Possible Benchmark for A12 Processor From 2018 iPhone Surfaces Featuring 10% Faster Speeds, 4GB RAM

[recoil80]

Six cores are quite a few, and Swift doesn't have good concurrency support yet (arguably one of the big pieces still missing). And even if it did, so far efforts to make multithreading more pervasive haven't had a great yield.

This year I expect them to focus on energy saving more than speed. iOS 12 is all about performance, the system will look faster even without a big speed increase on the CPU side.
And GPU is pretty important for ML, games and AR. I think they'll try to increase GPU performance more than CPU in the future.

 

[Stuart6]

The Pixel has 4GB Of ram and the Galaxy S8 has 4GB ram too.

Pixel 2 & XL run smooth, but the RAM management is bad. Android needs more than 4GB RAM it seems. Even the stock android pixel phones that have google's optimizations don't hold apps in the background. The standard S9 also has RAM management issues, but the plus variant doesn't have this issue, which is why I hope apple includes more RAM across the board, and not just the plus variant.

 

[bluecoast]

Slightly off topic, but if Apple are increasing the GPU output, that could be potentially really interesting if you were thinking of building a an ARM Mac to replace intel processors w/ integrated graphics, right?

Then that might also explain why Mojave has moved fully to metal 2 for its GUI and why developers have been told to target Metal2 going forward.

Presumably the final marzipan frameworks will target metal 2 only, also.

 

[tipoo]

Six cores are quite a few, and Swift doesn't have good concurrency support yet (arguably one of the big pieces still missing). And even if it did, so far efforts to make multithreading more pervasive haven't had a great yield.

Four of those are used to sip power for more tasks though. I mean they'll probably add a high performance core if no more SC gains are to be had.

 

[SactoGuy18]

I believe there's a reason why the A12 will use 4 GB of RAM on the 2018 model iPhones: support for an augmented reality viewing system (e.g. AR glasses) connected either through the Lightning port or through Bluetooth 5 high-speed connection.

 

[geromi912]

This has happened prior in A7 to A8 transition.

Compare Geekbench CPU Single/Multi Core scores for the iPhone 5s (1265/2143) vs iPhone 6 (1371/2330)

Then look at the marked contrast in Metal score 570 vs 4194.

https://browser.geekbench.com/ios_devices/28


https://browser.geekbench.com/ios_devices/33

My iphone 6 gets 1500/2700.
[doublepost=1530720487][/doublepost]

A12X's in the new Macs.

You heard it here first...

You're welcome...

Interesting way to say "no more developer support on macs".

 

[Applemaniac7]

Where are all the nay sayers who screamed that 1 gig of ram was more than enough!! And that it was only poor ram management of Samsung devices that meant that they needed gigs of ram!!

 

[TallManNY]

It's always funny to see people claim that ARM CPUs are comparable in general performance with x86 CPUs based on the terrible Geekbench benchmark.

Well the scores are the same. So it is comparable. Hence the point of them using the same scale. Now I know an ARM CPU with cellphone battery and cellphone thermal limits isn't going to really be able to do the same stuff. But they are very different devices.

 

[blkjedi954]

But roughly 40% bump using Metal which is significant

 

[ROGmaster]

Well the scores are the same. So it is comparable. Hence the point of them using the same scale. Now I know an ARM CPU with cellphone battery and cellphone thermal limits isn't going to really be able to do the same stuff. But they are very different devices.

LoL Incredible logic.
Geekbench is a terrible test for X86 CPUs as it's optimized for simpler ARM architectures so it doesn't show the true potential of an X86 core. It has nothing to do with batteries or thermal limits. Basically you can give an x86 CPU core a lot more work before you bring it down to it's knees as the x86 has been optimized to work that way(do a lot of stuff at the same time) while an ARM core is less capable in such a scenario.

 

[TallManNY]

LoL Incredible logic.
Geekbench is a terrible test for X86 CPUs as it's optimized for simpler ARM architectures so it doesn't show the true potential of an X86 core. It has nothing to do with batteries or thermal limits. Basically you can give an x86 CPU core a lot more work before you bring it down to it's knees as the x86 has been optimized to work that way(do a lot of stuff at the same time) while an ARM core is less capable in such a scenario.

Okay, but for actual work, the battery limits and thermal limits come into play. I can't really get my iPhone's CPU to run full speed for an hour the way I could a laptop.

 

[geromi912]

Apple AkabyLake
[doublepost=1530794234][/doublepost]Even the A8 over A7 was +25% cpu, and that was abnormally small, I doubt this is the real results.

 

[macduke]

All you ARM-based Mac fans better remember this when you criticize Intel for its (lack of) speed gains; although the 8th Gen CPUs are seeing significant performance gains. Apple will face the same hurdles as Intel as CPU frequency increases. There is no panacea.

Even AMD has caught up to Intel and even surpassed it when it comes to multicore performance. I feel like Apple is in a better position controlling the hardware and software to deliver better performance with scaled up numbers of ARM cores inside a potential Mac redesign.
[doublepost=1530801277][/doublepost]

Yeah, that's what I kept saying in response to people saying things like "these ARM processors are going to surpass Intel at this rate."

They may yet but in different ways. Apple could optimize everything to take more advantage of scaled cores. I feel like we're running up against a limit in terms of speed and distributing tasks across a large number of cores are the bridge to graphene/quantum/whatever. The reason we don't see linear performance gains with additional cores today is mostly to do with the fact that the vast majority of apps aren't written to take advantage of that. I think Apple is in a unique position to leverage their SDKs to allow developers to tap into this power moving forward. They control hardware and software.

 

[Abazigal]

All you ARM-based Mac fans better remember this when you criticize Intel for its (lack of) speed gains; although the 8th Gen CPUs are seeing significant performance gains. Apple will face the same hurdles as Intel as CPU frequency increases. There is no panacea.

https://stratechery.com/2018/intel-and-the-danger-of-integration/

Seems that Intel's problem was that it had pigeon-holed itself into designing chips based on an inefficient and outdated design, not so much that processor speeds were reaching a peak. This is a problem of Intel's own making, and if the competition such as Apple can leapfrog it, Intel deserves every bit of what they had coming to them.

 

[macduke]

And they hit this point of diminishing returns a lot quicker than Intel did. This is bad news for Apple. Now they'll have to fill a 1-2 hour key note talking about how awesome their camera is.

Good thing they're adding a third one, lol. But seriously, I imagine improved battery life would be a good selling point for a lot of people. For me, my iPhone X has more than enough. I feel like the next time I'll be excited about batteries or consider it a major selling point is when my battery can last multiple days or even a week under typical use. Not sure if anyone really needs that though with the prevalence of chargers both wired and inductive along with all the battery packs and automotive chargers so it will probably take a leap in battery tech to make this possible but I imagine such a leap would likely lead to tiny batteries to make thinner and lighter devices so who knows if it will ever happen.

What I really want out of iPhone X "2" is better Face ID.

 

[grkm3]

Intel just listed its 9th gen to come out late this year with a desktop i9 9900k 8 core 16 thread cpu that will pull ahead of everyone for another 10 years.

They have hit a wall about 5 years ago and apple is hitting the same wall now.single core performance is maxed out and the i9 will do about 5800-6000 single core and about 75000-85000 multi depending on clocks.

You need more cores not faster single cores

 

[M.PaulCezanne]

iPhone 6 was probably the worst iPhone they have released, iphone 6S probably one of the best. Although they look the same, the 6S is vastly superior and still a decent phone, iPhone 6 is not.

Well, I’ve never had a problem with my 6. Not even with the battery. Nor have I wanted for any other features. I guess I’ve just been unusually lucky not to need minor speed bumps and camera improvements.

 

[Feenician]

LoL Incredible logic.
Geekbench is a terrible test for X86 CPUs as it's optimized for simpler ARM architectures

Not acccording to Linus Torvalds for GB4. All benchmarks are flawed markers of user experience to a greater or lesser degree but GB4 is absolutely a fair representation of what these CPUs can do relative to each other in the tests it provides. You just don’t like the answer it gives you.

https://www.realworldtech.com/forum/?threadid=159853&curpostid=159860

 

[chucker23n1]

LoL Incredible logic.
Geekbench is a terrible test for X86 CPUs as it's optimized for simpler ARM architectures

Nope.

It has nothing to do with batteries or thermal limits.

They’re quite relevant. For example, a quad-core Kaby Lake Refresh U from Intel can briefly reach similar performance as a quad-code Kaby Lake H, even though the latter needs thrice the wattage, but only for brief periods of time.

Basically you can give an x86 CPU core a lot more work before you bring it down to it's knees as the x86 has been optimized to work that way(do a lot of stuff at the same time) while an ARM core is less capable in such a scenario.

What does this even mean?

You need more cores not faster single cores

More cores means much harder scaling for software. Multithreading is hard.

 

[geromi912]

Nope.

Try running geekbench on your computer. How high is your cpu usage?

 

[Feenician]

Try running geekbench on your computer. How high is your cpu usage?

If you're saying that it doesn't occupy all possible threads, then that would be expected. Almost no actual workload is so embarrassingly parallel that it perfectly saturates all cores.

 

[geromi912]

If you're saying that it doesn't occupy all possible threads, then that would be expected. Almost no actual workload is so embarrassingly parallel that it perfectly saturates all cores.

Then may I ask what the multi core score is for? Using 2 threads? Or 3? Or 4? And it does use 100% resources of an ARM device. LITERALLY any cpu benchmark made for the architecture will utilize all the threads. Cinebench, passmark, the benchmark tool inside intel XTU. And what are you on about? Video rendering can easily use all the threads. Lol, even a modern video game can utilise 8 threads.

 

[chucker23n1]

Try running geekbench on your computer. How high is your cpu usage?

Up to 650%, on eight virtual cores.

It's not a benchmark's task to perform a bunch of parallel while loops, though.

 

[Feenician]

And what are you on about? Video rendering can easily use all the threads. Lol, even a modern video game can utilise 8 threads.

I think I made it pretty clear what I'm "on about".

Almost no actual workload is so embarrassingly parallel that it perfectly saturates all cores.

Yes, cideo rendering and encoding would be one of the applications that are embarrassingly parallel. Also, I like how you say "a modern video game can utilize 8 threads" but neglect to mention any that actually do. Yes, "a modern video game" may or may not but what does it have to do with the subject of the thread anyway? Are you under the impression that Apple couldn't add more cores, or implement SMT if they considered it advantageous? They very much could.

https://www.pcworld.com/article/303...es-you-really-need-for-directx-12-gaming.html

 

[2IS]

Good thing they're adding a third one, lol. But seriously, I imagine improved battery life would be a good selling point for a lot of people. For me, my iPhone X has more than enough. I feel like the next time I'll be excited about batteries or consider it a major selling point is when my battery can last multiple days or even a week under typical use. Not sure if anyone really needs that though with the prevalence of chargers both wired and inductive along with all the battery packs and automotive chargers so it will probably take a leap in battery tech to make this possible but I imagine such a leap would likely lead to tiny batteries to make thinner and lighter devices so who knows if it will ever happen.

What I really want out of iPhone X "2" is better Face ID.

Why would Apple use the efficiency gains to improve battery life when they can make a thinner phone by using a smaller battery instead? I'm being half way sarcastic, but serious at the same time because this is typically what Apple does if they see an opportunity for something thinner that will maintain roughly the same run time as the previous gen.