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What the difference in the A6 versus A7 chip?
- Thread starter tpcollins
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Briefly...
Both chips are custom designed by Apple and manufactured by Samsung.
Both chips are dual core and clocked at approximately 1.3 GHz (inferred - Apple never releases this information) with 1 GB of RAM.
A6 runs ARM v7 instruction set.
A7 runs ARM v8 instruction set. This is a brand new instruction set and is more efficient.
A6 is 32-bit.
A7 is 64-bit. There's potential for improved performance when running 64-bit native code, and more memory addressing capability (not a factor in the 5S though). It is conceivably more future proof, but when the time comes that 64-bit is "required" you'll be getting a new phone anyway.
A7 has more computational registers than A6. Potential for improved performance.
A7 is on a smaller manufacturing process, so transistor for transistor it is more power efficient than the A6. This means that the A7 can have more transistors than the A6 but still use the same or less power.
A7 has a faster graphics coprocessor than A6.
A7 has a motion data coprocessor (that the A6 does not) that enables an offload of tasks that relate to motion (detecting speed, tilt, etc.). Potential for power savings and improved performance.
In a number of industry standard benchmarks the A7 is shown to be the fastest mobile device processor, even as compared to the Snapdragon 800 that is powering many of the latest high end Android devices (see Anandtech, Gizmodo, etc. This is not fanboyism.).
Those are probably the "biggies".
Both chips are custom designed by Apple and manufactured by Samsung.
Both chips are dual core and clocked at approximately 1.3 GHz (inferred - Apple never releases this information) with 1 GB of RAM.
A6 runs ARM v7 instruction set.
A7 runs ARM v8 instruction set. This is a brand new instruction set and is more efficient.
A6 is 32-bit.
A7 is 64-bit. There's potential for improved performance when running 64-bit native code, and more memory addressing capability (not a factor in the 5S though). It is conceivably more future proof, but when the time comes that 64-bit is "required" you'll be getting a new phone anyway.
A7 has more computational registers than A6. Potential for improved performance.
A7 is on a smaller manufacturing process, so transistor for transistor it is more power efficient than the A6. This means that the A7 can have more transistors than the A6 but still use the same or less power.
A7 has a faster graphics coprocessor than A6.
A7 has a motion data coprocessor (that the A6 does not) that enables an offload of tasks that relate to motion (detecting speed, tilt, etc.). Potential for power savings and improved performance.
In a number of industry standard benchmarks the A7 is shown to be the fastest mobile device processor, even as compared to the Snapdragon 800 that is powering many of the latest high end Android devices (see Anandtech, Gizmodo, etc. This is not fanboyism.).
Those are probably the "biggies".