Rockchip RK3168 vs Apple S8 vs Apple S9 SiP

Rockchip RK3168

The Rockchip RK3168 is a low-end ARM SoC designed primarily for smartphones. It integrates two Cortex-A9 CPU cores with NEON extension, a PowerVR SGX 540 graphics card (400 MHz) and a memory controller for low-power (LP-) DDR2/DDR3. The performance should be comparable to other similarly clocked Cortex-A9 SoCs such as the Samsung Exynos 4210. Thanks to its 28nm manufacturing, the RK3168 is relatively power efficient and should enable longer battery life.

Apple S8

The Apple S8 is a 64-Bit dual core processor for the Apple Watch Series 8. It integrates a GPU, 32 GB flash memory, Bluetooth 5.0, 1 GB RAM, 802.11 b/g/n 2.4 and 5 GHz WiFi and satellite positioning (GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, QZSS). According to Apple the SiP has two CPU cores based on the Apple A13 and offers 20% more performance than the old Apple S5 in the Watch Series 5. It looks like the S8 is technically identical with the Apple S6 and S7 (same model number of t8301).

Apple S9 SiP

The Apple S9 SiP (System in a Package) is a 64-bit processor with two cores (Sawtooth Dual-Core) that is used in the Apple Watch Series 9. The two CPU cores are based on the same microarchitecture as in the Apple A15 SoC. The chip also includes a Neural Engine (with 4 cores) for AI tasks for the first time.

The S9 offers 64 GB internal memory, L1 GPS, GNSS, Galileo and BaeiDou, WLAN 4 (802.11n), Bluetooth 5.3), and LTE / UMTS (optional). The ultra-wideband chip Apple U1 is also integrated.

The chip is manufactured in the modern 4nm process at TSMC (N4P).