Apple A8 Benchmarked

[kimmel]

Not necessarily.
Surface Pro 3 is in a totally different class of CPU power utilization. Most people want their phones to last longer than 2 hours a day.

Good thing the surface pro 3 lasts 8+ hours and not your fud figure. Though really the point was that the quality of the cores matter not so much as the quantity. It's going to be so funny in the forums if Apple ends up using broadwell in the rumored ipad pro.

 

[witeken]

This argument again.

I'll just say I went from a 3.5" iPhone to a 4.7" flagship Android phone. I was very happy to go back to a 4" iPhone, even at a higher price. The cohesion of the ecosystem is much better IMHO, and the slickness of the OS and the apps (even 3rd party ones) is usually better too. It's not about the logo. It's about the implementation.

On Android I was constantly fiddling, but it was because I was forced to, not because wanted to. For example, do I really need to choose or not choose a default action for every frickin' action? It annoyed me almost as much as the security popups in Windows Vista. And that's just scratching the surface. I've also rooted my Nexus 7, but then decided it was a total waste of time. I went back to stock after a few weeks.

I think what gets lost here in this forum is that it's more than just about hardware specs and chip technology or whatever. To put it simpler terms, I'd rather use an iPhone 5 in 2015 than I would latest Galaxy S series phone or Nokia Windows phone, just because of the OS and app ecosystem.

YMMV.

What's worse it that the majority of the people probably wouldn't even be worse off with a $200 (not high-end) phone; it's like if the majority of the people would buy a GTX Titan. Apple really knows how to milk all the money out of their naive and way too loyal customers.

 

[Essence_of_War]

Not necessarily.


Surface Pro 3 is in a totally different class of CPU power utilization. Most people want their phones to last longer than 2 hours a day.

That's not what anandtech's review seems to indicate. It gets 3-4 hrs in heavy laptop workloads, and 7-8 hrs in tablet workloads. Are you getting that number from somewhere, or were you just speaking off-the-cuff?

http://images.anandtech.com/graphs/graph8077/64826.png

 

[Rakehellion]

I doubt it. I'm not sure why a phone needs to be quad core when surface pro 3 is dual core, and is in another league performance wise.

That's a completely different CPU that runs different software and and has entirely different power requirements.

 

[Rakehellion]

What's worse it that the majority of the people probably wouldn't even be worse off with a $200 (not high-end) phone; it's like if the majority of the people would buy a GTX Titan. Apple really knows how to milk all the money out of their naive and way too loyal customers.

Apple still sells their older phones for free with contract.

 

[Eug]

That's not what anandtech's review seems to indicate. It gets 3-4 hrs in heavy laptop workloads, and 7-8 hrs in tablet workloads. Are you getting that number from somewhere, or were you just speaking off-the-cuff?

http://images.anandtech.com/graphs/graph8077/64826.png

Phones generally don't have the battery size of Windows tablets of course.

 

[Essence_of_War]

Ah, normalized for capacity your point is well taken.

 

[witeken]

Phones generally don't have the battery size of Windows tablets of course.

But phones have a 4X smaller screen i.e. power consumption, so of course they have a longer battery life (Surface Pro 3 even 6X).

 

[Rakehellion]

But phones have a 4X smaller screen i.e. power consumption, so of course they have a longer battery life (Surface Pro 3 even 6X).

Display, CPU, GPU, memory.
Every component of a phone uses less power than the equivalent part on a laptop or desktop.

Battery life depends on plenty of factors. Apple claims that the MacBook Air and the iPhone 6 both last for 12 hours of use. Older devices last less time.

 

[ViRGE]

I think what gets lost here in this forum is that it's more than just about hardware specs and chip technology or whatever. To put it simpler terms, I'd rather use an iPhone 5 in 2015 than I would latest Galaxy S series phone or Nokia Windows phone, just because of the OS and app ecosystem.

I agree with you in principle. However it's ridiculous that iPhone 6 owners are going to have to put up with excessive app and Safari tab eviction due to the fact that Apple was too cheap to include 2GB of RAM. We've already seen how bad it is on the iPhone 5s, and the GPU memory requirements even higher for the iPhone 6.

I don't want 2GB because 2>1. I want 2GB because 1GB clearly isn't enough for a 64bit iOS device.

 

[Eug]

I agree with you in principle. However it's ridiculous that iPhone 6 owners are going to have to put up with excessive app and Safari tab eviction due to the fact that Apple was too cheap to include 2GB of RAM. We've already seen how bad it is on the iPhone 5s, and the GPU memory requirements even higher for the iPhone 6.

I don't want 2GB because 2>1. I want 2GB because 1GB clearly isn't enough for a 64bit iOS device.

You won't get any argument from me on that. I agree with you there.

In fact, I'd hazard to say that in iOS 8, 1 GB is low for a 32-bit device as well.

--

BTW... AnandTech (by Brandon Chester): The iOS 8 Review

 

[jpiniero]

Does that mean Safari is snappier? 😀

 

[DA CPU WIZARD]

Lets say the Apple A9 suddenly has 4x CPU and GPU performance increase, what applications would benefit from this? It appears to me that nearly everything runs optimally already, and them majority of the apps don't even try to take full advantage of the current iPhone 5S SoC, with the exception of games like Infinity Blade... Thoughts?

Also it should be noted that Apple is competing neck on neck with the best of Android SoCs such as the Snapdragon 805 and Samsung Exynos while also keeping clock speeds at nearly half in some cases... Impressive! ;-)

 

[DA CPU WIZARD]

And furthermore, with the exception of Safari tabs, and maybe a few choice applications, 2GB of RAM would rarely be beneficial. At the end of the day, you would only be more prone to killing "running" apps that you open once and don't plan on using again the majority of the time, because they actually WOULD be using a significant amount of memory. As it stands, the majority of the apps that I close, I do not plan on reopening.

As I have said, with the exception of Safari and maybe a few other apps that I briefly exit, only to find that upon return they need to be reloaded, 2GB of RAM is very unnecessary, especially considering how efficient iOS tries to be with its resource usage / power consumption, and how the majority of the apps that are using a significant amount of RAM would most likely never be reopened (Im talking briefly opening your email app to check for updates, and after realizing there arent any, you close the app, but it stays in memory for significant amounts of time afterwards).

That being said, I am not trying to justify only 1GB of RAM, but I do understand from Apple's perspective why they did not choose to go for 2GB. Also, I would bet that the MAJORITY of users would NOT benefit from 2GB or RAM the MAJORITY of the time.

 

[DA CPU WIZARD]

This argument again.

I'll just say I went from a 3.5" iPhone to a 4.7" flagship Android phone. I was very happy to go back to a 4" iPhone, even at a higher price. The cohesion of the ecosystem is much better IMHO, and the slickness of the OS and the apps (even 3rd party ones) is usually better too. It's not about the logo. It's about the implementation.

On Android I was constantly fiddling, but it was because I was forced to, not because wanted to. For example, do I really need to choose or not choose a default action for every frickin' action? It annoyed me almost as much as the security popups in Windows Vista. And that's just scratching the surface. I've also rooted my Nexus 7, but then decided it was a total waste of time. I went back to stock after a few weeks.

I think what gets lost here in this forum is that it's more than just about hardware specs and chip technology or whatever. To put it simpler terms, I'd rather use an iPhone 5 in 2015 than I would latest Galaxy S series phone or Nokia Windows phone, just because of the OS and app ecosystem.

YMMV.

Indeed! I tried Android, but quickly went back to iOS. iOS is just far more consistent in performance (it never stutters, glitches, or fails to do what I tell it to do, and apps are light, as in they dont use a bloated amount of system resources), and user experience (the average app on iOS is of higher quality, no bloatware, gimmicks). And on a more personal level, I cant stand the spec race that is going on in Android, and using a phone that I know has sub optimal specs is quite annoying to me. Not saying iOS is perfect, but for me, it is far better in most ways than Android.

 

[witeken]

Lets say the Apple A9 suddenly has 4x CPU and GPU performance increase, what applications would benefit from this? It appears to me that nearly everything runs optimally already, and them majority of the apps don't even try to take full advantage of the current iPhone 5S SoC, with the exception of games like Infinity Blade... Thoughts?

This is the classic good enough argumentfallacy.

Also it should be noted that Apple is competing neck on neck with the best of Android SoCs such as the Snapdragon 805 and Samsung Exynoswhile also keeping clock speeds at nearly half in some cases... Impressive! ;-)

But half the amount of cores.

 

[witeken]

And furthermore, with the exception of Safari tabs, and maybe a few choice applications, 2GB of RAM would rarely be beneficial. At the end of the day, you would only be more prone to killing "running" apps that you open once and don't plan on using again the majority of the time, because they actually WOULD be using a significant amount of memory. As it stands, the majority of the apps that I close, I do not plan on reopening.

As I have said, with the exception of Safari and maybe a few other apps that I briefly exit, only to find that upon return they need to be reloaded, 2GB of RAM is very unnecessary, especially considering how efficient iOS tries to be with its resource usage / power consumption, and how the majority of the apps that are using a significant amount of RAM would most likely never be reopened (Im talking briefly opening your email app to check for updates, and after realizing there arent any, you close the app, but it stays in memory for significant amounts of time afterwards).

That being said, I am not trying to justify only 1GB of RAM, but I do understand from Apple's perspective why they did not choose to go for 2GB. Also, I would bet that the MAJORITY of users would NOT benefit from 2GB or RAM the MAJORITY of the time.

If you're (Apple) gonna brag that your SoC has "desktop-class" CPU performance and "console-class" GPU performance, we not go for a desktop-class amount of RAM as well?

 

[jdubs03]

If you're (Apple) gonna brag that your SoC has "desktop-class" CPU performance and "console-class" GPU performance, we not go for a desktop-class amount of RAM as well?

It's all in the marketing. Lots of people will fall for the shpiel, even though it is physically impossible. But, yea Apple at the same time follows an expensive/cheap paradox. Load up margins as much as possible while omitting a real deficiency in RAM. Next year the 6S will probably have 2GB of RAM, and they'll say "oh look we doubled the memory"... fail.

 

[Ajay]

It's all in the marketing. Lots of people will fall for the shpiel, even though it is physically impossible. But, yea Apple at the same time follows an expensive/cheap paradox. Load up margins as much as possible while omitting a real deficiency in RAM. Next year the 6S will probably have 2GB of RAM, and they'll say "oh look we doubled the memory"... fail.

Well, as Intel17 has pointed out b/4 - it's a great business model. Apple is making tons of profits by doing what it does.

 

[TreVader]

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.

 

[Rakehellion]

This is the classic good enough argumentfallacy.

Calling something a fallacy is not an argument, it's a fallacy.

But half the amount of cores.

Can you really make such a ridiculous argument in the CPU forum? The number of cores is the last thing to consider when comparing different CPUs.

 

[TreVader]

It's all in the marketing. Lots of people will fall for the shpiel, even though it is physically impossible. But, yea Apple at the same time follows an expensive/cheap paradox. Load up margins as much as possible while omitting a real deficiency in RAM. Next year the 6S will probably have 2GB of RAM, and they'll say "oh look we doubled the memory"... fail.

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.

 

[witeken]

Calling something a fallacy is not an argument, it's a fallacy.

Expecting me to give arguments why his statement, argued with a fallacy, is wrong, is fallacy (burden of proof), so my post was not a fallacy, unless you think the good enough argument is valid.

Can you really make such a ridiculous argument in the CPU forum? The number of cores is the last thing to consider when comparing different CPUs.

Is it?

 

[liahos1]

when is AT going to put up their iphone review. Most of the reviews out there have been fluff pieces.

 

[witeken]

when is AT going to put up their iphone review. Most of the reviews out there have been fluff pieces.

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