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dgreene196

macrumors member
Jun 10, 2011
56
2
I read engadget and a bunch of other tech site too.
edit: And can we all agree out of armv7, the A15 is top of the line? Apple is forgoing the A15, and implementing their own design which will likely be better than A9, but worst than A15. So yeah, behind in tech.

As far as I'm aware, no SoC exists in the current market based on the A15. So there's no way to definitively judge whether it's top of the line or not. It's supposed to be, but that doesn't necessarily mean it has the features needed for Apple's uses, especially in a device like the iPhone, with limited space for a battery and other components.

We may very well see an A6x in the next round of iPads that could use a combination of this custom silicon + A15. It's all about finding the best combination for a given product's goals, whether those goals are fast performance, great battery life, or something else.
 

diamond.g

macrumors G4
Mar 20, 2007
11,068
2,421
OBX
Direct comparisons might not work or even make sense in this case.

The A6 was most likely built from the ground up for the best performance in the iPhone 5.

So let's say in theory the Krait is faster for android, but would run like crap in iPhone 5, with bad battery life and user experience than the A6 is still the better solution.

Game console CPU's are a good example because on paper their specs are usually way behind PC's but because they designed from the ground up for specific performance in that device than that argument becomes irrelevant.

Why wouldn't GB results be comparable?
 

Zunjine

macrumors 6502a
Jun 26, 2009
715
0
Why wouldn't GB results be comparable?

What would happen if you put a V8 on a rubber dingy? Would a sniper do a better job if you gave him a machine gun? What's better, a banana or a teabag?

The point is to do with appropriateness. A V8 is a very powerful engine but it would sink a dingy. A machine gun is great for close quarters melees but a sniper wouldn't be able to hit a distant target with one. A banana is a brilliant snack but wouldn't make a great hot beverage.

Apple is designing a chip for the iPhone. Not for any other phone. That means direct comparisons of raw performance are an imperfect measure. What matters is how well the whole device works in real world tests. A face melting CPU would be worse than useless in a device that can't feed it enough power, for example. It's about the right chip for the job.
 

diamond.g

macrumors G4
Mar 20, 2007
11,068
2,421
OBX
What would happen if you put a V8 on a rubber dingy? Would a sniper do a better job if you gave him a machine gun? What's better, a banana or a teabag?

The point is to do with appropriateness. A V8 is a very powerful engine but it would sink a dingy. A machine gun is great for close quarters melees but a sniper wouldn't be able to hit a distant target with one. A banana is a brilliant snack but wouldn't make a great hot beverage.

Apple is designing a chip for the iPhone. Not for any other phone. That means direct comparisons of raw performance are an imperfect measure. What matters is how well the whole device works in real world tests. A face melting CPU would be worse than useless in a device that can't feed it enough power, for example. It's about the right chip for the job.

So you just don't like benchmarks at all since you feel they can not show usability improvements. So the numbers that Apple puts up aren't a useful metric?
 

Zunjine

macrumors 6502a
Jun 26, 2009
715
0
So you just don't like benchmarks at all since you feel they can not show usability improvements. So the numbers that Apple puts up aren't a useful metric?

I didn't say that. I said they are imperfect measures. You can't directly compare one aspect of a system in isolation of all other aspects if what you wish to learn about is real world performance.
 

mjtomlin

Guest
Jan 19, 2002
384
0
What happens in the long run, though?

Will Apple be able to make continual gains in their chips that match/exceed ARM, or will ARM evolve in another direction that causes them to overtake Apple's own custom chips, and perhaps grow so different that it'll take Apple years to migrate back to the standard chips?

(I haven't a clue what I'm talking about right now... kind of just BSing here.)

Apple's custom ARM isn't over-taking ARMs nor will the opposite happen.

ARM CPUs are used in a lot of applications, so they're more generalized in design. Apple is just fine tuning the design to be more efficient in areas that they feel is important to the performance of their devices.

Intrinsity, the company Apple bought, did the same thing, but tuned the CPU for power efficiency. This "Hummingbird" CPU made into the A4 and Samsung's Exynos 3.

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So you just don't like benchmarks at all since you feel they can not show usability improvements. So the numbers that Apple puts up aren't a useful metric?

Actually the numbers Apple puts up are usability improvements, "Pages loads twice as fast" ... This type of metric shows where it matters to the end user.

That's a much different metric from, "Draws 100 billion triangles per second off screen" Which doesn't matter if your code isn't using the GPU efficiently.

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Oh look, I can handpick benchmarks, too.
Image

The Galaxy S3 CPU is much faster than the iPhone 4S's. However, its GPU is roughly the same.

Well I would hope so! It's got twice as many cores running 180% faster than the A5!!!
 

faroZ06

macrumors 68040
Apr 3, 2009
3,387
1
Prioritizing performance and efficiency over what? Anyway, this is good because Apple can't keep totally relying on others forever. They're growing to fit their profits.
 

rsnc

macrumors regular
Aug 17, 2012
129
0
hey..i dont understand what the galaxy s III has over the 4s in real world comparison..

first off..yes.the samsung has a big screen...but they advertise HD resolution but fail to mention that it is a crappy OLED tech that uses Pentile subpixel layout...making the screen look pixelated and horrible to anyone with decent eyesight. (once again..the iphone screen is REAL lcd..with ACCURATE colors and NO pentile)...so in my eyes...i dont see a benefit to the samsung oversized unweildy phone.

AND..the bottom line on performance comparing android and apple with specs is pointless.
IT TAKES A POWERHOUSE OF A PHONE TO RUN ANDROID DECENTLY..
iphone os has always run smooth and stutter free since the very first iphone..and that thing was anemic compared to the power in todays phones. (its all about hardware and software that work together and manage system resources well..android doesnt do this..at all)

android users brag about specs and stuff but the phones require such rediculous specs just to seem as smoooth as an iphone. and the battery life is horrendous..

BOTTOM LINE..even with all the memory and specs that the GSIII has...it still cant complete every day tasks faster than the iphone. So for such a powerful device..where is the benefit, (benchmarks..?)..all that power just to make a reasonable attempt at performance like an iPhone.
 

wizard

macrumors 68040
May 29, 2003
3,854
571
ARM was targeting low power servers with A15.

As such it has a lot of features that make no sense in a cell phone chip.

I wonder how this chip is going to compare to the A15. Surely Apple saw significant benefits with going with a fully custom chip, rather than going with the A15, whether these benefits are merely in terms of power consumption remains to be seen.

All of Apples SoC have been custom. If the performance being described for iPhone 5 is accurate then I think Apple has a big win on their hands. Power consumption is a big consideration but I'm certain Apple has other benefits. One thing i'm wondering about is hardware acceleration of the new video standard.

----------

So where does that leave the people who said they would only buy the iPhone 5 if it was A15 based?

Seriously who gives a flying f about people expressing such sillinesss. If Apple doubles performance frankly it doesn't make a bit of difference what processor is in the device.
 

mjtomlin

Guest
Jan 19, 2002
384
0
You know i have no idea what this news means.
The a15 architecture is ment to be a piece of heaven, a piece from the future.
Ive seen the comparisions of a15 vs a9.

So is this apple design better? Its based of a old design?(armv7 sounds old)
If its better....then why? Some newbie friendly explanation please.

ARMv7 refers to the ISA version. All Cortex-A based cores conform to this ISA; A8, A9, and A15.
 

Bahroo

macrumors 68000
Jul 21, 2012
1,860
2
hey..i dont understand what the galaxy s III has over the 4s in real world comparison..

first off..yes.the samsung has a big screen...but they advertise HD resolution but fail to mention that it is a crappy OLED tech that uses Pentile subpixel layout...making the screen look pixelated and horrible to anyone with decent eyesight. (once again..the iphone screen is REAL lcd..with ACCURATE colors and NO pentile)...so in my eyes...i dont see a benefit to the samsung oversized unweildy phone.

AND..the bottom line on performance comparing android and apple with specs is pointless.
IT TAKES A POWERHOUSE OF A PHONE TO RUN ANDROID DECENTLY..
iphone os has always run smooth and stutter free since the very first iphone..and that thing was anemic compared to the power in todays phones. (its all about hardware and software that work together and manage system resources well..android doesnt do this..at all)

android users brag about specs and stuff but the phones require such rediculous specs just to seem as smoooth as an iphone. and the battery life is horrendous..

BOTTOM LINE..even with all the memory and specs that the GSIII has...it still cant complete every day tasks faster than the iphone. So for such a powerful device..where is the benefit, (benchmarks..?)..all that power just to make a reasonable attempt at performance like an iPhone.

Alright man this is just complete nonsense, i went from a 4S to a S3 and i still like Apple products very much, I think there more of a overall complete product compared to its competitors especially over Android, but the S3 is actually a very fast phone I am blown away by the speed and how quick it is. Switching between apps is instantaneous on the S3, apps load up extremely quick and it is very smooth to operate all around. It sure does have alot of power, and also alot of ram, 2 gigabytes to be exact. Android is defitnetly catching up to iOS in terms of user experience and performance, and i can say that with a honest opinion coming from a true Apple fan. The S3 is faster then the iPhone 4S in all aspects, it doesnt blow the roof of the 4S, but it defitnetly is faster in daily use, ( clicking in and out of apps, multitasking, app performance etc.) I expect the i5 to be much quicker then the 4S.

But yeah i can see what you mean, usually top of the line Android phones have better specs on paper, well at least the CPU, not the GPU(Apple always wins in this department) and usually they dont run as smooth as the iPhone. But Samsung is the best company out there for Android, they implemented their own GPU acceleration in the OS and the browser, which btw works really well, the phone never stutters or slows down honestly. going from the 4S to a S3, i can defitnetly say that the S3 is much faster then the 4S in clicking in and out of apps, and can multitask alot better, (not that the 4S is slow by no means it isn't but i can tell the S3 screams.

The screen on the S3 is no where as bad as your making it out to be, yeah i can see the pentile if i look really closely, but even then it isn't really that bad and from a few inches away the screen is very sharp and clear. But i give Retina display a advantange because it doesnt have pentile.

I cant imagine how fast the i5 is going to be, 2x the cpu speed of the A5 which would it bring it to around the same processing power as the S3 cpu, if not a little faster due to be it being completly custom,( and im not including how well coded and optimized iOS is for its hardware which would make the phone perform even faster) which would be crazy, and the GPU will blow away the S3 GPU . but dont spew nonsense over things you dont know, the S3 is a very great phone and if your a tech savvy person you would know this.

One thing though, no Android phone has never been made as solid as a iphone, the iphone's build quality has been top notch, the i5 looks absolutely crazy in my eyes, especially the black one
 
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diamond.g

macrumors G4
Mar 20, 2007
11,068
2,421
OBX
I didn't say that. I said they are imperfect measures. You can't directly compare one aspect of a system in isolation of all other aspects if what you wish to learn about is real world performance.
In this case the CPU is what we care about (for the sake of the Cortex A15 conversation). That is what Geek bench isolates.

Actually the numbers Apple puts up are usability improvements, "Pages loads twice as fast" ... This type of metric shows where it matters to the end user.

That's a much different metric from, "Draws 100 billion triangles per second off screen" Which doesn't matter if your code isn't using the GPU efficiently.

Again was looking to see if Apple ended up making similar modifications to their implementation of the ARMv7 ISA like Qualcom did with Krait.

I already understand that as a whole the phones cannot be directly compared by metrics. Much like how you cannot compare the speed of Windows, Linux, and OS X. Besides in most cases it has been shown that other devices (Android) have more raw (CPU) power even if the OS/UI sucks at taking advantage of it.
 

KenAFSPC

macrumors 6502a
Sep 12, 2012
626
26
iPhone 5's A6 chip (Dual Core and 1GB RAM) beats the GSIII's chip (Quad Core and 2GB RAM)
Sort of....The non-LTE GS3 still scores higher under certain circumstances.

According to the site, the dual-core iPhone 5 scores 1601 in Geekbench. The non-LTE (quad-core) Samsung Galaxy S3 scores 1560 with most functionality enabled, or up to 1850 if you disable power saving features, notifications, and other functionality. The U.S. LTE version of the Galaxy S3 (which has a dual-core processor) scores about 200 points less.
 
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diamond.g

macrumors G4
Mar 20, 2007
11,068
2,421
OBX
With these results it shows that Apple is probably pretty close to A15 IPC than Krait is (HTC One S is using Krait). Can't wait to see what clocks they run the iPad 4 at.
 
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citivolus

macrumors 65816
Sep 19, 2008
1,159
245
I wonder how all this correlates with Bob Mansfield stepping down from his post. Seems odd timing when the hardware folks are really raising the bar.
 

iKing7

macrumors newbie
Sep 17, 2012
17
0
I knew quad core was wishful thinking, but whatever, it's good battery life
 

cvaldes

macrumors 68040
Dec 14, 2006
3,237
0
somewhere else
I wonder how all this correlates with Bob Mansfield stepping down from his post. Seems odd timing when the hardware folks are really raising the bar.
Bob was head of Mac hardware engineering, thus probably not closely responsible for the A6 chip, which is only for iOS devices. There's no way to deduce anything from this.

He was likely tired of the daily grind of running a hardware division, the management/business responsibilities. His new position isn't tied to a specific division, he can probably focus on engineering (what he got into the business for in the first place).

At least here in Silicon Valley, once you take a management position, your career as an engineer is officially over (in terms of career surveys, employment statistics). Bob has the exceeding rare opportunity to return to engineering after a couple of decades as a very successful engineering manager.

After all, his initial plan was to retire. He was given a golden opportunity to stay on without running a division.
 

DodgeV83

macrumors 6502a
Feb 8, 2012
879
6
So you just don't like benchmarks at all since you feel they can not show usability improvements. So the numbers that Apple puts up aren't a useful metric?

The numbers that Apple put up are really the only relevant ones:

iPhone5_0254.jpg


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Sort of....The non-LTE GS3 still scores higher under certain circumstances.

According to the site, the dual-core iPhone 5 scores 1601 in Geekbench. The non-LTE (quad-core) Samsung Galaxy S3 scores 1560 with most functionality enabled, or up to 1850 if you disable power saving features, notifications, and other functionality. The U.S. LTE version of the Galaxy S3 (which has a dual-core processor) scores about 200 points less.

Yes, if you overclock the S3 to a level where the phone will overheat and the battery-life would not be sustainable for normal use, you can get higher numbers. But that's not an apples to apples comparison.
 

realeric

macrumors 65816
Jun 19, 2009
1,152
1,544
United States
Alright man this is just complete nonsense, i went from a 4S to a S3 and i still like Apple products very much, I think there more of a overall complete product compared to its competitors especially over Android, but the S3 is actually a very fast phone I am blown away by the speed and how quick it is. Switching between apps is instantaneous on the S3, apps load up extremely quick and it is very smooth to operate all around. It sure does have alot of power, and also alot of ram, 2 gigabytes to be exact. Android is defitnetly catching up to iOS in terms of user experience and performance, and i can say that with a honest opinion coming from a true Apple fan. The S3 is faster then the iPhone 4S in all aspects, it doesnt blow the roof of the 4S, but it defitnetly is faster in daily use, ( clicking in and out of apps, multitasking, app performance etc.) I expect the i5 to be much quicker then the 4S.

But yeah i can see what you mean, usually top of the line Android phones have better specs on paper, well at least the CPU, not the GPU(Apple always wins in this department) and usually they dont run as smooth as the iPhone. But Samsung is the best company out there for Android, they implemented their own GPU acceleration in the OS and the browser, which btw works really well, the phone never stutters or slows down honestly. going from the 4S to a S3, i can defitnetly say that the S3 is much faster then the 4S in clicking in and out of apps, and can multitask alot better, (not that the 4S is slow by no means it isn't but i can tell the S3 screams.

The screen on the S3 is no where as bad as your making it out to be, yeah i can see the pentile if i look really closely, but even then it isn't really that bad and from a few inches away the screen is very sharp and clear. But i give Retina display a advantange because it doesnt have pentile.

If it's so good, why do you still visit iPhone subsection in macrumors and trolling others? :confused:
 

diamond.g

macrumors G4
Mar 20, 2007
11,068
2,421
OBX
The numbers that Apple put up are really the only relevant ones:

Image

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Yes, if you overclock the S3 to a level where the phone will overheat and the battery-life would not be sustainable for normal use, you can get higher numbers. But that's not an apples to apples comparison.

Overclocking isn't needed. The power saving feature throttles cpu usage, just disabling that improves performance.
 

DodgeV83

macrumors 6502a
Feb 8, 2012
879
6
Overclocking isn't needed. The power saving feature throttles cpu usage, just disabling that improves performance.

Yea, I understand that, but the effects are the same. Overheating and massive battery loss. You can jailbreak your iPhone and use an app like iOverclock, which does the same thing, it removes the CPU throttling.

Comparing the stock iPhone 5 to a phone with the CPU throttling turned off, is not a valid comparison.

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But Samsung is the best company out there for Android, they implemented their own GPU acceleration in the OS and the browser, which btw works really well, the phone never stutters or slows down honestly.

Sorry to say this, but the last S3 I saw in person had a very consistent stutter even on the homescreen. It was almost assuredly because the phone had a moving slideshow wallpaper that rotated through the photos on the phone, but that's not the point.

I literally have never seen an Adroid phone in person that didn't stutter, and the S3 is no exception.
 
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