The iPhone 6 Review
by Joshua Ho, Brandon Chester, Chris Heinonen & Ryan Smith on September 30, 2014 8:01 AM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Apple
- Mobile
- iPhone 6
GPU Performance
While we don't quite have real games to benchmark against, we do have benchmarks that are reasonably good approximations of games, which heavily stress the GPU. For the most part, this means that we can see the performance of the A8's PowerVR GX6450 GPU but there are some aspects that are CPU-bound, which we'll discuss after the results.
Edit: Before I get into the results, I must caution that Basemark X will have inaccurate on-screen results as the benchmark was made using XCode 5.x in order to keep scores comparable between versions 1.1 and 1.1.1. This doesn't affect the overall score, which is solely calculated based upon off-screen performance.
For the most part, we see that the GX6450 is at about the same level as Qualcomm's Adreno 420, which seems to track closely to expectations given that the A7's GPU was around the same performance as the Adreno 330. The 3DMark test does have an interesting result, but it seems that this is because 3DMark's physics test has a strong amount of data dependency that restricts the level of out of order execution that can be done. NVIDIA's Tegra K1 is the current leader in graphics performance, but of course it's also in a tablet instead of a smartphone so it's not a direct competitor.
NAND Performance
As we move towards the goal of seamless performance in everyday tasks, one significant factor is IO performance. While there's definitely a minimum level of performance that allows for generally acceptable smoothness, there's value in having higher storage performance (e.g. prevent bottlenecking in situations such as updating apps in the background). In order to test this, we use Androbench with some custom settings on Android and a custom utility developed by Eric Patno for iOS, who has been quite helpful with furthering our efforts to test storage performance.
As this is the first time that we've looked into NAND performance on iOS devices, it's definitely worth scrutinizing the data a bit more closely than in most cases. There are a few notable cases here, which are the class-leading speeds for sequential reads and writes on the iPhone 6, but also the rather middling random read and write speeds for the iPhone 6 and 5s. The oddest result is definitely the iPhone 5, which is Ryan's personal unit and while the random read speeds are on the low side, random write speeds are easily record-setting.
In practice, with tablets and smartphones being less multitasking heavy than PCs/laptops, the sequential scores are probably slightly more relevant to the overall user experience. The iPhone 6 results show a significant increase in performance over the iPhone 5s in all of the tests, which is always good to see.
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elajt_1 - Friday, October 3, 2014 - link
(@melgross) And to call you one would be an insult to an idiot.Apart from the rage, I think it was he made some valid points.
Jimrod - Tuesday, September 30, 2014 - link
You mad bro?rational_wannabe - Tuesday, September 30, 2014 - link
You have serious issues. So it's OK for Samsung to sell their plastic crap for the same amount of money? Nice way of rationalizing things...danbob999 - Tuesday, September 30, 2014 - link
Yeah it's OK since there is nothing wrong with plastic. It absorbs shock, is light and do not block wireless signal. Perfect material for a phone. It is also durable enough. How many people replace their phone because the plastic is cracked? Not much. People replace their phone either because the screen is broken, it was damaged by liquid or simply because it is too slow/old.Apple has been selling phones which are cheaper to produce for years at the same price (or higher) than the competition. Smaller phones tend to be cheaper, because the display is cheaper, the battery is cheaper, and the rest cost the same. So even by using plastic, Samsung phones cost more to produce so I fail to see how they can be labeled as "cheap".
blackcrayon - Tuesday, September 30, 2014 - link
Apple is spending far more in developing the phone in other areas though. Writing the OS, designing custom SoCs, etc.danbob999 - Tuesday, September 30, 2014 - link
Designing custom SoCs is an investment. It isn't supposed to raise the cost of the phone.Samsung also design some of its own SoCs and even manufacture them.
The OS is debatable. But from a hardware perspective Samsung phones (at least the high end ones) are definitely not cheap, even if they use plastic.
Parhel - Tuesday, September 30, 2014 - link
R&D should affect the cost of the product? That's not how it works . . .Parhel - Tuesday, September 30, 2014 - link
Ugh.. meant to say R&D "shouldn't". To state it plainly, R&D may be an investment, but it's still an expense. The cost needs to be recouped, and they make money by selling phones, so . . . you do the math.danbob999 - Tuesday, September 30, 2014 - link
Of course they have to make money. But spending more in software development, R&D or marketing doesn't make their phone any less "cheap". I was replying to someone saying that Samsung phones were "cheap" because they were in plastic. The fact is that Samsung phones tend to be more expensive than iPhones to make, because the cost of the components is higher, despite any savings made by using a plastic shell.akdj - Friday, October 3, 2014 - link
Only BECAUSE it takes my Note3 twice the cores, at twice the clock speed with three times the amount RAM to FINALLY close the gap on performance. Almost. My 5s is still quicker playing Asphalt8, manipulating photos, even rendering VIDEO! Most likely the latter because of the extreme lack of interet in the development community (other than game ports) to 'build out' apps and software. And that sucks! I love my Note 3--- coming from the original its a massive upgrade. That said, Samsung is using stock, off the shelf SoCs ....indeed 'produced' by them as they've got the capabilities to cook bake and roll out silicon BUT they've chosen to increase horsepower, drop the gearing ratios and add a stage III nirrous kit 'built' and low level programmed with basic ARM instructions and a radical slather of Peanut Butter JavaScript to wade through just for TouchWiz. By the time you open an app, you're at 85-90% RAM usage. I've got a N3. I like it and I'm not getting rid of it. It serves it's purpose for our business perfectly. But AS a business owner and one that relies on creative talent to make it 'work' I find your comment very VERY ill informed and 'ignorant' ...no to be a dick. But yes, R&D is definitely a percentage figured into the equation with BOM. As well, the software development, A8 & the second generation 64bit processor with a faster GPU, more efficient memory managment with the SoC 4mb buffer and iOS 8 itself are expenses. Paid to a LOT of talent! For crying out loud, they developed a new CODE! And a spectacular one at that! Free lessons are everywhere and if you're experienced, have a macbook laying around, download the latest XCode and you'll have Swift down in a weekend. Not to mentioned the low level 'Metal' instruction set to eliminate the OpGL ES overhead ...allowing developers 'direct' (hence, 'Metal') access to the GPU ...if you're at all curious on how incredible this development most consumers will NEVER know about ...check out Unreal 4's site, the UR4 engine and what they've done with Metal. You can download their patio presentation frim WWDC in the app store. It's absolutley amazing. Samsung's phones are spendy because they're licensing Wacom, using active digitizers few are able use (until this evolution, three's a charm I guess), massive batteries, a horrid looking bezel that's rigid for sure, but then again, this is the first I've seen people, on purposes bending phones, and that's not a real life issue or even concern. I shared earlier, somehow my nine year old son has managed to keep his iPod touch fifth gen in perfect non bent and scratch free condition. Two years. Lotsa boogers and bumps but no dents, no dings, scratches or 'display marks' without screen protection. Guesses can be made in physical pieces. Even how long (labor pricing) to produce a single unit. But development of actual silicon, low level optimization to your non fragmented operating system, 64bit technology 24 months ahead of the industry and obvious benefits from the 20nm A8. iOS 8 (and its counterpart more than ever, OS X 10.10) and its ability to aggregate our information across devices, handoff calls, emails, texts or whatever the hell you're doing on your iPad ....get distracted, fall out and when you turn your iMac or MBP on, there's the email you were working on. Ready for you to finish. The web page you were reading or the movie your were watching ...vice versa too. Start on your computer a doc, and open your iPhone, there'll be a small 'doc' icon signifying you're working on something and you're able to finish it here! Forget the phone downstairs, your in bed reading before sleep, phone rings...no worries. Answer it on your iPad. AirDrop between laptop, tablet and phone, MacPro and ipad....iPhone to your iMac, slick n quick.Of course, then there's the whole 'build quality' argument. Where designers, reviewers, and the public ALL Seem to agree. The iPhone SNOKES Samsung's BQ. Period. They're like jewelry, true and real 'art'. Each phone has been an engineering marvel. Samsung? Are you kidding me? Other than their goofy, curvy, earthy S3 baby blue tangent, their 'rectangle' phone lacks ANY design fundamentals much less achievements.
When you sell as MANY pieces as Apple does, costs come down. For the 'pieces'. But the machining process (2 year cycle) is entirely changed. Fusion welding and sapphire 'plants', robotics and laser/chamfered edging with incredible attention to detail are just a couple of the hundreds of THOUSANDS of re-tooling the facilities for the latest 'build'. And after a couple of hours today with the 6 & 6+ as we anxiously await ours, with an open mind (& as an ambidextrous user of Android and iOS Windows and OS X) --- NOTHING on the Internet does justice to the phone itself. It's. Absolutely. AMAZING!