Apple A8 Benchmarked

[witeken]

Underwhelming, but I don't think Apple still uses the same GPU/core count.

 

[Arachnotronic]

Fail if true. With the 6 Plus they are going to need a lot of GPU grunt to push those additional pixels.

 

[mavere]

This is quite disappointing. :/

It looks more and more likely that most of the extra transistors in the A8 were spent on extra SRAM. Maybe they decided to dump the entire frame buffer onto the on-die cache. That'd be at least 9 MB to take care of the entire iOS lineup.

 

[Khato]

It looks more and more likely that most of the extra transistors in the A8 were spent on extra SRAM. Maybe they decided to dump the entire frame buffer onto the on-die cache. That'd be at least 9 MB to take care of the entire iOS lineup.

Increasing the L3 SRAM was actually my first thought regarding the ballooning of transistor count as well. It both provides a boost in performance and increases efficiency at the same time. (Costs far less power to transfer data to/from on-die SRAM than it does any off-die memory.)

 

[Arachnotronic]

Increasing the L3 SRAM was actually my first thought regarding the ballooning of transistor count as well. It both provides a boost in performance and increases efficiency at the same time. (Costs far less power to transfer data to/from on-die SRAM than it does any off-die memory.)

Can't wait for the Chipworks tear-down...

 

[Nothingness]

Can't wait for the Chipworks tear-down...

Yeah and let's hope they'll get cache location correct at their first try this time :biggrin:

 

[Roland00Address]

Apples tick tock. New phone design every two years, massive cpu improvements every two years on a cascading schedule.

 

[Eug]

Interesting. A8 supports H.265 in hardware.
In contrast, A7 does not.

http://www.apple.com/iphone-6/specs/
http://www.apple.com/iphone/compare/

 

[mavere]

Interesting. A8 supports H.265 in hardware.
In contrast, A7 does not.

The spec indicates the function is Facetime-only, and as it's Apple, I doubt they'd open the decoder up for general use until there's a "legitimate" content delivery service for H265.

Maybe there'll be a thing with 4K iTunes and the iPad refresh. Some partnership with Netflix and/or Vimeo seems likely too.

 

[Eug]

Netflix already delivers content via H.265 actually, although I'm not sure on which platforms.

Netflix with 4K H.265 was limited (at least initially - dunno about today) to 4k smart TVs, but I don't know about 1080p (or lower rez) H.265 content.

 

[Rakehellion]

Fail if true. With the 6 Plus they are going to need a lot of GPU grunt to push those additional pixels.

The iPad Air has more pixels and a slower GPU.

 

[Rakehellion]

The spec indicates the function is Facetime-only, and as it's Apple, I doubt they'd open the decoder up for general use until there's a "legitimate" content delivery service for H265.

Maybe there'll be a thing with 4K iTunes and the iPad refresh. Some partnership with Netflix and/or Vimeo seems likely too.

The H.264 encoder is available to programmers. The decoder uses Quicktime.

 

[Rakehellion]

Everyone complaining about 1GB of memory cites Safari's tab reloading. Is there any app besides Safari that could take advantage of more than 1GB of memory?

 

[Rakehellion]

This isn't confirmed and is GPU related but it appears that preliminary GPU benchmarks of the iphone 6 are out.

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/apple-iphone-6-gpu-benchmarks,27668.html

Merely speculation but its possible that the 50% figure may have been under a best case senario.

What does Basemark test?


Apple's A7 actually reduced vertex performance from the A6 in exchange for greatly increased pixel performance. These benchmarks point to more of the sane thing.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Everyone complaining about 1GB of memory cites Safari's tab reloading. Is there any app besides Safari that could take advantage of more than 1GB of memory?

The 1GB is for the entire phone. All your running apps, services, OS etc.

To depend on swapping to make it work is awful.

 

[Rakehellion]

The 1GB is for the entire phone. All your apps, OS etc.

The iPhone simply relies on swapping to make it work.

iOS doesn't swap. That's left up to the developer.

I'm asking all the people complaining about the memory what it would actually be used for.

 

[Enigmoid]

iOS doesn't swap. That's left up to the developer.

I'm asking all the people complaining about the memory what it would actually be used for.

Its a case of build it and they will come.

Currently no app exists that really uses that much memory because no device has that much memory.

 

[Rakehellion]

Its a case of build it and they will come.

Currently no app exists that really uses that much memory because no device has that much memory.

No, and that's also avoiding the question. There's no app that uses 1GB either because the OS doesn't allow it.

And that's a pretty good reason not to have that much memory if it just allows bad programmers to waste resources.

 

[Eug]

Everyone complaining about 1GB of memory cites Safari's tab reloading. Is there any app besides Safari that could take advantage of more than 1GB of memory?

I don't even care about other apps. The app I use the most on iDevices is Safari.

 

[jhu]

I don't even care about other apps. The app I use the most on iDevices is Safari.

This. A browser with multiple tabs will eat through a lot of memory. I have an older tablet with 512 MB of memory and going on the internet with the thing is painful since it can only really have 2 tabs open without having to reload the whole page. And if I swap to a playing video or the terminal? Forget it, because when I switch back to the browser, the terminal will have logged out of whatever I was doing. This is on a Nook Tablet.

Now, on my Nook HD+ (1 GB RAM), this happens, but a lot less frequently than the Nook Tablet as long as I don't have too many browser tabs open. On my HTC One M8 (2 GB), this has not happened: I can switch from terminal to video to browser tab, and everything will be as it was when I left the application.

 

[Enigmoid]

No, and that's also avoiding the question. There's no app that uses 1GB either because the OS doesn't allow it.

And that's a pretty good reason not to have that much memory if it just allows bad programmers to waste resources.

Yes and that is because the system is limited to 1 GB. Doubling the amount of RAM allows for a doubling of the limit (not sure if its 300 MB on current devices).

Pretty good then that the xbox 360 and ps3 were limited to 512 MB. Didn't waste anything.

 

[kpkp]

No, and that's also avoiding the question. There's no app that uses 1GB either because the OS doesn't allow it.

And that's a pretty good reason not to have that much memory if it just allows bad programmers to waste resources.

GPU that needs to push a 1080p display when running a game?
Will this make the experience on the 6+ worse then the smaller phones?

 

[Arachnotronic]

GPU that needs to push a 1080p display when running a game?
Will this make the experience on the 6+ worse then the smaller phones?

This is something that worried me when I saw these numbers, too.

 

[kpkp]

This is something that worried me when I saw these numbers, too.

Knowing Apple and the fact that they talked about "desktop class scalar engine" I wouldn't be surprised if they would just run (some) games in a lower resolution (2x as on the 6).

 

[nismotigerwvu]

The whole point on the 1GB of RAM deal is that this was a standard size back in 2011 and a downright embarrassing amount for a flagship that will carry the brand through 2015. Look it up, the Galaxy S II shipped with 1GB of RAM. Having more (to a sane amount) has no appreciable drawback. Yes, power draw may increase ever so slightly but not anywhere enough to shorten battery life. Considering the performance implications, doubling up to 2GB (or better yet 4) seems like a no brainer.