Apple S5 vs Rockchip RK3288 vs Rockchip RK3168

Apple S5

The Apple S5 is a 64-Bit dual core processor for the Apple Watch Series 5 (40 and 44mm). It integrates a GPU, 32 GB flash memory, Bluetooth 5.0, 1 GB RAM, 802.11 b/g/n 2.4 GHz WiFi and satellite positioning (GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, QZSS).

Rockchip RK3288

The Rockchip RK3288 is a mid-range ARM SoC for Android and Chrome OS mobile systems. It integrates four Cortex-A12 cores clocked at up to 1.8 GHz. ARM calls these cores Cortex-A17 due to them having very similar performance levels. The SoC includes an ARM Mali-T760 MP4 (also called Mali-T764) GPU clocked at 600 MHz and a dual-channel DDR3, DDR3L, LPDDR2, LPDDR3 memory controller.

The ARM Cortex-A12 is the successor to the Cortex-A9 and is based on a 32 Bit ARMv7-A microarchitecture. A single A12 core should be roughly 40 % more powerful than an A9 core according to ARM.

The integrated video engine supports encoding of H.264, VP8, and MVC videos up to 1080p. Decoding is supported for videos up to 4K H.264 and 10 Bit H.265.

The chip is manufactured under a 28 nm HKMG process.

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.