Phones:
iPhone 5s (Space Gray) Verizon - Reference point for those familiar
iPhone 6s (Silver) Sim-Free TSMC
iPhone 6s (Space Gray) T-Mobile Samsung
All were restored to factory - set up as new iPhone on iOS 9.0.2
Once the phones were set up, the network settings were reset, and wifi turned off.
All questions were answered in the same manner with regards to location tracking (no).
Room Temperature:78˚F (25˚C)
Charging was done along with the Battery Doctor app and all phones were left on the charger until 100% and the trickle charge was complete. (Approximately 40 minutes after reaching 100%) - This also allows for the phones to cool off after the charging phase.
At this point there are 3 installed apps:
1. GeekBench v3.4.0 (After 6s support update)
2. Liram Device Info Lite v3.2.4
3. Battery Doctor v2.4
Brightness on all phones were set to 100%. All apps were quit before testing began.
OSnap was used to get a picture every 5 minutes on an iPhone 6 Plus with the camera protruding through the shoebox to get my times while I slept.
In this particular test, There was only a 1-interval difference (5 minutes) between the TSMC and the Samsung phones going off. This would mean that these results can't be relied upon to show that either is more efficient than the other.
Sources of error:
The two devices are slightly different models. (One T-mobile, the other Sim-Free)
Other parts could be different between the phones such as the battery and screen.
Slightly possible different runs: the Samsung was received on launch. The TSMC was received on October 12th.
At 15 minutes, it was found that automatic screen brightness was left on, so the two 6s’s were slightly less than 100% bright. I solved this by going into settings and setting it back at the same time on each and resuming the phones back to 100% brightness.
Future Study:
In order for this to be conclusive, more results are needed.
It would be useful to have thermal information through something like a FLIR camera.
It might make more sense to do a dim-screen test.
It would be a good idea to plot power usage over time using a power supply and an amp-meter to get an accurate power-draw over time to see if either are drawing more energy.
Conclusion:
In this test, it was only shown to have a 2% difference (±2% due to the checking interval being around 2%) between the TSMC and Samsung. In this particular case study, the 5-minute difference wasn’t found to be a significant enough difference to call either 6s more efficient than the other.
EDIT: It looks like I messed up some of the data entry. I fixed the time scale.
PART 2:
After doing the above test, the same test was repeated while in airplane mode with the brightness turned all the way down. The two phones are the same as sampled above.
The test achieved the following:
Given these findings, and with the Samsung lasting 72% of the time that the TSMC did, it could be concluded that there is a difference between these two chips.
Overall Conclusion (WARNING: GRAND GENERALIZATIONS HERE) EDIT: Grand generalizations about masking shown to most likely be incorrect on second page.
With the screen brightness and phones out of airplane-mode, the phones almost completely masked the difference between processors. Using iFixit's list of IC's, the following wouldn't be used during these tests because they would (for the most part) have been turned off or not used during my test:
Toshiba THGBX5G7D2KLFXG 16 GB 19 nm NAND Flash
Universal Scientific Industrial 339S00043 Wi-Fi Module
NXP 66V10 NFC Controller
Apple/Cirrus Logic 338S00105 Audio IC
RF Micro Devices RF5150 Antenna Switch
Apple/Cirrus Logic 338S1285 Audio IC
Qualcomm WTR3925 Radio Frequency Transceiver
It would be my grand assumption that when all of these circuits are running or in standby, the power difference between CPU's would be even further masked, and and the 2-3% difference could be considered relatively accurate.
Further study (and what it looks like is on the front page blog of MacRumors):
Confirming that the CPU's difference would be further masked by network services by streaming from a service such as Netflix
Trying 3D gaming on the two devices
Some of the suggestions from Part 1
OVERALL CONCLUSION:
I would still be happy with a Samsung-chipped iPhone 6s
iPhone 5s (Space Gray) Verizon - Reference point for those familiar
iPhone 6s (Silver) Sim-Free TSMC
iPhone 6s (Space Gray) T-Mobile Samsung
All were restored to factory - set up as new iPhone on iOS 9.0.2
Once the phones were set up, the network settings were reset, and wifi turned off.
All questions were answered in the same manner with regards to location tracking (no).
Room Temperature:78˚F (25˚C)
Charging was done along with the Battery Doctor app and all phones were left on the charger until 100% and the trickle charge was complete. (Approximately 40 minutes after reaching 100%) - This also allows for the phones to cool off after the charging phase.
At this point there are 3 installed apps:
1. GeekBench v3.4.0 (After 6s support update)
2. Liram Device Info Lite v3.2.4
3. Battery Doctor v2.4
Brightness on all phones were set to 100%. All apps were quit before testing began.
OSnap was used to get a picture every 5 minutes on an iPhone 6 Plus with the camera protruding through the shoebox to get my times while I slept.
In this particular test, There was only a 1-interval difference (5 minutes) between the TSMC and the Samsung phones going off. This would mean that these results can't be relied upon to show that either is more efficient than the other.
Sources of error:
The two devices are slightly different models. (One T-mobile, the other Sim-Free)
Other parts could be different between the phones such as the battery and screen.
Slightly possible different runs: the Samsung was received on launch. The TSMC was received on October 12th.
At 15 minutes, it was found that automatic screen brightness was left on, so the two 6s’s were slightly less than 100% bright. I solved this by going into settings and setting it back at the same time on each and resuming the phones back to 100% brightness.
Future Study:
In order for this to be conclusive, more results are needed.
It would be useful to have thermal information through something like a FLIR camera.
It might make more sense to do a dim-screen test.
It would be a good idea to plot power usage over time using a power supply and an amp-meter to get an accurate power-draw over time to see if either are drawing more energy.
Conclusion:
In this test, it was only shown to have a 2% difference (±2% due to the checking interval being around 2%) between the TSMC and Samsung. In this particular case study, the 5-minute difference wasn’t found to be a significant enough difference to call either 6s more efficient than the other.
EDIT: It looks like I messed up some of the data entry. I fixed the time scale.
PART 2:
After doing the above test, the same test was repeated while in airplane mode with the brightness turned all the way down. The two phones are the same as sampled above.
The test achieved the following:
Given these findings, and with the Samsung lasting 72% of the time that the TSMC did, it could be concluded that there is a difference between these two chips.
Overall Conclusion (WARNING: GRAND GENERALIZATIONS HERE) EDIT: Grand generalizations about masking shown to most likely be incorrect on second page.
With the screen brightness and phones out of airplane-mode, the phones almost completely masked the difference between processors. Using iFixit's list of IC's, the following wouldn't be used during these tests because they would (for the most part) have been turned off or not used during my test:
Toshiba THGBX5G7D2KLFXG 16 GB 19 nm NAND Flash
Universal Scientific Industrial 339S00043 Wi-Fi Module
NXP 66V10 NFC Controller
Apple/Cirrus Logic 338S00105 Audio IC
RF Micro Devices RF5150 Antenna Switch
Apple/Cirrus Logic 338S1285 Audio IC
Qualcomm WTR3925 Radio Frequency Transceiver
It would be my grand assumption that when all of these circuits are running or in standby, the power difference between CPU's would be even further masked, and and the 2-3% difference could be considered relatively accurate.
Further study (and what it looks like is on the front page blog of MacRumors):
Confirming that the CPU's difference would be further masked by network services by streaming from a service such as Netflix
Trying 3D gaming on the two devices
Some of the suggestions from Part 1
OVERALL CONCLUSION:
I would still be happy with a Samsung-chipped iPhone 6s
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