests on my iPad mini that features the under clocked version of this processor. Just in my normal compute tasks it is faster than my iPad Pro from a couple years ago. I don't really do anything that tax the graphics but hoping to find a worthy task to fit into my workflow.

Good to hear. I'm on the fence for a new iPad mini. How do you like it in general; ie screen quality/size, usability, sound, weight, etc?

Does it hit the "a joy to use" threshold?

 

[mi7chy]

How much smarter does that make Siri? Focus has shifted away from CPU performance and towards GPU and machine learning.

 

[leman]

In my opinion, Apple’s chip development is the one area where Apple continues to be miles ahead hardware wise. I would argue some Androids have more advanced hardware, but it’s often compromised and a me first thing because none of the Androids have the user base Apple has.

A big advantage that Android makers have is that they can use Qualcomm SoC's with integrated modems. Apple is buying modems from Qualcomm but they are bound by the license agreement to have them as a separate chip. This leads to the iPhone boards being permanently crowded and has led Apple to invest in advanced technologies like substrate-like PCBs and tight packing. But since Apple has bough Intel modem division, they will probably roll out their own modems in 2023-2025. This will allow them to reclaim some space that can either go into making a smaller phone or using a bigger battery.

 

[leman]

How much smarter does that make Siri? Focus has shifted away from CPU performance and towards GPU and machine learning.

In terms of GPU and ML performance, Apple leads the industry by a wide margin. Unfortunately, none of this performance will help Siri. Apple has lost an edge there and they are unlikely to recover it any time soon. But their computational photography etc. is not bad.

 

[diamond.g]

A big advantage that Android makers have is that they can use Qualcomm SoC's with integrated modems. Apple is buying modems from Qualcomm but they are bound by the license agreement to have them as a separate chip. This leads to the iPhone boards being permanently crowded and has led Apple to invest in advanced technologies like substrate-like PCBs and tight packing. But since Apple has bough Intel modem division, they will probably roll out their own modems in 2023-2025. This will allow them to reclaim some space that can either go into making a smaller phone or using a bigger battery.

Could Apple have gone another year or two using "Intel" modems without having 5G? Would the integration (and lower power consumption) been worth the tradeoff?

 

[leman]

Could Apple have gone another year or two using "Intel" modems without having 5G? Would the integration (and lower power consumption) been worth the tradeoff?

I would love to answer your question but I am simply parroting something I've read somewhere else so I have no clue

 

[Analog Kid]

The problem hasn't been hardware or performance for a while now. It's about utilizing it. iOS or even iPadOS is simply not using all that performance. No pro apps. Locked down OS. At this point, all these advances in performance is almost a mockery, as if they want to say "Yes we have the best chip - but you can't really use it to its max potential".

I disagree. I think some people are looking for the wrong things in their mobile devices. I've been running Juno for data analysis on my 2021 iPP and it runs circles around my Mac at the moment-- it's noticeably faster at processing and rendering large datasets.

All these people talking pro this and pro that ignore the fact that actual pros have work to do that doesn't involve windowing and file system silliness most of the time. I keep a shared directory of notebooks and data on iCloud drive so I can share data and results between my iPad and Macs, I run Working Copy for git management on the iPad, and the iPP just smokes on the task at hand.

Maybe there's room for iPadOS to improve on handling removable volumes, I'm sure the UI will continue to evolve, but you'll never see it run background tasks the way a computer meant to be plugged into the wall does. On a mobile device, it's all about working in the foreground with limited screen real estate.

I don't know what people expect from their mobile devices, but it sounds like they want them to become laptop replacements. They really don't, though. The power management model for computers and mobiles is entirely different.

 

[theorist9]

From the Anantech article (bolded emphasis mine):

The 13 Pro models this year come with a new PCB design, that’s even denser than what we’ve had on the previous generations, in order to facilitate the larger battery and new camera modules. What’s been extremely perplexing with Apple’s motherboard designs has been the fact that since they employed dual-layer “sandwich” PCBs, is that they’re packaging the SoC on the inside of the two soldered boards. This comes in contrast to other vendors such as Samsung, who also have adopted the “sandwich” PCB, but the SoC is located on the outer side of the assembly, making direct contact with the heat spreader and display mid-frame.

There are reports of the new iPhones throttling more under gaming and cellular connectivity – well, I’m sure that having the modem directly opposite the SoC inside the sandwich is a contributor to this situation. The iPhone 13 Pro showcasing lower sustained power levels may be tied to the new PCB design, and Apple’s overall iPhone thermal design is definitely amongst the worst out there, as it doesn’t do a good job of spreading the heat throughout the body of the phone, achieving a SoC thermal envelope that’s far smaller than the actual device thermal envelope.

The Apple A15 SoC Performance Review: Faster & More Efficient

www.anandtech.com

Why has Apple chosen this design? There must be a reason.

 

[Orange Bat]

I disagree. I think some people are looking for the wrong things in their mobile devices. I've been running Juno for data analysis on my 2021 iPP and it runs circles around my Mac at the moment-- it's noticeably faster at processing and rendering large datasets.

All these people talking pro this and pro that ignore the fact that actual pros have work to do that doesn't involve windowing and file system silliness most of the time. I keep a shared directory of notebooks and data on iCloud drive so I can share data and results between my iPad and Macs, I run Working Copy for git management on the iPad, and the iPP just smokes on the task at hand.

Maybe there's room for iPadOS to improve on handling removable volumes, I'm sure the UI will continue to evolve, but you'll never see it run background tasks the way a computer meant to be plugged into the wall does. On a mobile device, it's all about working in the foreground with limited screen real estate.

I don't know what people expect from their mobile devices, but it sounds like they want them to become laptop replacements. They really don't, though. The power management model for computers and mobiles is entirely different.

There’s also the issue of market. For the most part, even Pro iPads and iPhones are consume products, not meant for any really extreme technical tasks. I develop mobile apps and there is no way I would develop an extremely technical app for the iPhone unless I know there’s a dedicated market for it. iOS is all about selling to that large consumer marketplace. It’s generally easier to develop for a desktop/laptop UI, and it is way, way easier to make that app work on different OSes and machines. I can develop a Java program that will run everywhere, but a powerful technical iOS app only runs on iOS.

 

[Stratus Fear]

The problem hasn't been hardware or performance for a while now. It's about utilizing it. iOS or even iPadOS is simply not using all that performance. No pro apps. Locked down OS. At this point, all these advances in performance is almost a mockery, as if they want to say "Yes we have the best chip - but you can't really use it to its max potential".

I think there's more to it than flat out perf, though. Race-to-sleep is a big part of power efficiency, and the better the peak perf, the more time the SoC will spend in a lower power state. Perf-per-watt is another measure, and the A15 does better there as well. Sure, many people would like to see software be able to flex the A15 flat out, but like automobiles, most people don't use their things that way. Most folks don't buy a 300hp car and then drive with their foot to the floor nonstop, which is why auto manufacturers try to tune for partial throttle efficiency.

 

[sully54]

Just a small nitpick that I’ve seen reported everywhere. No, this year’s event is not the first time Apple compared their processors to the competition instead of their own previous generation. They did the same thing last year as well during the iPhone 12 event. Just want to point this out because it has been annoying to read/hear about the doom and gloom about such comparison—especially now that it’s unfounded—when iys such an easy bit of information to fact check.

 

[GuruZac]

I think there's more to it than flat out perf, though. Race-to-sleep is a big part of power efficiency, and the better the peak perf, the more time the SoC will spend in a lower power state. Perf-per-watt is another measure, and the A15 does better there as well. Sure, many people would like to see software be able to flex the A15 flat out, but like automobiles, most people don't use their things that way. Most folks don't buy a 300hp car and then drive with their foot to the floor nonstop, which is why auto manufacturers try to tune for partial throttle efficiency.

Excellent analogy. 👍 I’d rather have the headroom and not need to use full power. The wonderful part of the A series chips outside of their performance/efficiency is they’re supported for years, and the headroom supports very fluid performance for at least 5 years. Hell, my mom’s 7 Plus with the A10 still flies through apps.

 

[840quadra]

In terms of GPU and ML performance, Apple leads the industry by a wide margin. Unfortunately, none of this performance will help Siri. Apple has lost an edge there and they are unlikely to recover it any time soon. But their computational photography etc. is not bad.

Like Google's own Assistant, Siri is part of a conglomeration of various features and technology that can be done either on device, in the cloud, or a combination of both.

The processor speed improvements will indeed assist with anything on device such as translation, dictation and device controls. If apple is indeed interested in Privacy, anything off device or needing the cloud will always have a disadvantage compared to Google and Amazon.

 

[bushman4]

When it comes to Soc (system on Chip) Apple definitely nails it
A15 is proof of better than great performance unmatched by any rival

 

[mngdew]

"People who are really serious about software should make their own hardware."

- Alan Kay

Apple is doing the complete opposite. Meaning, Apple doesn't want users to be serious about software.