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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name99 - Tuesday, September 30, 2014 - link
Well that certainly added substantially to the discussion.robbie rob - Tuesday, September 30, 2014 - link
Hey Apple craipple, you only prove what we know - Some Android fanatics are much worse then anybody. You make fun of people who buy a product while You display unstable emotion over a product you don't buy. To go to a site and troll - writing such a long worthless post - as you did.. For a product you don't buy. Any people here are technology lovers. People will buy what they want. It doesn't even matter what you post.robbie rob - Tuesday, September 30, 2014 - link
Apple didn't copy anything. They still use LCD.. Androids use Amoled - both have their strengths and downs. Apple doesn't just own their SOC - they have a hand in its design and Apples SOC is better overall as it outperforms in most areas despite a lower clock speed. Apple didn't copy going to higher Megapixels on their camera for marketing purposes like the Korean and Chinese phone makers. Guess what happens when you view a 13Mp picture on your smartphone? You view a 2Mp picture because that's all your screen can display - and people like you swear they can tell the difference! Haha. The best screen in the world - a 4k screen only displays at 8 Mp by the way. Apple spent more time making their camera sensor better - which is more important. Apple could've easily upped Megapixels to appease the psuedo intellects who think it matters. I suppose if your print posters all day- but your be using a professional camera not a smartphone.Scannall - Tuesday, September 30, 2014 - link
I suggest you stop reading articles about Apple products. They seem to make you irrational and angry.Gonemad - Tuesday, September 30, 2014 - link
You forgot to say it bends and stays bent.TLDR - Tuesday, September 30, 2014 - link
tldrichimp - Tuesday, September 30, 2014 - link
Calm down dear - it's a phone review - save your energy for something important!am71ap1 - Tuesday, September 30, 2014 - link
I would like to subscribe to your newsletter. Would read again, thanks!baozebub - Tuesday, September 30, 2014 - link
After the first couple of paragraphs, I couldn't bear to read any further. Your obsessive hatred of Apple is driven by some sort of religious zeal. It's like some girl cheated on you with a guy who works at Apple.I can't understand this level of hate. But after buying my first Apple product with the iPhone 3GS, I've slowly seen this in people who otherwise seemed normal. And because of the fierce resistance in me to those who are so forceful in their opinions of what others must think and do that is why I stick with Apple and won't consider Android. Ever.
ozzymustaine - Tuesday, September 30, 2014 - link
Nice trolling.How's living on your mom's basement?