Apple A8 Benchmarked

[liahos1]

It takes time, certainly with less experienced AnandTech iPhone reviewers .

i feel like the reviews have been good but not glowing. everyone is sort of deflecting the lack of performance improvements with the A8. And the financial press are quoting apples PR numbers with regard to 25%/50% cpu/gpu improvements and saying "amazing!!!!".

I almost feel like intel is doing apple a courtesy by not more loudly marketing how fast CORE M is. Maybe helping Apple save face so they can get CORE M in a mobility device at apple :ninja:

 

[Eric1987]

The ram is an issue and it's the only reason I didn't pre-order.


However, if the 6 really provides a much better experience than my 5s, I'll prob buy it anyway. I'd still rather be using an iOS device with A7/8 and 1GB ram vs 2-3GB on android and have to deal with losing TouchID and gaining all the issues that come with having a temperamental OS.

Tempermental OS? My OS is smoother and more stable than yours. GTFO.

 

[witeken]

i feel like the reviews have been good but now glowing. everyone is sort of deflecting the lack of performance improvements with the A8. And the financial press are quoting apples PR numbers with regard to 25%/50% cpu/gpu improvements and saying "amazing!!!!".

I'd like to see the architectural details of Cyclone's successor, but who's going to dig that up?

 

[jdubs03]

What apart from apple only putting 1GB is "cheap"?


Do any other phones use sapphire coatings to protect certain parts?


Its such a joke when all the apple haters claim they are "cheap" because they didn't build a phone that beat every android device ever made in every arena. I've never seen an android device that came close to being as polished as an iPhone and every android phone I've seen seems to tell me that whatever apple charges extra for quality components is well worth it. Pick up an iPhone 5 and then a samsung galaxy s4 and tell me which one feels cheap.

I'm not an apple hater, I've had a MacBook pro, iPhone 4, still have an iPod classic and airport extreme. I just think that not putting a $5-10 part into a $600+ phone is being a bit too cheap. Their build quality is the best an ios8 looks great but still on the soc side it is a big disappointment. And I won't buy an iPhone until it has 2GB of RAM, maybe also getting rid of the 16GB model.

 

[bullzz]

@jdubs03 - true that. i too was waiting for iphone 6 but looks like apple really is milking this
less ram, lower screen res than 1 yr old phones

 

[Arachnotronic]

I'd like to see the architectural details of Cyclone's successor, but who's going to dig that up?

Plenty of people are going to do it the minute the iPhone 6 hits the shelves. The better question is, who is going to be in a position to publish such details for "free" on the internet

You can bet Intel, Qualcomm, etc. all have teams that will rip open Cyclone rev. 2 fairly quickly.

 

[witeken]

You can bet Intel, Qualcomm, etc. all have teams that will rip open Cyclone rev. 2 fairly quickly.

Will they? What will Intel be looking for? Wouldn't they have enough with high-level benchmarks and power consumption numbers?

 

[TreVader]

I'm not an apple hater, I've had a MacBook pro, iPhone 4, still have an iPod classic and airport extreme. I just think that not putting a $5-10 part into a $600+ phone is being a bit too cheap. Their build quality is the best an ios8 looks great but still on the soc side it is a big disappointment. And I won't buy an iPhone until it has 2GB of RAM, maybe also getting rid of the 16GB model.

I don't think that was a matter of apple cutting costs, I think apple made the decision to stick with 1GB. I'm not totally sure why other than to tier it's products, or perhaps that is one of the upgrades they plan with the 6S. I agree it's not enough, but I don't think apple looked at the margins and decided to make a few extra bucks there.


I disagree about the storage. There are a ton of people who don't need even 32GB, my mom and my aunt both do fine with their iPhone 5C 16GB, some people just aren't power users, but apple is giving you 3 good choices. Don't need much storage? Go 16. Want some storage, but not an insane amount go 64, and nobody else even offers 128GB. If anything, apple gives way MORE storage for your money.

 

[Eug]

I almost feel like intel is doing apple a courtesy by not more loudly marketing how fast CORE M is. Maybe helping Apple save face so they can get CORE M in a mobility device at apple :ninja:

I've already said it but I see Core M as a MacBook part, not an iPad part. I've also already said I'd buy a Core M fanless Retina MacBook. Such a beast could get announced as early as Oct. 21, running Yosemite 10.10

 

[Idontcare]

Will they? What will Intel be looking for? Wouldn't they have enough with high-level benchmarks and power consumption numbers?

For starters, they will be looking for infringing IP.

After that, they will be looking for areas where they can develop or position their own IP so as to block or deflect future (projected) Apple design paths.

Its a dog-eat-dog world out there.

 

[witeken]

I don't think that was a matter of apple cutting costs, I think apple made the decision to stick with 1GB. I'm not totally sure why other than to tier it's products, or perhaps that is one of the upgrades they plan with the 6S. I agree it's not enough, but I don't think apple looked at the margins and decided to make a few extra bucks there.

I disagree about the storage. There are a ton of people who don't need even 32GB, my mom and my aunt both do fine with their iPhone 5C 16GB, some people just aren't power users, but apple is giving you 3 good choices. Don't need much storage? Go 16. Want some storage, but not an insane amount go 64, and nobody else even offers 128GB. If anything, apple gives way MORE storage for your money.

I hope Anand Shimpi makes sure there are some big increases in RAM and storage in the Iphone 6s. Both 1GB and 16GB are simply a ridiculously low amount that can't be justified in 2014. Following Moore's Law, 64GB should be the least in a high-end device. You also forget that other manufacturers have SD card slots for which you don't to pay $200 to get 128GB.

 

[TreVader]

I hope Anand Shimpi makes sure there are some big increases in RAM and storage in the Iphone 6s. Both 1GB and 16GB are simply a ridiculously low amount that can't be justified in 2014. Following Moore's Law, 64GB should be the least in a high-end device. You also forget that other manufacturers have SD card slots for which you don't to pay $200 to get 128GB.

An SD card is not the same as integrated storage.


The funny part of the storage thing is android phones are notoriously hard to find with anything more than 16GB internally because every manufacturer that uses micro SD (ie samsung) uses it as a way to cut nand costs. So who is really being cheap, apple who offer 128GB for $850, or Samsung who charge you $750 for 16GB?

 

[jhu]

An SD card is not the same as integrated storage.


The funny part of the storage thing is android phones are notoriously hard to find with anything more than 16GB internally because every manufacturer that uses micro SD (ie samsung) uses it as a way to cut nand costs. So who is really being cheap, apple who offer 128GB for $850, or Samsung who charge you $750 for 16GB?

My HTC One M8 has 32 GB internal memory. Then I added a 128 GB microsd card just because I could.

Samsung charges (well actually the carriers charge that much) $650 for an S5 16 GB, but it has a larger screen and more RAM. For subsidized prices it's anywhere from $0-$200 down for the S5, depending on the carrier. iPhone 6 is $200 subsidized for the 16GB.

 

[rtsurfer]

My mistake.
Nothing to see here.

 

[witeken]

An SD card is not the same as integrated storage.


The funny part of the storage thing is android phones are notoriously hard to find with anything more than 16GB internally because every manufacturer that uses micro SD (ie samsung) uses it as a way to cut nand costs. So who is really being cheap, apple who offer 128GB for $850, or Samsung who charge you $750 for 16GB?

You answered the question yourself. Apple doesn't use 16GB of NAND to cut cost because they have the most expensive phones and don't have SD card slots. NAND is basically free but they use the extra storage options to milk even more out of their too loyal customers on top of the milking action they're already doing with the regular iPhone.

BTW, the SGS5 is more like $550, not $750.

 

[TreVader]

My HTC One M8 has 32 GB internal memory. Then I added a 128 GB microsd card just because I could.

Samsung charges (well actually the carriers charge that much) $650 for an S5 16 GB, but it has a larger screen and more RAM. For subsidized prices it's anywhere from $0-$200 down for the S5, depending on the carrier. iPhone 6 is $200 subsidized for the 16GB.

iPhone 6 is $399 for the 128GB


Samsung galaxy S5 $650 for 16GB?

That means space is more than 4x as expensive on the Samsung


From the factory my iPhone came with 64GB, which to this day is more than I've ever seen in a factory android phone.

 

[witeken]

iPhone 6 is $399 for the 128GB


Samsung galaxy S5 $650 for 16GB?

That means space is more than 4x as expensive on the Samsung

Can you walk me through the math that went into that 4x number?

From the factory my iPhone came with 64GB, which to this day is more than I've ever seen in a factory android phone.

That 64GB is not the default configuration so you pay a huge premium for just a little bit of extra storage ($2/GB).

 

[DA CPU WIZARD]

This is the classic good enough argumentfallacy.


But half the amount of cores.

I don't seem to understand... How is this a fallacy? Can you give me specific examples that prove to me that a SoC that is much better than the current ones would provide a better experience to the end user? Stating that my statement is a fallacy without providing evidence seems like youre simply... Poisoning the well...? ;-)

And Im not really sure if it is more or less impressive that Apple can make a dual core CPU that competes with the Android 4 and 8 core competition whiles running at half the clock speeds... Anyone have any info regarding this? Or point me to a link?

It just seems to me that we may hit a point in the near future where CPU performance becomes less relevant to Apple. In fact, we are already beginning to see evidence of this.

 

[kimmel]

iPhone 6 is $399 for the 128GB

Samsung galaxy S5 $650 for 16GB?

That means space is more than 4x as expensive on the Samsung

From the factory my iPhone came with 64GB, which to this day is more than I've ever seen in a factory android phone.

Comparing subsidized prices? What are you even thinking? Unsubsidized prices start at $649 for the 16gig iphone 6 according to Apple. $849 for the 128gig iphone 6. $649.99 for the 32gig Galaxy S5.

So you get more storage for your money in the S5 though Apple does offer larger sizes for even more money. However the SD card has opportunity for expansion.

You have to be trolling or just paid by Apple to be spreading so much fud.

 

[jhu]

iPhone 6 is $399 for the 128GB


Samsung galaxy S5 $650 for 16GB?

That means space is more than 4x as expensive on the Samsung

Oh really? That means RAM must be at least 2x more expensive on iPhone.

From the factory my iPhone came with 64GB, which to this day is more than I've ever seen in a factory android phone.

That's what micro SD cards are for.

 

[DA CPU WIZARD]

I know how much the NAND is WORTH, and I know how much they are selling it for, and I still buy it... Why? Because even though I KNOW I am getting ripped off, it does not change the fact that the cost IS worth the benefits to me. Apple is a company, and the job of any company selling a product is to sell it at a price that consumers are willing to pay. Can you blame movie theaters for selling popcorn at $10-20 each? Or water $1 bottle? Flowers or jeans for $50?

If people were not willing to pay this much for extra storage, Apple would undoubtedly reduce the price / increase base amounts of NAND. If anyone is to blame, its people being fundamentally ignorant. Its something I find to be an unavoidable truth in any market.

 

[DA CPU WIZARD]

Comparing subsidized prices? What are you even thinking? Unsubsidized prices start at $649 for the 16gig iphone 6 according to Apple. $849 for the 128gig iphone 6. $649.99 for the 32gig Galaxy S5.

So you get more storage for your money in the S5 though Apple does offer larger sizes for even more money. However the SD card has opportunity for expansion.

You have to be trolling or just paid by Apple to be spreading so much fud.

Not necessarily. Thats like saying a 32GB S5 for $650 gives less storage for your money than a $400 32GB Nexus 5. Storage isn't the only component, and there is not always a correlation between the device quality and the amount of NAND. Better SoC, screen, battery etc. could skew a devices price, but that does not mean you are getting "less for your money".

 

[kimmel]

Not necessarily. Thats like saying a 32GB S5 for $650 gives less storage for your money than a $400 32GB Nexus 5. Storage isn't the only component, and there is not always a correlation between the device quality and the amount of NAND. Better SoC, screen, battery etc. could skew a devices price, but that does not mean you are getting "less for your money".

The discussion was storage and price of an iphone 6 vs a s5. Both of which (storage and price) were completely fabricated in his post. It's not "like" anything other than stating real prices of real devices of which were being compared.

I don't care if you think a component is more or less valuable. For a comparable product you are getting charged nearly the same amount. Neither Apple nor Samsung are charging drastically different prices for their products. You can value the individual pieces differently but as far as numbers sold, both are very popular devices and neither really is a better deal, not like that made up 4x magic number.

 

[DA CPU WIZARD]

In the end, its all about making money. Most Android powered phones provide more of everything for less, as they plan on making money not through high margin devices, but through higher volumes of devices sold. Also, Android devices compete fiercely with each other, further driving costs down. If Apple had this kind of direct neck on neck competition, Im sure their phones would be cheaper, but they don't. Nobody else makes iOS devices. Its kind of like nVidia vs AMD. Just as nVidia technically competes with AMD, their brand name, perceived and unperceived product quality / consistency, and consumer loyalty alone lets them charge a premium.

 

[mooncancook]

Apple probably is going with the less core but more power per core route. With 2 cores only, the A8 has more transistors than Intel Haswell, at 2 billion. Anybody has the transistor count of the Snapdragon 801/805 for comparison? My guess is that a single A8 core is more powerful than a single SD 805 core. I think each has its advantage and disadvantage. I wouldn't say it is inferior because it has less core, they are all equally good.

Every time Apple releases a new phone it kept something old in there, maybe purposely. This time it is the ram. Apple probably banks on that 1 GB is good enough for most users and that ppl will still line up to buy the new phones. Then when they refresh with the "S" version, they can just increase to 2GB and make it sound like a worthy upgrade.