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MagyarApple A12Z Bionic vs Intel Core i7-8557U
Apple A12Z Bionic
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The Apple A12Z Bionic is a System on a Chip (SoC) from Apple that is found in the iPad Pro 11 and 12.5-inch from 2020. It offers 8 cores divided in four performance cores and four power efficiency cores (up from the 6 cores in the A12 of the iPhone XS). The difference to the older Apple A12X Bionic in the iPad Pro 2018 models seems to be an additional GPU core. Regarding CPU Apple noted: "Enhanced thermal design means higher peak and longer sustained performance". More details were not published by Apple, so it may be even the same chip with an additional enabled GPU core. On the other hand, it could be also manufactured in an improved 7nm (EUV?) process and offer higher clock rates. As Apple states no performance improvements on the CPU side, we don't expect big gains. However, the A12X was a very fast ARM based SoC and currently there is no competitor in the Android space that should beat the performance.
The chip also includes the M12 Motion co-processor and a Neural Engine with 8 cores for up to 5 trillion operations per second (unverified, numbers from the A12X).
The Apple A12X included 10 billion transistors (A12 6.9 billion) and the A12Z should be therefore offer a similar amount. This makes it a quite big chip, especially compared to the Snapdragon 835 (3 Billion) or a Skylake desktop quad-core SoC (1.75 Billion).
Intel Core i7-8557U
► remove from comparisonThe Intel Core i7-8557U is a quad-core SoC for notebooks based on the Coffee Lake architecture that was announced in the new entry level MacBook Pro 13 in mid 2019. Compared to its predecessor, the CPU is now a quad-core with Hyperthreading support for the execution of up to 8 threads simultaneously. The base frequency is only 1.7 GHz, but the Turbo goes all the way up to 4.5 GHz. It is also equipped with an Intel Iris Plus Graphics 645 GPU with 128 MB eDRAM, a dual-channel memory controller (DDR4) as well as VP9 and H.265 video decoding as well as encoding. The chip is still manufactured in a 14nm process with FinFET transistors.
Compared to slower Core i5 model with eDRAM and 15 Watts, the i5-8557U features 8 MB smart cache and the fastest clock of the Iris Plus GPU.
Architecture
Intel basically uses the same micro architecture compared to Kaby Lake, so the per-MHz performance does not differ. The manufacturer only reworked the Speed Shift technology for faster dynamic adjustments of voltages and clocks, and the improved 14nm process allows much higher frequencies combined with better efficiency than before.
Performance
Clocked at up to 4.5 GHz, the Core i7-8557U should offer an excellent single thread performance. The multi core performance is greatly improved due to the two additional cores (compared to the predecessor) but may be limited by the 15 Watt TDP (especially for sustained workloads).
Graphics
The integrated Intel Iris Plus 645 Graphics is the GT3e model of the Coffee Lake GPU (Intel Gen. 9.5). It has 48 Execution Units running at 300-1150 MHz and the performance is comparable to a GeForce 930M or 940MX thanks to fast eDRAM cache. However, there aren't any significant improvements compared to the old Iris Plus 650, so modern games can often not be played smoothly or only at the lowest or medium settings, respectively.
Contrary to Skylake, Kaby lake now also supports H.265/HEVC Main 10 with a 10-bit color depth as well as Google's VP9 codec. The dual-core Kaby Lake processors announced in January should also support HDCP 2.2.
Power Consumption
The chip is manufactured in an improved 14nm++ process with FinFET transistors, which improves the efficiency even further. Intel specifies the TDP with 15 Watts and therefore suited for thin and light laptops.
| Model | Apple A12Z Bionic | Intel Core i7-8557U | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Series | Apple Apple A-Series | Intel Coffee Lake | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Codename | Vortex, Tempest | Coffee Lake-U | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Series: Coffee Lake Coffee Lake-U |
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| Clock | <=2490 MHz | 1700 - 4500 MHz | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| L1 Cache | 2 MB | 256 KB | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| L2 Cache | 8 MB | 1 MB | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Cores / Threads | 8 / 8 | 4 / 8 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Transistors | 10000 Million | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Technology | 7 nm | 14 nm | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Features | ARMv8 Instruction Set | Dual-Channel DDR4 Memory Controller, HyperThreading, AVX, AVX2, Quick Sync, Virtualization, AES-NI, Intel SSE4.1, Intel SSE 4.2 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| iGPU | Apple A12Z Bionic GPU | Intel Iris Plus Graphics 645 (300 - 1150 MHz) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Architecture | ARM | x86 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Announced | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| L3 Cache | 8 MB | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| TDP | 28 Watt | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| max. Temp. | 100 °C | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Socket | FCBGA1528 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Manufacturer | ark.intel.com |
- Average benchmark values for this graphics card