Qualcomm Snapdragon S3 MSM8260 vs Apple A6 vs Apple A6x

Qualcomm Snapdragon S3 MSM8260

The Qualcomm Snapdragon S3 MSM8260 is an entry level SoC for smartphones and tablets (mostly Android based). It contains two Scorpion cores (enhanced ARM Cortex-A8) clocked at up to 1.5 GHz, a Adreno 220 graphics card and radio elements. Compared to the similar MSM8660, the 8260 does not include support for CDMA2000.

The similar named MSM8260A already contains the faster Krait cores and the slightly faster Adreno 225 graphics card.

Apple A6

The Apple A6 is a dual-core SoC found in the iPhone 5 with ARM compatible CPU cores. The A6 was developed by Apple and supports the extended ARMv7s instruction set. The clock rate of the CPU is between 800 to 1200 MHz depending on the CPU load. The integrated GPU is a PowerVR SGX543MP3 at 266 MHz.

Apple A6x

The Apple A6x is a dual-core-SoC (System on a Chip) with ARM compatible CPU cores (ARMv7s instruction set). Both can be clocked at up to 1400 MHz depending on the load. It is used in the iPad 4 and compared to the A6 in the iPhone 5, the A6x offers a faster GPU (PowerVR SGX544MP4).

The CPU-Performance of the A6x is similar to the Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro MSM8960T, while the GPU is about as fast as the Adreno 320.