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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Zerrohero - Tuesday, October 5, 2021 - link
I don’t know but it’s still better than anything else out there?LiverpoolFC5903 - Tuesday, October 5, 2021 - link
All that power, but what is the point? Its crippled by iOS and you can only do so much on an iphone. Can you run emulators? Can you attach standard game controllers/peripherals like you can do on android? Can you copy and paste media files from your PC into your Iphone without going through a convoluted process?If this hardware was available to android phone manufacturers, you could actually see the potential of these chips.
I believe Apple can mint money by selling their SOCs to Android smartphone manufacturers. It doesnt have to be the latest one, they could offer last years SOCs at premium prices for high end android devices. Imagine running Dolphin on a A14 or A15 powered android phone!
Zerrohero - Tuesday, October 5, 2021 - link
You have never used an iPhone.So how do you know this HW is “crippled by iOS”?
Apple itself is using this power for many very nice consumer facing features, like computational photography. Faster and more efficient prosessing, yes please.
What are those amazing power user use cases that Android allows and iOS doesn’t?
Android OEMs have shown year after year that they can’t unleash the potential of anything because they don’t own any of the relevant parts (chips, SW) and they don’t understand product design.
And yes, PlayStation and Xbox controllers work just fine in iPhone and iPad.
LiverpoolFC5903 - Tuesday, October 5, 2021 - link
Do what exactly? Browse the web? Listen to music? Do social media?I can connect controllers, mice, keyboards, external hardrives, pendrives and others via USB OTG. I can install any emulator I like from any source I want and not just play store. I can download apps from anywhere, store them and send them to other phones. I can simply copy and paste my music collection in my desktop to my phone as opposed to going through a rigamarole. I can root, install custom roms of any shape and form I like. I can completely alter the way my phone looks and functions. I can install browsers like Firefox with different engines as opposed Webkit based browsers ONLY, all of which are simply clones.
I can do so much more with my phone, you cannot possibly fathom as an iphone user.
An android phone with APple SOC would be a billion times better than an IOS phone with the same hardware in terms of overall functionality.
Nozuka - Tuesday, October 5, 2021 - link
All the things you listed will feel like a waste of time to most users, tbh. ;) (And can also cause a lot of problems)I used to like these things too in the earlier android years and i get how it can be fun. but now i just can't be bothered to spend the time. I just need a reliable and fast phone that does the most important tasks well and gets updates for a long time and stays fast. The A15 will be plenty fast for years.
And if i ever get a new device, i just want to restore without any hassle. Or if a new OS version arrives, i want to install it without fear that any of the customizations will be broken.
IMHO iOS still provides the most hassle free experience. And if the masses are missing some crucial feature it usually gets added.
But if you like to tinker around, then iOS devices are definitely not the right devices for you.
" I can simply copy and paste my music collection in my desktop to my phone as opposed to going through a rigamarole. "
I would argue that this is way more tedious than just adding the music to your library once and then it is available on all your devices.
dontlistentome - Tuesday, October 5, 2021 - link
Hey Siri/Google. Show me two people with opposing use-cases. :-)I call a draw (I can be judge, I have a 13 pro and a Pixel 5. Like both).
Spunjji - Friday, October 8, 2021 - link
Your comment speaks to my own experiences. I used to be big into Android customisation in the early days, but I gave up around about Android 5 / Lollipop when the core OS included sufficient features to be satisfying. I got extremely tired of screwing around with hacking in custom software, and my experiences with the numerous things you can *theoretically* do with an Android device were - generally speaking - poor, and not worth the effort.michael2k - Wednesday, October 6, 2021 - link
6+ years of OS updates? And before you laugh, my sister in law and mother in law both rock iPhone 6S models getting iOS 15Also you seem to be under the mistaken assumption that iOS doesn't support USB drives:
https://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-iXpand-Flash-Drive-...
External keyboards:
https://www.amazon.com/Omars-Certified-Plug-n-Go-L...
USB OTG:
https://www.amazon.com/Adapter-Compatible-Portable...
You are correct that Apple hasn't unlocked a lot of the iPhone's potential; but it's also correct that no one in Android space is willing to pay the premium necessary to come close to the iPhone's processor either. There just aren't enough people like you willing to pay enough to pay Qualcomm the extra cost of developing a faster and more powerful CPU
Nicon0s - Tuesday, October 5, 2021 - link
The same tired "you have never used an iphone argument" actually showing lack of arguments.The road for computational photography was paved by Android smaprhones not Apple.
Computational photography on the Pixel 4a with the very old SD 730 is better than on an iphone SE 2020 for example.
>What are those amazing power user use cases that Android allows and iOS doesn’t?
Well it looks like you are quite unfamiliar with Android.
Anyway a simple example is Dex and similar implementations on other phones.
Another examples is being able to use emulators and turning an Android phone into a mini console.
Aq901_22 - Tuesday, October 5, 2021 - link
> Computational photography on the Pixel 4a with the very old SD 730 is better than on an iphone SE 2020 for example.A key differences is that the SE 2020 does computational photography/videography in real time, which necessitates a decently powerful professor to execute those tasks? The Pixel 4a doesn’t have Live HDR in preview/during recording when recording videos (only in stills), nor does it have real-time Portrait Mode/bokeh control simultaneously with Live HDR nor something like Portrait Lighting control before taking a pic? The point is, the Pixel 4a has impressive computational features (like night mode, which the SE lacks) for its price.
But it’s downsides is that everything is done in post (minus HDR), and the Pixel 4a is notorious for having slower processing compared to its predecessors. So while the 4a is better than the SE 2 in stills (in low light specifically), the SE 2 has much better videography due to Apple’s obsession with doing everything in real time. And this doesn’t take into factor that the SE is also better in slow-motion, panoramas, time-lapse due to using its computational features and implementing it across the board.
The 4a is great for the price and despite using a much slower processor, it has a pretty good camera. But this also makes it have disadvantages—and this is shown across the Pixel lineup, including the 5. I say this as a huge Pixel fan and owning one.