Intel Core i7-1060G7 vs Apple A13 Bionic

Intel Core i7-1060G7

The Intel Core i7-1060G7 is a power efficient quad-core SoC for laptops and Ultrabooks based on the Ice -Lake-Y generation that was announced in Mai 2019 (Computex). It integrates four Sunnycove processor cores (8 threads thanks to HyperThreading) clocked at 1 (base) - 3.8 (single core Turbo) GHz. All four cores can turbo up to 3.4 GHz using Turbo Boost. According to Intel the Sunnycove cores achieve 18% more IPCs (Instructions per Clock).

Combined with the two additional cores, the previous Y-series dual core processors (Amber Lake-Y) should be always slower. Short burst performance should be excellent, long workloads will depend on the TDP settings and cooling solution in the laptop / tablet.´

The biggest improvement for Ice-Lake is the integrated Gen 11 graphics card called Iris Plus Graphics. The Core i7-1060G7 integrates the biggest G7 variant with 64 CUs clocked at 300 - 1100 MHz. The Iris Plus G7 should be twice as fast as the predecessors and best the AMD Vega 10 GPU in current Ryzen APUs. However, in the Y-series the gaming performance will be again depending on the cooling solution and may degrade clearly over time (compared to the Core i7-1065G7 with 15 - 25 Watt e.g.).

Other improvements for Ice Lake are the AI hardware acceleration and the partial integration of Thunderbolt and Wifi 6 in the chip. The integrated DDR4 memory controller supports modules with up to 3200 MHz (and LPDDDR4 3733).

The Core i7-1060G7 is produced in the new 10nm process at Intel (2nd generation) that should offer a comparable performance to the 7nm process at TSMC. The TDP is specified at 9 Watts and therefore the CPU can be used in thin and light laptops. Intel offers a configurable TDP of up to 12 Watts for the partners resulting in significant performance differences (due to longer periods of Turbo Boost).

Apple A13 Bionic

The Apple A13 Bionic is a System on a Chip (SoC) from Apple that is found in the iPhone 11 series. It was announced late 2019 and offers 6 cores divided in 2 performance cores and four power efficiency cores. Compared to the previous A12 Bionic, the A13 should offer a 20% improved CPU performance at 40% lower power (according to Apple).

With 8.5 billion transistors, the A13 Bionic is a big chip especially compared to the Snapdragon 835 (3 Billion) or a Skylake desktop quad-core Soc (1.75 Billion).