Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 vs Apple A16 Bionic
Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2
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The Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 Mobile Platform is a high-end SoC for smartphones that was introduced in late 2022 and manufactured in 4 nm at TSMC (N4P). It integrates four different CPU clusters. A fast and big prime core based on the ARM Cortex-X3 architecture and clocked at up to 3.2 GHz for 64 bit applications. Two more ARM Cortex-A715 based performance cores clocked at up to 2.8 GHz (also only for 64 bit apps). Two more Cortex-A710 performance cores at up to 2.8 GHz that can also be used for older apps and three efficiency cores (ARM Cortex-A510 with up to 2 GHz). All cores can use the shared 8 MB level 3 cache.
Thanks to the new architecture and high clock rates, the SD 8 Gen 2 is the fastest mobile CPU for Android based devices and is only topped by current Apple SoCs like the Apple A16 (see benchmarks below).
The chip also integrates a Hexagon accelerator for AI workloads (tensor, scalar and vector). Qualcomm states that its one of the first chips with INT4 support and up to 4.35x performance compared to the previous generation.
The 18-Bit-Spectra ISP is able to process photos with up to 200 MP and work with videos up to 8k30 (including 10-bit, HDR10+, HLG and Dolby Vision).
A big improvement of the Snapdragon 8 G2 is the integrated Adreno 740 GPU, that now supports Hardware Raytracing and tops even the iGPU in the Apple A16.
The integrated AI Engine can offer up to 4x faster AI performance thanks to the bigger Tensor engine. The 18-Bit-Spectra-ISP also saw some big improvements and is now called Snapdragon Sight.
The integrated Adreno 730 offers a 30% graphics boost compared to the previous Adreno 660.
The integrated Snapdragon X70 5G modem is also new as is the FastConnect 7800 modem with Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.3 support.
Apple A16 Bionic
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The Apple A16 Bionic is a System on a Chip (SoC) from Apple that is found in the iPhone 14 Pro (2022) models. It offers 6 cores divided in two performance cores (codename Everest, up to 3.46 GHz) and four power-efficiency cores (codename Sawtooth, up to 2.02). According to Apple, the most improvements were made to the efficiency cores and the improved memory bandwidth (+50% thanks to LPDDR5). According to the die analysis from angstronomics, the e-core cluster still has the same 4 MB L2 cache, but the p-cores now offer 16 MB L2 cache. The SLC (System Level Cache) however seems to be reduced to 24 MB.
The Neural Engine still offers 16 cores and offers an increased performance of 17 TOPS (vs. 15.8 of the A15) for AI tasks. The integrated graphics engine still offers 5 cores and benefits mostly from the higher memory bandwidth. The new display engine supports adaptive refresh rates down to 1 Hz, the new always-on display, and improved anti-aliasing (for the dynamic island animations).
The CPU performance only shows small improvements to the last generation (Apple A15 Bionic). Still, the A16 is by far the fastest mobile CPU for smartphones and leaves e.g. the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 easily behind (in Geekbench 5.4 single- and multi-thread tests).
The chip is manufactured on the modern 4nm process at TSMC and integrates nearly 16 billion transistors (compared to the 15.8 billion of the A15 and 11.8 of the A14). Apple emphasized on efficiency and e.g. mentioned 20% power savings for the big performance cores and class-leading efficiency of the e-cores.
| Model | Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 | Apple A16 Bionic | ||||||||
| Codename | Cortex-X3 / A715 / A710 / A510 (Kryo) | Crete | ||||||||
| Series | Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 | Apple Apple A-Series | ||||||||
| Series: Snapdragon 8 Cortex-X3 / A715 / A710 / A510 (Kryo) |
| |||||||||
| Clock | 2000 - 3200 MHz | 2020 - 3460 MHz | ||||||||
| L3 Cache | 8 MB | 24 MB | ||||||||
| Cores / Threads | 8 / 8 1 x 3.2 GHz ARM Cortex-X3 2 x 2.8 GHz ARM Cortex-A715 2 x 2.8 GHz ARM Cortex-A710 3 x 2.0 GHz ARM Cortex-A510 | 6 / 6 | ||||||||
| Technology | 4 nm | 4 nm | ||||||||
| Features | Adreno GPU, Spectra ISP, Hexagon, X70 5G Modem, FastConnect 7800 Wi-Fi 7, LPDDR5x 4200 MHz Memory Controller | ARMv8 Instruction Set, Machine Learning Controller, 16-Core Neural Engine, Secure Enclave, Advanced Image Signal Processor | ||||||||
| iGPU | Qualcomm Adreno 740 | Apple A16 GPU 5-Core | ||||||||
| Architecture | ARM v9 | ARM | ||||||||
| Announced | ||||||||||
| Manufacturer | www.qualcomm.com | |||||||||
| L2 Cache | 20 MB | |||||||||
| Transistors | 16000 Million |
Benchmarks
Average Benchmarks Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 → 100% n=15
Average Benchmarks Apple A16 Bionic → 123% n=15
- Average benchmark values for this graphics card* Smaller numbers mean a higher performance
1 This benchmark is not used for the average calculation
