Apple A11 is 6 core (2+4)

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SPBHM

Diamond Member
Sep 12, 2012
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whatever they do their CPUs turn out to be fast, I think even A7 is still very respectable.

if those leaked geekbench scores are real, well, it's time to make Macbooks with their own CPUs.
 

Eug

Lifer
Mar 11, 2000
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whatever they do their CPUs turn out to be fast, I think even A7 is still very respectable.

if those leaked geekbench scores are real, well, it's time to make Macbooks with their own CPUs.
If you’re talking about the scores from April, they are fake. I haven’t seen any scores recently. Or have you?
 

Timmah!

Golden Member
Jul 24, 2010
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That's interesting...I literally was going to post the exact opposite. What use cases are you finding it slow?

I kept my iPhone 5 for three years...thinking I will keep my 6s even longer.

I have my 5S almost 3 years now (it will be 3 years on 8th October) and i am still OK with it, not seeing any annoying slowdowns. Granted, i dont really play games with it, maybe i would then, but for regular use, doing calls, chatting, bit of web browsing, listening music and few apps...its just fine.

Regarding planned obsolence, i think the intent shows more in the way how their hardware is difficult/impossible to fix, in case it breaks, rather than supposed being less and less useful because of intentionally crippling software updates. Not to mention, you can actually skip those, i installed iOS 10 only recently and the differences between it and the 9 are from my POV totally superficial - it did not change the way i use my phone a single bit, if i stuck to 9, i would be equally satisfied. I dont care about iOS 11 at all.
 

SPBHM

Diamond Member
Sep 12, 2012
5,056
409
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If you’re talking about the scores from April, they are fake. I haven’t seen any scores recently. Or have you?

well I saw in some link on the first page, it looks like the source is from July or something,
but even if it's not real, if you look at the progression since the A7 I think it makes sense to ditch Intel for the Macbook air at least very soon.
 

NTMBK

Lifer
Nov 14, 2011
10,208
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It's almost as if they're experimenting or something, I wonder why?

The L3 was shared with the GPU and I suspect largely used to keep the GPU fed. On the A9X/A10X they use a wider 128-bit memory interface and rely on that to keep the GPU fed, dropping the L3.
 
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lopri

Elite Member
Jul 27, 2002
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Battery life should be phenomenal now that there are 4 x LITTLE cores to do majority of mundane daily tasks, meaning fewer wakes for the big cores. Combined with AMOLED screen which is more or less on par with LCD at 50% APL, media consumption should use less than half the power of its LCD brethren of yesterday.
 

asendra

Member
Nov 4, 2012
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Yup. My 6S is already feeling very slow. Apple loves planned obsolescence, it's the cornerstone to their business plan.

Wat really? My 6S feels like new and I have it since day one, using very frequently an iPhone 7 also (couple of those in my family). First time I don't feel the need to update really (My 5s was also fine when I bought the 6s, but wanted a bigger screen). The 5s is still in use and works perfectly.
 

Eug

Lifer
Mar 11, 2000
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This Geekbench 4.1.1 score was spotted today for an "iPhone10,5"

https://browser.geekbench.com/v4/cpu/3967901

Single-Core Score: 4061
Multi-Core Score: 9959
Interesting. That's new as of today. However, I wonder why I couldn't find it. If I do Geekbench Browser searches for iPhone10,1 through iPhone10,5, nothing shows up.

It seems to be behaving as a triple-core. Note though that Geekbench is seeing all six cores. Hmm... For A10 Fusion, Geekbench sees 2 cores (instead of 4), and for A10X Fusion it sees 3 cores (instead of 6).

In any case, that's faster than my MacBook, if true. ;) It would also explain why they dropped the "Fusion". It would also go along with the explanation why the iPhone X is showing up as a 6-core device (A11) whereas the Apple TV 4K is showing up as a 3-core device (A10X).

Also, there is this bench:

20170912180900_31511.png
 

lopri

Elite Member
Jul 27, 2002
13,209
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2GB are you freaking serious? That has to be a fake. That Geekbench score is also a bit strange. Encryption (AES) score is way down compared to A10X's.
 

Eug

Lifer
Mar 11, 2000
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996
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2GB are you freaking serious? That has to be a fake.
It's real, because that's also what the iOS GM leak indicates for the 4.7" model iPhone 8. And it's lame. That's the same as the iPhone 6s from 2015. That's one reason I'm skipping this generation to replace my wife's 6s. Luckily we managed to get her broken mute button fixed for CAD$40. Apple wanted something like $380. :eek:

My 7 Plus has 3 GB RAM, the same as the iPhone X and iPhone 8 Plus. I will consider upgrading when the 4.7" model gets minimum 3 GB RAM and the larger models get minimum 4 GB, which means fall 2018 at the earliest.

Holy crap that's about as fast as a new 13" macbook PRO

I get that OS X runs on x86, but perhaps they should port it or something. They could get 5 day battery life using A11 instead of some furnace intel junk.
They should, but then again pretty much all my main non-Apple software would stop working. I'm still clinging to Office 2011 and Adobe Photoshop CS6 for example. They still work in High Sierra, and no subscriptions necessary. I also have Adobe Lightroom 5, although I'm sticking with Photos instead. Photos would likely easily make the transition to ARM.
 
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FIVR

Diamond Member
Jun 1, 2016
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So now I guess it's time to nerd out about whatever inane spec the nerds have decided they "must have".


Last time it was 1/8th inch stereo jacks. The time before it was 2GB ram. Now it's 3GB ram.


*sigh*

Apple should just give the nerds what they want because they'll never be happy unless they have their thing. Make a 3rd iPhone model with 3x 1/8th in stereo jacks and 10GB ram and a 6" AMOLED display and sell it to them. Doesn't even have to have iOS. In fact, make it run android. They'll love it.
 

Eug

Lifer
Mar 11, 2000
23,583
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^ But the Geekbench reports 3GB?
Different model. 2 GB model is iPhone10,4. 3 GB model is iPhone10,5.

The former is the iPhone 8 and has the same amount of RAM as the iPhone 7 and 6s. The latter is either the iPhone 8 Plus or the iPhone X, with the same 3 GB as my 7 Plus.

So now I guess it's time to nerd out about whatever inane spec the nerds have decided they "must have".


Last time it was 1/8th inch stereo jacks. The time before it was 2GB ram. Now it's 3GB ram.


*sigh*

Apple should just give the nerds what they want because they'll never be happy unless they have their thing. Make a 3rd iPhone model with 3x 1/8th in stereo jacks and 10GB ram and a 6" AMOLED display and sell it to them. Doesn't even have to have iOS. In fact, make it run android. They'll love it.
I usually just wait an extra year (or longer depending upon my needs).

1. I passed on the original iPad 256 MB. I got the iPad 2 with 512 MB. The iPad 2 was the longest sold 9.7" iPad to date.
2. I passed on the iPad Air 1 GB. I got the iPad Air 2 with 2 GB. That was the second longest sold 9.7" iPad to date.
3. I passed on the iPhone 6 1 GB. I got my wife the iPhone 6s. Reports are the iPhone 6, and especially 6 Plus, are lagging heavily in iOS 11.
 
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Eug

Lifer
Mar 11, 2000
23,583
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This looks low -- only a 16% improvement in ST perf? But interesting that they changed up the cache structure; L1 cache sizes cut in half, but L2 much larger.
I guess they are finally running into to the IPC performance increase wall... so they increased the number of cores.

I wonder how big is the A11 chip.
 
Mar 10, 2006
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I guess they are finally running into to the IPC performance increase wall... so they increased the number of cores.

I wonder how big is the A11 chip.

Nah. I would be shocked if they couldn't wring out more performance by increasing clocks + IPC. Let's wait for more reliable results.
 

Eug

Lifer
Mar 11, 2000
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A10X Fusion (10 nm): 96.4 mm2
A10 Fusion (16 nm): 125 mm2
A9X (16 nm): 143.9 mm2
A9 (14/16 nm): 96/104.5 mm2
A8X (20 nm): 128 mm2
A8 (20 nm): 89 mm2
A7 (28 nm):102 mm2
A6X (32 nm): 123 mm2
A6 (32 nm): 96.7 mm2
A5X (45 nm): 165 mm2
A5 single-core (32 nm): 37.8 mm2
A5 2nd gen (32 nm): 69.6 mm2
A5 (45 nm): 122.2 mm2
A4 (45 nm): 53.3 mm2

By far the biggest was A5X at 165 mm2, with the biggest iPhone chip at 125 mm2. My guess the size of the A11 won't be out of line for iPhone chip sizes. Maybe 100 to 110-ish mm2?
 
Mar 10, 2006
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10nm doesn't bring that large of a benefit.

Combination of new architecture (the totally reworked cache structure seems to indicate a big overhaul) and 10nm (even if it's not a huge performance jump) should allow Apple to do significantly better than the A10X in single-core perf.
 

Andrei.

Senior member
Jan 26, 2015
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Combination of new architecture (the totally reworked cache structure seems to indicate a big overhaul) and 10nm (even if it's not a huge performance jump) should allow Apple to do significantly better than the A10X in single-core perf.
Not without severely throttling. Rumours are that thermals are going to be an issue, keep an eye on long-term CPU performance and throttling.

I don't see any large architectural differences in the GB4 scores, so I doubt that there's overly big IPC changes.
 
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raghu78

Diamond Member
Aug 23, 2012
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Combination of new architecture (the totally reworked cache structure seems to indicate a big overhaul) and 10nm (even if it's not a huge performance jump) should allow Apple to do significantly better than the A10X in single-core perf.

I think you missed the fact that the A10X built on TSMC 10nm was clocked at 2.38 Ghz.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_A10X

I doubt we will see any higher clocks on 10nm especially in a phone. Apple is probably using the lower power at same clock freq of 10nm to add a lot more functionality onto the A11 chip. A bigger core with improved cache perfrormance (higher IPC) is almost guaranteed. I think there is a good chance we might see dedicated silicon for AI (similar to Nvidia tensor cores) on the latest A11. The GPU should see a big increase in perf too. But I think we will see big CPU clock speed increase at 7nm just like we saw from 20nm to 16FF. I think over the next 2 years combined (N7 and N7+ with EUV) there is a very good chance that Apple breaks 5K for single core. That would be mind boggling power in a smartphone.
 
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