The Apple A15 SoC Performance Review: Faster & More Efficient
by Andrei Frumusanu on October 4, 2021 9:30 AM EST- Posted in
- Mobile
- Apple
- Smartphones
- Apple A15
Conclusion & End Remarks
Today’s investigation into the new A15 is just scratching the tip of the iceberg of what Apple has to offer in the new generation iPhone 13 series devices. As we’re still working on the full device review, we got a good glimpse of what the new silicon is able to achieve, and what to expect from the new devices in terms of performance.
On the CPU side of things, Apple’s initial vague presentation of the new A15 improvements could either have resulted in disappointment, or simply a more hidden shift towards power efficiency rather than pure performance. In our extensive testing, we’re elated to see that it was actually mostly an efficiency focus this year, with the new performance cores showcasing adequate performance improvements, while at the same time reducing power consumption, as well as significantly improving energy efficiency.
The efficiency cores of the A15 have also seen massive gains, this time around with Apple mostly investing them back into performance, with the new cores showcasing +23-28% absolute performance improvements, something that isn’t easily identified by popular benchmarking. This large performance increase further helps the SoC improve energy efficiency, and our initial battery life figures of the new 13 series showcase that the chip has a very large part into the vastly longer longevity of the new devices.
In the GPU side, Apple’s peak performance improvements are off the charts, with a combination of a new larger GPU, new architecture, and the larger system cache that helps both performance as well as efficiency.
Apple’s iPhone component design seems to be limiting the SoC from achieving even better results, especially the newer Pro models, however even with that being said and done, Apple remains far above the competition in terms of performance and efficiency.
Overall, while the A15 isn’t the brute force iteration we’ve become used to from Apple in recent years, it very much comes with substantial generational gains that allow it to be a notably better SoC than the A14. In the end, it seems like Apple’s SoC team has executed well after all.
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Nicon0s - Tuesday, October 5, 2021 - link
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I understand that an apple SOC will probably cost 2-3 times at least considering the points you mentioned, but will it be a deterrent for OEMs? High end smartphones from the likes of Samsung and Sony are north of 1200 gbp, so they are pretty expensive anyway. Would a couple hundred quid added to the BOM and passed on the customer dent the overall sales of these top end smartphones? A customer who is paying 1400 gbp for the latest Note phone will probably be ok paying 1700 for a phone thats almost twice as fast. I personally would be happy to pay such prices for a high end droid with an A15 or even A14 soc , more so than paying that amount for a Z flip or something.Imagine the immense potential of such a device. One can dream.
To summarise, i dont believe cost will be a deterrent for OEMs, especially as customers are clearly willing to pay for cutting edge tech, as indicated by steady smartphone sales year on year despite a steep increase in prices of premium phones over the last 10 years.
michael2k - Wednesday, October 6, 2021 - link
I don't see how you could be close to correct.Worldwide Apple has 15% marketshare; lets pretend that of the remaining 85%, another 15% really would pay the extra an OEM would charge for the performance Apple offers.
In other words, a good chunk of Samsung's user base (since they have 18% globally) would be willing to pay a premium for iPhone level performance, even if it's a one year old SoC instead of the current year SoC.
The iPhone 11 Pro Max was estimated to have a $64 SoC; if Apple is to profit from selling it let us assume they charge $50, so that Apple sells each chip for $114:
https://www.techinsights.com/blog/apple-iphone-11-...
Qualcomm theoretically charges Samsung $57:
https://www.gsmarena.com/samsung_galaxy_note20_ult...
So if that means they can sell 200m chips at $114 and a $50 profit, they get $10b in profit a year and $22b in revenue from chip sales. That's healthy, and relevant since their 2020 revenue was $274b!
However, if they only got $5 per chip, their profit would only grow $1b and their revenue only by $2.2b, so clearly it wouldn't make sense to sell their chips for only $70. The question then is do you really think they could sell 220 million chips a year for $114?
And don't forget that this isn't going to be free for them, since they have to provide the drivers and basic supporting hardware for OEMs to use (essentially a reference design).
To compare to their other revenue streams, their smallest revenue stream right now is the iPad at roughly $30b a year:
https://www.apple.com/newsroom/pdfs/FY21_Q3_Consol...
So you have to expect Apple to aim for something comparable if they were to sell SoC (hence my original assumption of $50 profit per chip)
Speedfriend - Thursday, October 7, 2021 - link
For what most people use a phone for, the difference in speed is unnoticeable. I have had both an iPhone and Android as daily phones for at least 5 years and never felt one was noticeably faster than the otherNicon0s - Thursday, October 7, 2021 - link
>The question then is do you really think they could sell 220 million chips a year for $114?Impossible. The couldn't even get 200 million chips to sell.
Also in order to have a pure 50$ in profits the price for the SOC would have to be bigger than 114$. Apple also has to offer support for these chips, drivers and so on. Those are additional costs, some of them long term.
Ppietra - Thursday, October 7, 2021 - link
Nicon0s,Apple already "produces" around 250 million chips for itself, most of them usually at the most recent node process, leaving vacant most of the older production capacity... So it would be possible for Apple to produce extra 100-200 million older chips if it wanted to.
Nicon0s - Sunday, October 10, 2021 - link
You are missing a few important details. It takes apple 1 year or more to get their hands on over 200 million chips. It would be hard to double the production output at any given time in order to sell chips to other companies. Also the older production capacity is never vacant and it's always booked in advance.Also Apple wouldn't be able to sell an A13 at such a premium vs the latest Android SOCs. Maybe the SD898, exynos 2200 or dimensity 2000 won't be top in performance but they will sure offer better performance than an A13 SOC so I was obviously talking about the A15 in my comment.
Ppietra - Sunday, October 10, 2021 - link
don’t see what I am missing!the 200 million you commented about already represented 1 year production, that means what would be produced would be dispersed throughout the year.
Changing business models doesn’t happen overnight, so no one was talking about Apple selling 200 million by next year specifically. No one here was assuming nor can say that Apple would change things with no pre-established plan... that would be absolute nonsense.
What people are talking about is Apple establishing a business where it would sell 200 million a year and reap profits from it - it’s an hypothetical.
But I could put it in another perspective if Apple were planning to sell old SoCs by next year then it would already have planned its contracts to produce more.
Nicon0s - Saturday, October 16, 2021 - link
At least follow the conversion if you want to join in. He was specifically talking about selling 200 million chips to other companies and I specifically answered to that. The quote and my answer are in the same place.Also the 200 million is obviously in addition to Apple's own chips which they use for their products.
>But I could put it in another perspective if Apple were planning to sell old SoCs by next year then it would already have planned its contracts to produce more.
Even if it did volume would be much lower as most of the capacity will already be booked and those chips would still be quite expensive and obviously less competitive. The only way apple could get more is if they outbid. Realistically TSMC would not simply turn their back ro their other costumer just to only sell to Apple.
Ppietra - Saturday, October 16, 2021 - link
Nicon0s, It’s Apple that is already using that near 200 million manufacturing capacity. Once a new year comes it will be adding more manufacturing capacity with a new node... so no, there is no problem with volume, if it planned for it, Apple would be able to have those contracts because it would already be in the position where it was using that capacity. Apple already outbid others to be the first using it.