First A14 Benchmarks from iPad Air 4 Appear Online

[orthorim]

For perspective,

Top spec'd MacBook Pro 13" with Intel I7: 1348 single, 4908 multi
Top spec'd MacBook Pro 16" with Intel I9: 1105 single, 7114 multi

These are for the very top spec'd models of each, and the highest scores I can find of many posted. The "A14X" derivative that will likely go into the new MacBooks will likely exceed the multi on the current 13" Pro and be very competitive with the 16"

Yeah that's the mind-blowing part. Single core is faster than Intel i9 at this highest spec!

The really crazy part is that the A14 only uses up to 5W, while the i9 has a 45W TDP

If you think about it that's crazy.

You could have a machine with 9 A14s with the same power drain as the i9 - it would run circles around the i9.

And I think that's the plan. Can't wait.

 

[eulslix]

Truer words have never been spoken. Developers are spoiled with ridiculous layers of abstraction that were fantasy just 20 years ago. A lot of them are lazy, too, not coding to the highest possible efficiencies. Why bother tightening up your code when the chips are so fast?

And before anyone starts crying up a hissy fit over my calling developers spoiled and lazy, when was the last time you actually, really, had to truly program anything? Writing scripts and HTML is not coding.

God im so happy were not in those times anymore... I was quite good at low level C++ programming back in the days, but the amount of time you basically wasted on doing the most basic things was just ridiculous. It’s not about efficiency anymore, its about getting more stuff done with less money. Or for small teams it means pushing into territories, that were off limits for them couple of years ago, reserved to big studios. And or big studios on the other hand, it doesnt mean they can be lazy, but they can push the limits of what’s achievable even further.

Either way, having power reserves is nothing bad. It gives you more creative room. Every second you dont have to spend on things like pointer arithmetic is another second that can be spent on improving your concept.

 

[jahin17]

Tuesday preorders for Friday global launch

What makes you say that?

 

[antnythr]

Comparing both with the same 256GB storage option, the 11" Pro is only $150 more expensive and has 6GB of RAM, ProMotion, Face ID and four speakers. The difference in performance between A14 and A12Z is irrelevant.

I'm trying to decide between the new Air and the 11" Pro, and really my main consideration is how the OS responsiveness will be holding up 2-3 years from now. Both CPUs are very powerful, but I feel that the extra RAM in the Pro might be a big deal as iOS/iPadOS grows. Which is going to start showing it's age first, the CPU or the RAM?

 

[LFC2020]

Don't get me wrong the A14 is a beast, would rather have 120hz, smaller notch, instead of all that power to open apps on my phone.

This year is looking more like a 11s release than a iPhone 12 release, more excited for the apple silicone Macs this year. 😊

 

[James Godfrey]

The speed of these chips is impressive, but in the real world it’s not going to ever be a night and day difference from A11 to A12 to A13 to A14 etc...

I am currently using the iPhone XS (A12) and its still plenty fast, my partner has the iPad Air 3 (also A12) and is also plenty fast for general usage.

I think that although the numbers side by side look impressive, but when comparing it to the A13 or even A12 your not going to be seeing massive differences in real world usage.

You will probably only majorly notice a difference in comparison to an A10 or A11... these chips are usually about 4-5 years ahead of their time, and only start to get sluggish after that time as the vast majority of apps generally used don’t stress the chips to their limits.

 

[eyalben]

Ugh, I was thinking about buying a new iPad... given that 64GB is not an option (128+):

iPad Air 10.9" +256GB + Cellular (+Green!)	879$
iPad Pro 11" + 128GB + Cellular	949$

Is the current Pro really worth the 70$ difference?

 

[EugW]

I'm trying to decide between the new Air and the 11" Pro, and really my main consideration is how the OS responsiveness will be holding up 2-3 years from now. Both CPUs are very powerful, but I feel that the extra RAM in the Pro might be a big deal as iOS/iPadOS grows. Which is going to start showing it's age first, the CPU or the RAM?

It's almost always RAM*, except in very specific circumstances.

However, the other factor is iPadOS support. Apple tends to kill off support of older machines first. The good news here though is that both machines are 2020 models. I'm personally waiting for a 2021 A14X iPad Pro though. Hopefully, Apple won't discontinue the 11" Pro, and will release a new 11" Pro with mini-LED in 2021.

*Put it this way: I am still using a 2008 Core 2 Duo MacBook. I bought it for a song about 3 years ago and it was completely unusable. The trackpad didn't click properly, the hard drive was painfully slow, and the machine had only 2 GB RAM. I adjusted the trackpad to fix its stickiness and put in an SSD, but even then 2 GB just isn't sufficient. Once I upgraded it to 8 GB RAM it is actually a reasonable basic secondary machine running Catalina, despite its horrifyingly slow CPU.

 

[mprime_17]

If it worked that way, you still need to compare apples to apples. Why can’t intel increase its clock speed to keep up a 20% per year cadence?

Because it ain’t that easy.

They were doing it in the P4 era...
And they just did it again with Tiger Lake this gen.

There comes a point where your design and manufacturing skills max out. Intel reached that point with P4 (and skylake), and it took them a few years to come out with a new architecture. My point was that it looks like apple's current architecture has peaked.

 

[James Godfrey]

Ugh, I was thinking about buying a new iPad... given that 64GB is not an option (128+):

iPad Air 10.9" +256GB + Cellular (+Green!)	879$
iPad Pro 11" + 128GB + Cellular	949$

Is the current Pro really worth the 70$ difference?

Yes, yes and yes it’a better in pretty much every way, for an extra $70 your getting better cameras, better speakers, better microphones, better screen, faster multi core performance.

The one and only thing your sacrificing is slightly worse single core performance, but in the real world you won’t notice hardly any difference.

 

[LFC2020]

Yes, yes and yes it’a better in pretty much every way, for an extra $70 your getting better cameras, better speakers, better microphones, better screen, faster

Don’t forget Face ID 📷😊

 

[srnbrn]

ATOM is CISC and has the same instructions as any other x86-64 chip.

And all x86-64 cpus have micro-ops.

Your post doesn’t make sense.

It is very likely that i was wrong. I always thought that it uses smaller instruction set.

From what i understand Apple Silicon uses smaller instruction set, and what current x86 can do in a single instruction might need multiple instructions on that chip. That's the point i'm trying to get across.

 

[fbr$]

I'm trying to decide between the new Air and the 11" Pro, and really my main consideration is how the OS responsiveness will be holding up 2-3 years from now. Both CPUs are very powerful, but I feel that the extra RAM in the Pro might be a big deal as iOS/iPadOS grows. Which is going to start showing it's age first, the CPU or the RAM?

Well, both my old iPhone 8 Plus and the entry level iPhone SE have 3GB of RAM, so 4GB on the new iPad Air is only 1GB above the minimum...

 

[GuruZac]

The iPad Air 4 is going to be a heck of a good tablet for a lot people. Makes me wonder how good (and irresistible!) the next gen iPad Pro will be.

 

[Chompineer]

Yeah that's the mind-blowing part. Single core is faster than Intel i9 at this highest spec!

The really crazy part is that the A14 only uses up to 5W, while the i9 has a 45W TDP

If you think about it that's crazy.

You could have a machine with 9 A14s with the same power drain as the i9 - it would run circles around the i9.

And I think that's the plan. Can't wait.

Comparing benchmarks across architectures is a fools errand.

Less speculation and hoping, more waiting for reality.

 

[EugW]

Well, both my old iPhone 8 Plus and the entry level iPhone SE have 3GB of RAM, so 4GB on the new iPad Air is only 1GB above the minimum...

4 GB vs 3 GB is a 33% increase in RAM.

 

[cmaier]

It is very likely that i was wrong. I always thought that it uses smaller instruction set.

From what i understand Apple Silicon uses smaller instruction set, and what current x86 can do in a single instruction might need multiple instructions on that chip. That's the point i'm trying to get across.

That may be true, but multiple risc instructions take the same amount of time as a single CISC instruction. If a CISC instruction says:

ADD [contents of memory location X], [register A] -> [register B]

internally that will be broken up into:

LOAD [memory X] -> temporary register
ADD [temporary register], [register A] -> [register B]

Which will be how ARM and RISCs do it anyway. It will still take the same number of cycles of the clock either way.

 

[Chompineer]

Ugh. I’m gonna be so tempted to buy 12pro max! These scores are already almost double what my XS Max gets, AND the 12 Pros are supposed to get 2 extra GB of RAM compared to this iPad, so scores will definitely surpass this iPad...... my wallet is telling me wait one more year though 😂

Why do you require more RAM in your iPhone? For that matter, why do you care how much faster it is on paper?

Chasing specs is so silly on devices that are already overkill for the meagre tasks they preform.

 

[eyalben]

Yes, yes and yes it’a better in pretty much every way, for an extra $70 your getting better cameras, better speakers, better microphones, better screen, faster multi core performance.

The one and only thing your sacrificing is slightly worse single core performance, but in the real world you won’t notice hardly any difference.

I thought so... but it's not green 😇

I usually have a bad luck of buying products a month before Apple releases a new major version,
so I'll wait until the end of October just in case

 

[GuruZac]

Don't get me wrong the A14 is a beast, would rather have 120hz, smaller notch, instead of all that power to open apps on my phone.

This year is looking more like a 11s release than a iPhone 12 release, more excited for the apple silicone Macs this year. 😊

Yeah iPhone 12 likely offers very little incentive for iPhone 11 Pro users, although I say that without knowing concrete details about the iPhone 12. I just can’t imagine that it will show up with USB-C, 120Hz display, smaller notch, and radical camera improvements since all rumors suggest otherwise.

Ugh, I was thinking about buying a new iPad... given that 64GB is not an option (128+):

iPad Air 10.9" +256GB + Cellular (+Green!)	879$
iPad Pro 11" + 128GB + Cellular	949$

Is the current Pro really worth the 70$ difference?

Absolutely, not even a question. For that $70, you’re getting 120Hz ProMotion display, 6GB of RAM, faster multi-core and GPU performance, FaceID, quad speakers, and (not that it matters to many), but camera and LiDAR. The display alone is worth $70, everything else is just a lot of gravy on top.

 

[EugW]

Why do you require more RAM in your iPhone? For that matter, why do you care how much faster it is on paper?

Chasing specs is so silly on devices that are already overkill for the meagre tasks they preform.

I am starting to notice occasional pauses on my iPhone 7 Plus, which is A10 with 3 GB RAM. This happens when switching applications etc. so I'm attributing this to RAM. Otherwise, in terms of CPU performance (application speed and surfing speed), I have no complaints at all about its performance.

Personally, I consider 3 GB RAM the new entry level for RAM, meaning us geeks may want more.

 

[ilikewhey]

yes, but still on 4gb ram, overall the ipp 2020 is still better

except the price, i just need 2nd gen pencil support. and a more rigid body, my previous 3rd gen got slight bend from daily backpack carrying.

 

[chucker23n1]

Comparing benchmarks across architectures is a fools errand.

No it isn't.

 

[idiiamots]

For perspective,

Top spec'd MacBook Pro 13" with Intel I7: 1348 single, 4908 multi
Top spec'd MacBook Pro 16" with Intel I9: 1105 single, 7114 multi

These are for the very top spec'd models of each, and the highest scores I can find of many posted. The "A14X" derivative that will likely go into the new MacBooks will likely exceed the multi on the current 13" Pro and be very competitive with the 16"

This is a very interesting development. Assuming that Geekbench scores are normalized across platforms (arm/x86), the single-thread score is better than my 9900K @ 5GHz. My workload on that machine is web-development and single-thread limited webpack compiles. I wonder how A14 Mac will do at compiling the same project as my 9900K.

 

[chucker23n1]

That seems great until you include the clock speed:

(SC in GB5)
A10 - 2.34 Ghz - 727
A11 - 2.39 Ghz - 918 (+ 2% in clocks from A10) => 26% improvement
A12 - 2.49 Ghz - 1108 (+ 4% in clocks from A11) => 21%
A13 - 2.66 Ghz - 1327 (+ 7% in clocks from A12) => 20%
A14 - 2.99 Ghz - 1583 (+ 12% in clocks from A13) => 19%

If you subtract the clock increase from every jump in performance, the gains have been gone down with every generation of Ax soc...
A10 --> A11 (24%)
A11 --> A12 (17%)
A12 --> A13 (13%)
A13 --> A14 (7%)

A 7% architectural improvement feels somewhat intel-ish.

Increasing the clock speed is only a problem if you're hitting roadblocks. At 2.99 GHz, they still have some ways to go.

Also, subtracting is not how percentages work. Assuming linear scale for the clock rate, a 2.66 GHz A14 would score 1408, which is actually only 6% faster than the A13.