The Apple A15 SoC Performance Review: Faster & More Efficient
by Andrei Frumusanu on October 4, 2021 9:30 AM EST- Posted in
- Mobile
- Apple
- Smartphones
- Apple A15
Conclusion & End Remarks
Today’s investigation into the new A15 is just scratching the tip of the iceberg of what Apple has to offer in the new generation iPhone 13 series devices. As we’re still working on the full device review, we got a good glimpse of what the new silicon is able to achieve, and what to expect from the new devices in terms of performance.
On the CPU side of things, Apple’s initial vague presentation of the new A15 improvements could either have resulted in disappointment, or simply a more hidden shift towards power efficiency rather than pure performance. In our extensive testing, we’re elated to see that it was actually mostly an efficiency focus this year, with the new performance cores showcasing adequate performance improvements, while at the same time reducing power consumption, as well as significantly improving energy efficiency.
The efficiency cores of the A15 have also seen massive gains, this time around with Apple mostly investing them back into performance, with the new cores showcasing +23-28% absolute performance improvements, something that isn’t easily identified by popular benchmarking. This large performance increase further helps the SoC improve energy efficiency, and our initial battery life figures of the new 13 series showcase that the chip has a very large part into the vastly longer longevity of the new devices.
In the GPU side, Apple’s peak performance improvements are off the charts, with a combination of a new larger GPU, new architecture, and the larger system cache that helps both performance as well as efficiency.
Apple’s iPhone component design seems to be limiting the SoC from achieving even better results, especially the newer Pro models, however even with that being said and done, Apple remains far above the competition in terms of performance and efficiency.
Overall, while the A15 isn’t the brute force iteration we’ve become used to from Apple in recent years, it very much comes with substantial generational gains that allow it to be a notably better SoC than the A14. In the end, it seems like Apple’s SoC team has executed well after all.
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Alistair - Monday, October 4, 2021 - link
no, the OS does not support you transferring app data at all... it isn't the developer's faultmisan - Tuesday, October 5, 2021 - link
Maybe I am misunderstanding something? I was under impression that you could use the FileManager APIs to write user-visible files. I see no reason why this couldn’t be used for saved game state.Blark64 - Tuesday, October 5, 2021 - link
Absolutely untrue. App data can be written to the user visible file system, or transferred via email, messaging, airdrop, third-party file storage like Dropbox, etc. etc.Alistair - Tuesday, October 5, 2021 - link
well none of my apps let that happen, so it's a bit weird to say iOS allows it but I can't do it, and why can't I just open a menu in settings and select the app data I want to transfer? saying "you can do it" is kind of misleading...Lombo - Wednesday, October 6, 2021 - link
I think that this is a PEBSAF (new version of the old PEBKAC bug)Please tell me what game are you referring to so I can test it and tell you how to do it.
cha0z_ - Tuesday, October 5, 2021 - link
Depends how you use your phone. For general usage you will be hard pressed to find difference between 11 pro max and 13 pro max performance wise. Gaming is one area where even 13 pro max is just not enough powerful for handful of games and there are quite serious ios games like x-com 2 WOTC, Civ VI, northgard and so on (actually there are a lot of games that don't perform good enough on my 11 pro max!) + you can screen mirror to your TV and use the phone as a console via bluetooth gamepad - works and the lag is totally fine. Sound lags a little bit behind for something like dead cells, but it's totally OK for most games and the controls lag is super low to the point you won't notice it.lemurbutton - Monday, October 4, 2021 - link
Good game AMD/Intel when M2X comes out later this year.supdawgwtfd - Wednesday, October 6, 2021 - link
What?Your comment makes no sense.
Apple won't "good game" anyone.
You can't run massive servers, high end GPUs or anything in an Apple.
They will continue to be what they always have been. Consumer devices.
adda - Saturday, October 9, 2021 - link
This is one of the most hilariously random "Apple bad" comments I've ever seen.Hifihedgehog - Monday, October 4, 2021 - link
Interesting. So presumably then, the A12->A14 (iPad Air) and A12->A15 (iPad Mini) having the same percentage increases is due to severe downclocking on the iPad Mini, likely to achieve insanely long battery life? Because the results here casts a totally different light on the A14->A15 year-over-year performance improvements than what the Apple presentation and press materials would have led technically minded viewers to believe.