Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Early iPhone 6 Benchmark Results Show Only Modest Gains For A8

Posted by Soulskill on from the find-a-way-to-make-this-fit-your-narrative dept.

MojoKid writes: Historically speaking, we typically see impressive performance gains each time Apple releases a new custom processor for its mobile products. Certainly that was true of the A7 SoC, the world's first 64-bit smartphone processor. So, can we expect the same kind of performance bump from the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, both of which sport the new custom A8 SoC? Maybe not. The iPhone 6 recently surfaced in results for the Basemark X benchmark and armed with a dual-core 1.4GHz Cyclone CPU and A8 GPU, the iPhone 6 scored 21,204.26 and a earned a place at the top of the chart, though not by much. By comparison, the iPhone 5s scored 20,253.80 in the same benchmark. In other words, the iPhone 6 is currently less than 5 percent faster than the iPhone 5s, at least as far as the Basemark X benchmark is concerned.

6 of 208 comments (clear)

  1. Keynote acknowledged this by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    We already know the gains are less from the keynote. If you look at the graph Apple showed of CPU speed it shows an exponential increase in speed until the 5, but then a noticeable levelling off to the 6.

    What they're focussing on now is different. CPU is obviously almost good enough, battery is more important. Instead they're offloading functionality. The motion coprocessor and the GPU. Compare the GPU graph to the CPU one and you see much greater gains.

    1. Re:Keynote acknowledged this by FlyHelicopters · · Score: 3, Informative

      What they're focussing on now is different. CPU is obviously almost good enough, battery is more important.

      This... I want a longer battery, lighter weight, etc...

      It is already fast enough and it will be awhile before apps catch up.

      They will, but not for a few years, then we'll need another jump.

    2. Re:Keynote acknowledged this by grouchomarxist · · Score: 4, Informative

      Yes, Apple is claiming that the A8 only draws 50% of the power of the A7, so the emphasis was probably on power reduction as opposed to performance. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A...

  2. what about more ram? by Joe_Dragon · · Score: 4, Informative

    1gb is low next to other systems.

  3. Re:power consumption? by Munchr · · Score: 3, Informative

    For some weird reason, wikipedia has chosen to source that statement to an article from Verge, rather than the direct Apple source. Apple's statement can be found at http://www.apple.com/iphone-6/...

  4. Re: Are you joking? by BasilBrush · · Score: 0, Informative

    That is the very opposite of the truth.

    Siri was included with iOS 5 which came out in Oct 2011.

    The Android equivalent didn't come along till Jelly Bean, which came out in July 2012.

    It's possible that you are thinking about an app that came out for Android earlier. But if so you are forgetting that such apps were available for iOS first. Siri itself was available as an app on iOS in Feb 2010.