Slashdot Mirror


Apple's A11 Bionic Chip In iPhone 8 and iPhone X Smokes Android Handsets In Early Benchmarks (hothardware.com)

MojoKid writes: Many of the new releases of Apple's iPhone bring with it a new A-series SoC (System on Chip) and Apple is keeping that tradition with the iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus, and iPhone X. Each of those handsets sports a custom ARM-based A11 Bionic processor with six cores -- four high performance cores and two power efficiency cores. The two power efficiency cores will perform the bulk medial chores to maintain battery life, which Apple says will be 2 hours longer than the iPhone 7. However, for heavier workloads, the chip is capable of not only firing up its four high performance cores, but also all six cores simultaneously. If early leaked benchmarks are any indication, the A11 Bionic is going to be a benchmark-busting beast of a chip. A set of just-posted Geekbench scores reinforces that notion. Just prior to Apple announcing its newest iPhone models, Geekbench's database was updated with a new entry for an "iPhone 10,5" which we assume to be the iPhone X. Based on the scores recorded, in this one benchmark at least, the A11 CPU powering the iPhone X appears to be 50 to 70 percent faster than any Android handset on the market currently, even those powered by the new Qualcomm Snapdragon 835.

8 of 332 comments (clear)

  1. eh geek bench bs by serviscope_minor · · Score: 4, Interesting

    It's a geek bench result.
    That means it's crap. They're closed source and completely unverified and always give insanely high scores to iOS, even compared to maxed out server cpus.

    Non news.

    --
    SJW n. One who posts facts.
    1. Re:eh geek bench bs by TheFakeTimCook · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Back then, phones were severly limited by their CPU. This isn't the case anymore, so nobody cares.

      When the power is there uses will be found. Like good AR, and like 4K HDR video at 60 fps. That's something that until now was found only in high end professional gear, and certainly not in a phone.

      Saying phones are "fast enough" is like sticking your head in the sand.

      I wholeheartedly agree!

      And anyone who watched the Keynote the other day, and saw what Apple is capable of doing with ARKit and the facial-mapping (Amimoji Poop notwithstanding!), has just GOT to stop and think, as I did, "In REAL-TIME? On a PHONE?!?"

      Start watching at time-index 1:32:00

      https://www.apple.com/apple-ev...

      Even the stupid Animoji stuff is pretty cool, though, from a technical standpoint.

      Watch the Cat Animoji accurately track and display Craig's "Angry Face", squinching up it's cheeks and eyes just like he was doing, and, the Unicorn Animoji, accurately tracking and displaying the "lip-flapping" thing that horses do, again in real-time.

      Yes, as Craig rhetorically asked when showing-off the Animojies and the "Face Mask" stuff, "So, whaddya do with the world's most sophisticated face-tracking system?", these are admittedly silly applications of some pretty cool technology; but the point is, they also clearly show just how good that technology is.

      And. On a PHONE... It's just plain amazing.

  2. Of course it is.... by MikeDataLink · · Score: 4, Insightful

    New iPhone is launched:
    Apple Fanbois: New iPhone is faster than the Samsung!
    Android Fanbois: It doesn't matter. So many other things are more important the processor speed!!!!

    New Android phone is launched:
    Android Fanbois: New Samsung is faster than the iPhone!
    Apple Fanbois: It doesn't matter. So many other things are more important the processor speed!!!!

    --
    Mike @ The Geek Pub. Let's Make Stuff!
    1. Re:Of course it is.... by Kjella · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Well, just recognizing that Apple does some innovative hardcore engineering seems to be hard for some. There are always those that claim Apple's business model is wrapping things others have created in white plastic, marketing it to hipsters and selling it at double price. Which is occasionally true but they do have some pretty impressive home brew like the CPUs, Secure Enclave (when the FBI whines they've done something right) and they've fronted some technology like high DPI displays and fingerprint scanning making it mainstream. By the time it's passed through Apple's marketing machine nerds seem to hate it no matter what.

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
  3. Forget multi-core - single-core is where it smokes by JoeyRox · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The most impressive aspect of Apple's ARM chips is in their single-core performance, which is arguably a more useful, real-world metric since many common tasks in apps are principally single-threaded. By that measure Apple is more than 2x faster than Samsung's S8.

  4. Re:No Surprise by Njorthbiatr · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I mean, that's cute, but you're wrong. That CPU will crush the iPhone's new fancy processor in a way that isn't even a competition. You should really stop trusting Geekbench scores, as they intentionally take TDP out of the equation.

    The i7 chip can go forever without really thermal throttling in most laptop setups, even under high stress. The iPhone sleeps the CPU in between clock cycles to intentionally let it cool down. Further, the iPhone is running highly optimized software with very specific limitations. It doesn't need to be good at general tasks in the same way the i7 does. Sure it can do cool 4k video stuff... With how many codecs? Yeah, that's what specific hardware gets you, very fast specific things.

    It's a great phone processor, but any i7 is going to leave it in the dust in any respectable comparison that doesn't artificially alter benchmarks to make things seem better than they are.

  5. Can't we just be amazed at this tech? by MyDixieWrecked · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I see a lot of comments on here calling these benchmarks artificial and fake or whatever, but can we take a moment to think about the power of these devices that we have in our pockets? They're pushing more pixels and flopping more teras than our top of the line gaming pcs were 10 years ago. And they fit in our pockets. Couple this with the fact that these devices are getting faster and smaller and battery life is still improving generation over generation.

    Slashdot has always been a tinkerer's haven and relatively anti-apple, but their year over year feat of pushing the envelope is impressive. Honestly, all the competition really needs to get the lead out. There's more engineers not at apple than at apple and they're sitting on ass.

    So stop blaming Apple for taking the talent or improving on what's there. And stop treating this shit like some religious war. You don't need to bash something to make yourself feel better about what tech you use. Different people value different things. Chill the fuck out and be happy you're around for all this amazing tech, from Samsung, huawei, apple, and the future underdogs that wil become the next number one. Shit is only gonna get better, maybe you can be a part of it. Do your best work and make the world a better place.

    --



    ...spike
    Ewwwwww, coconut...
  6. I stopped caring about scores past by guacamole · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I stopped caring about scores past when iPhone 5s or Snapdragon 800+ android phones hit the market. There is plenty of performance there to do any task that +95 percent of users need on their phone. 99% of the time, your smartphone is still just a fancy messenger and a web browser (because most mobile apps are just a wrapper around a web site).

    It's of course nice that Apple gives you so much performance, but these days Chinaphones that cost under 250USD and carry the specs that are sufficient for most uses out there are just too seductive for a lot of people