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Apple A9 vs Apple A10X Fusion

Apple A9

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The Apple A9 is a high-end dual-core ARM SoC for smartphones. It was announced in Sept. 2015 in the new iPhone 6s and 6s Plus. Technical details were not published, but the CPU part should be about 70% and the GPU 90% faster than the previous Apple A8. Therefore, the performance should be on par with high-end Android SoCs in 2015.

It is based on the third generation of Apples 64 Bit architectures (Cyclone 3?) and uses a "new transistor technology". It is manufactured at Samsung in 14nm (slightly smaller die) and TSMC at 16nm (both FINFET 3D transistors). A performance difference of both versions are not noticable.

Furthermore, the chip now integrates the M9 motion coprocessor and a 4K video de- and encoder (as the iPhones 6s supports 4K video recording). The integrated graphics card should be still based on PowerVR technology.

The power consumption could be lower than the A8 due to the new process technology and the fact that the iPhones now got a smaller battery (due to the haptic engine part).

Apple A10X Fusion

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The Apple A10X Fusion is a system on a chip (SoC) from Apple that is built into the 2017 iPad Pro models. It integrates six 64 Bit cores that are divided in two clusters. Three high performance cores are clocked at up to 2.39 GHz. The three power saving cores are used for non demanding tasks. It looks like only one of both clusters is able to run at a time (therefore the apps see only three cores). The principle is similar to the first generation of ARMs big.LITTLE concept.

The performance of the SoC is positioned in the high and and clearly faster than all previous Apple SoCs. Even compared to Android high-end SoCs like the Snapdragon 835, the A10X takes the lead (e.g. in Geekbench or Antutu).

The integrated graphics card of the SoC will most likely stem from PowerVR (again) and features 12 cores instead of 6 in the A10 SoC.

According to TechInsights, the A10X is manufactured in the brand new 10 nm FinFet process at TSMC. Altough it offers more function blocks, the A10X is with measured 96.4 mm2 significantly smaller than the previous A9X (143.9 mm2).

ModelApple A9Apple A10X Fusion
SeriesApple Apple Apple A-Series
CodenameCyclone 3Cyclone 4?
Series: Cyclone 3
Apple A9X compare2.26 GHz2 / 2 cores Cyclone 3
Apple A9 « 1.8 GHz2 / 2 cores Cyclone 3
Clock1800 MHz2390 MHz
Cores / Threads2 / 26 / 3
Technology14/16 nm10 nm
FeaturesARMv8 Instruction SetARMv8 Instruction Set
iGPUApple A9 / PowerVR GT7600Apple A10X Fusion GPU / PowerVR
ArchitectureARMARM
Announced
Transistors3300 Million

Benchmarks

3DMark - 3DMark Ice Storm Unlimited Physics
100%
A9 +
min: 12854     avg: 13248     median: 13210.5 (11%)     max: 13717 Points
min: 19534     avg: 19551     median: 19550.5 (16%)     max: 19567 Points
3DMark - 3DMark Sling Shot Extreme (ES 3.1) Unlimited Physics
100%
A9 +
1094 Points (13%)
min: 2036     avg: 2323     median: 2323 (27%)     max: 2610 Points
3DMark - 3DMark Sling Shot (ES 3.0) Unlimited Physics
100%
A9 +
1093 Points (12%)
min: 2145     avg: 2370     median: 2369.5 (27%)     max: 2594 Points
Geekbench 5.5 - Geekbench 5.1 - 5.4 64 Bit Single-Core
100%
A9 +
531 Points (22%)
850 Points (36%)
Geekbench 5.5 - Geekbench 5.1 - 5.4 64 Bit Multi-Core
100%
A9 +
970 Points (2%)
2324 Points (4%)
Geekbench 4.4 - Geekbench 4.1 - 4.4 64 Bit Single-Core
100%
A9 +
2556 Points (26%)
min: 3924     avg: 3929     median: 3928.5 (39%)     max: 3933 Points
Geekbench 4.4 - Geekbench 4.1 - 4.4 64 Bit Multi-Core
100%
A9 +
4459 Points (5%)
min: 9293     avg: 9326     median: 9325.5 (10%)     max: 9358 Points
Geekbench 4.0 - Geekbench 4.0 64 Bit Single-Core
100%
1 A9 +
min: 2503     avg: 2527     median: 2526.5 (34%)     max: 2550 Points
Geekbench 4.0 - Geekbench 4.0 64 Bit Multi-Core
100%
1 A9 +
min: 4286     avg: 4359     median: 4359 (11%)     max: 4432 Points
Geekbench 3 - Geekbench 3 64 Bit Multi-Core
100%
1 A9 +
min: 4386     avg: 4412     median: 4422 (7%)     max: 4429 Points
Geekbench 3 - Geekbench 3 64 Bit Single-Core
100%
1 A9 +
min: 2533     avg: 2537     median: 2538 (38%)     max: 2539 Points
Linpack Android / IOS - Linpack Multi Thread
100%
1 A9 +
min: 1225     avg: 1260     median: 1260 (43%)     max: 1295 MFLOPS
Linpack Android / IOS - Linpack Single Thread
100%
1 A9 +
min: 669     avg: 677     median: 677 (66%)     max: 685 MFLOPS
Mozilla Kraken 1.1 - Kraken 1.1 Total Score *
100%
A9 +
min: 1458     avg: 1656     median: 1712 (2%)     max: 1743 ms
min: 969     avg: 971     median: 971 (1%)     max: 973 ms
Sunspider - Sunspider 1.0 Total Score *
100%
1 A9 +
223 ms (2%)
Octane V2 - Octane V2 Total Score
100%
A9 +
min: 15967     avg: 16716     median: 16375 (15%)     max: 18148 Points
min: 30333     avg: 30761     median: 30760.5 (28%)     max: 31188 Points
AnTuTu v5 - AnTuTu v5 Total Score
100%
1 A9 +
min: 58869     avg: 58977     median: 58976.5 (59%)     max: 59084 Points
AnTuTu v6 - AnTuTu v6 Total Score
100%
A9 +
min: 126969     avg: 129767     median: 128706 (44%)     max: 133626 Points
min: 217439     avg: 222713     median: 222713 (76%)     max: 227987 Points
PassMark PerformanceTest Mobile V1 - PerformanceTest Mobile V1 CPU Tests
100%
A9 +
min: 46285     avg: 48479     median: 48849 (6%)     max: 49934 Points
min: 82816     avg: 82838     median: 82837.5 (11%)     max: 82859 Points

Average Benchmarks Apple A9 → 100% n=11

Average Benchmarks Apple A10X Fusion → 179% n=11

- Range of benchmark values for this graphics card
- Average benchmark values for this graphics card
* Smaller numbers mean a higher performance
1 This benchmark is not used for the average calculation

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show all (including archived), 2024, 2023
v1.26
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Redaktion, 2017-09- 8 (Update: 2023-07- 1)