iPhone 6S' performance is monstrous

[lopri]

ST: 2419
MT: 4795

A huge jump even after taking the clock speed bump (~30%) into consideration. I estimate the IPC improvement to be somewhere around 10~15%. A great job, Apple!

 

[lopri]

The scores are better than I previously guessed. I was thinking 2100-ish for 1.7 GHz and 2200-ish for 1.8 GHz. Even the MT scores are no longer behind A57+A53 big.LITTLE. Pretty amazing. To me personally these iPhones are more compelling offerings from Apple than last year's vanilla 6. (I give a pass to the outdated form factor - especially the 6s Plus' - for the awesome performance)

 

[dawheat]

It's very impressive and Apple seems at least 5-6 months ahead of the best Android SOCs.

But it also feels that everyone is taking big steps forward around the same time - Apple moving to 14nm FinFET and Android SOCs moving to 14nm as well along with A72 designs.

Those early scores of the Mongoose SOC were 2100ish single core and almost 7500 multi-core and is supposed to come out early 2016, along with the S820.

It's a pretty exciting time in the ARM space over the next 6 months.

 

[lopri]

Here is another one with even higher score. (6s Plus) It can actually be viewed.

http://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench3/3515465

ST: 2521
MT: 4381

Interestingly Geekbench3 reports slightly higher clock frequency (1.85 GHz) and 3MB L2. I recall A8 has 2MB L2, am I right?

Well, since a new release is one every year, 6-months ahead means 6-months behind come next year, for 6 months. () In any case Qualcomm and Samsung have a work cut out for them.

 

[SAWYER]

I don't get these benchmark obsessions. The 6 was already fast as is the 5s and phones in general the past few years.

 

[lopri]

Exynos 7420 v. A9

http://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench3/compare/3521280?baseline=3515465

A57+A53 still holds a lead in integer MT, but the gap is not as big as before and nowhere near as the core counts have you guess.

 

[dawheat]

Here is another one with even higher score. (6s Plus) It can actually be viewed.

http://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench3/3515465

ST: 2521
MT: 4381

Interestingly Geekbench3 reports slightly higher clock frequency (1.85 GHz) and 3MB L2. I recall A8 has 2MB L2, am I right?

Well, since a new release is one every year, 6-months ahead means 6-months behind come next year, for 6 months. () In any case Qualcomm and Samsung have a work cut out for them.

Well I wouldn't position it as behind in 6 months - I think it's more that Android SOCs will catch up early next year and be at overall parity (15-20% slower SC, 50% faster MC, with SC being a bit more important than MC) until Apple jumps back ahead with the A10.

 

[Eug]

ST: 2419
MT: 4795

A huge jump even after taking the clock speed bump (~30%) into consideration. I estimate the IPC improvement to be somewhere around 10~15%. A great job, Apple!

Those are floating point numbers.

 

[lopri]

@SAWYER: I did not think I was obsessed. The scores were published today I saw there was no thread here and I thought they were at least worthy of notice. (in contrast to, say, certain other obsession *cough* "Enough with Android" *cough* inexplicably recurring every other month)

^_^

Edit: @Eug: Oh, you are right. My bad. Hmm.. it seems like the overall scores are a bit more irregular than A8's. I see 2200~2500 around the web.

 

[Eug]

The scores are being discussed in the A9X thread in the CPU forum. I also posted them in the Apple forum, but in an existing thread.

Anyhoo, for GPU:

 

[Crono]

Does this translate into real-world performance? i.e. can I actually see this speed sustain without any throttling? If not, I don't really care about benchmarks for iOS, Android, WM, etc. With desktop PCs I can actually use the power for encoding or high-end gaming. On mobile I don't actually want/need any higher graphics, anyway, current graphics are good enough (for me) on a 5"-6" screen.

If apps launch instantly and there is zero lag anywhere even with heavy multitasking, though, I could see myself getting an iPhone 6S.

 

[paffinity]

Here is another one with even higher score. (6s Plus) It can actually be viewed.

http://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench3/3515465

ST: 2521
MT: 4381

Interestingly Geekbench3 reports slightly higher clock frequency (1.85 GHz) and 3MB L2. I recall A8 has 2MB L2, am I right?

Well, since a new release is one every year, 6-months ahead means 6-months behind come next year, for 6 months. () In any case Qualcomm and Samsung have a work cut out for them.

A8 had 1M L2, just like A7. In terms of CPU performance, Apple is at least a year ahead of any ARM part. If they can scale frequency up, they could take on Intel. Of course there is the issue with x86 dominance, but Apple has gone through architecture changes before and quite seamlessly for the most part.

 

[Eug]

Does this translate into real-world performance? i.e. can I actually see this speed sustain without any throttling? If not, I don't really care about benchmarks for iOS, Android, WM, etc. With desktop PCs I can actually use the power for encoding or high-end gaming. On mobile I don't actually want/need any higher graphics, anyway, current graphics are good enough (for me) on a 5"-6" screen.

If apps launch instantly and there is zero lag anywhere even with heavy multitasking, though, I could see myself getting an iPhone 6S.

The reports are that the new 6s/+ line feels noticeably faster.

Also lots of people report lag with the old 6 plus. I don't know if this due to memory, CPU, or GPU, but it's moot because all three have been drastically improved on the 6s plus, and the lag is gone.

Also, the 6s line gets much faster TouchID too.

 

[dawheat]

The reports are that the new 6s/+ line feels noticeably faster.

Also lots of people report lag with the old 6 plus. I don't know if this due to memory, CPU, or GPU, but it's moot because all three have been drastically improved on the 6s plus, and the lag is gone.

Also, the 6s line gets much faster TouchID too.

Any word on storage? I wonder if they switched to ufs and SOC is a bit of a red herring on feeling faster. I'd think app opening and stuff is memory and storage dependent, considering the a8 was no slouch.

 

[lopri]

@Crono: There is no such thing as "lag free." I think you know that.

I can make any system lag given 5 minutes.

 

[Harry_Wild]

I don't get these benchmark obsessions. The 6 was already fast as is the 5s and phones in general the past few years.

The A9 is close to twice as fast as the A8 and guessing 240% faster then the A7 in the 5S!

 

[SAWYER]

Didn't mean you op, just talking in general about benchmark obsession. This is not limited to phones either

 

[SAWYER]

The A9 is close to twice as fast as the A8 and guessing 240% faster then the A7 in the 5S!

OK that is nice and all but for me personally and probably millions like me big whoop. Is that a few milliseconds faster opening my email?

 

[futurefields]

We get it, you don't care. Just ignore the thread.

 

[Crono]

@Crono: There is no such thing as "lag free." I think you know that.

I can make any system lag given 5 minutes.

I'm talking about navigating within the OS under normal conditions with a few apps open and browsing (basically how I typically use my smartphone), not torture testing the device.

I think you should know that. Maybe I should have used the word "relatively" because what I am looking for is something better, not a perfect device. I've seen hitching and lag on past iOS devices, despite claims to the contrary (and the situation on Android and WP has been the same).

 

[Crono]

The reports are that the new 6s/+ line feels noticeably faster.

Also lots of people report lag with the old 6 plus. I don't know if this due to memory, CPU, or GPU, but it's moot because all three have been drastically improved on the 6s plus, and the lag is gone.

Also, the 6s line gets much faster TouchID too.

Interesting... if this proves to be the case, this may be the first iPhone I get. 3D Touch intrigues me, and if I can customize the UI a little via jailbreak later (the UI is something I've never been a fan of) it'll make it an easier decision.

Camera and other hardware specs look good otherwise.

 

[lopri]

I'm talking about navigating within the OS under normal conditions and browsing, not torture testing the device.

I think you should know that.

:hmm:

I really do think there is no lag-free system under any definition of lag. In case of iOS, lag is built-in in the form of animation which in turn exists to hide more unpleasant lags. Depending on what individual user does, lags will be perceived sooner or later even to those who are less sensitive.

But compared with other smartphones, I predict the 6s/plus should handle lags more graciously given the SOC powering them at least within the bounds of its 2GB RAM.

 

[postmortemIA]

It would been even better if it had one or two more cores - modern desktop intel CPUs will score easily over 10,000 MT

 

[GTRagnarok]

Hold on here. If Geekbench scores are truly comparable across platforms, then the iPhone 6S's performance is dangerously close to my MBP 13" with a dualcore Haswell CPU:

http://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench3/3528795
ST: 2910
MT: 6820

Is that really right? That's insane. For fun, here's my 4.5GHz 2500K:

http://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench3/3528829
ST: 3560
MT: 11860

 

[Accord99]

I think, given the terrible level of optimization on x86, it's best to just take Geekbench as completely separate benchmarks on Android, iOS and x86 whose score values have no meaning between platforms.