When a benchmark shows something very different from other benchmarks, then one has to question it. That Speed Shift increase is a good example of that: when Kraken and Octane show no improvement, WebXPRT looks odd. If you don't question that result, you're being naiveSo what? The difference between Skylake-U and ARM tablet chips we see in this benchmark is similar to Kraken and Octane (SP4 Review). Actually it's even smaller.
Apparently the A9X GPU is Iris Pro 5200-class:
When a benchmark shows something very different from other benchmarks, then one has to question it. That Speed Shift increase is a good example of that: when Kraken and Octane show no improvement, WebXPRT looks odd. If you don't question that result, you're being naive
The big win here though is WebXPRT. WebXPRT includes subtests, and in particular the Photo Enhancement subtest can see up to a 50% improvement in performance. This bumps the scores up significantly, with WebXPRT 2015 showing an almost 20% score increase, and WebXPRT 2013 has a 26% gain. These leaps in performance are certainly the kind that would be noticeable to the end user manipulating photographs in something like Picasa or watching web-page based graph adjustments such as live stock feeds.
It could be argued that Iris Pro 5200 with its 50 (eDRAM) +25 (DRAM) GB/s is even better positioned and Intel made that claimNot entirely Apples to Apples due to FP16 and FP32. But with 50GB/sec memory it better be fast.
Most likely marketing BS but hehIntel claims that it would take a 100 - 130GB/s GDDR memory interface to deliver similar effective performance to Crystalwell since the latter is a cache. Accessing the same data (e.g. texture reads) over and over again is greatly benefitted by having a large L4 cache on package
When a benchmark shows something very different from other benchmarks, then one has to question it. That Speed Shift increase is a good example of that: when Kraken and Octane show no improvement, WebXPRT looks odd. If you don't question that result, you're being naive
Without a lack of any explanation, I keep my doubt and just don't trust that result.It's probably the case that this benchmark does benefit more from SpeedShift, not necessarily (sponsored by) Intel optimizations to improve the scores in a 2-year old benchmark like you're suggesting.
Great numbers, hopefully they will force Intel into "mobile Core2".
But looking at specs, they are expected. Apple had great core, now they have 1st class memory subsystem, 2nd to none. Cache sizes/latencies/bandwidth, memory bandwidth are awe inspiring. On top of that clock is very respectable 2Ghz+. End result is world class performance.
Sure some might argue that things are easier for Apple since they target ~2Ghz, not 4Ghz as Intel, but customers care about what they have in hand, not some esoteric gate delays.
Twister (where does AT have that name from, actually)
They probably got the names the same way Swift and Cyclone were discovered.
With Swift, I had the luxury of Apple committing LLVM changes that not only gave me the code name but also confirmed the size of the machine (3-wide OoO core, 2 ALUs, 1 load/store unit). With Cyclone however, Apple held off on any public commits. Figuring out the codename and its architecture required a lot of digging. Last week, the same reader who pointed me at the Swift details let me know that Apple revealed Cyclone microarchitectural details in LLVM commits made a few days ago (thanks again R!).
IIRC Andrei got that name from a crash screen.Is there anywhere a comprehensive comparison of Twister (where does AT have that name from, actually) and SKL?
Last time I looked (2 weeks ago) only Cyclone was mentioned in LLVM code.I already gave you an answer on this matter in the other A9X thread, they get the names from LLVM commits.
There is a poster here, raghu78, who basically was predicting that the A9X would force Intel to increase its core count in Y/U series processors.
It's pretty clear that Intel had the right idea with its low power processors: two cores that run as quickly as possible.
GB frequency on A9 fluctuated for quite a while in the database.There's a discrepancy against what AT says: the GB entry claims 2.16 GHz while Joshua says it's 2.26 GHz. My understanding is that GB on iOS reported frequency always is accurate.
I am sure that Apple has SMT running on A10/A10X. Those are going to be single thread and multithread monsters. Apple could make the jump to 3C/6T at TSMC 10nm which brings 2.2x increase in density and 35-40% lower power at same performance. Right now I am sure Apple will be the company driving Intel the most to increase core count and improve performance. Apple have some of the best CPU design talent and loads of money through their cash cow iPhone. Apple rocks. :thumbsup:
TSMC 10nm brings a 0.52x improvement, according to themselves.I am surprised that Apple went back to 2 cores for A9X. But that 2.2 Ghz clockspeed and resulting single thread performance is massive. Combined with 128 bit LPDDR4 for a massive 51.2 GB/s bandwidth and massive high speed L2/L3 caches this SoC is a freaking beast. Heck the single thread performance is equal to the 2x the single thread performance of A8 and > 2x the single thread performance of A7. Thats screaming performance. GPU performance is also double that of A9.
I am sure that Apple has SMT running on A10/A10X. Those are going to be single thread and multithread monsters. Apple could make the jump to 3C/6T at TSMC 10nm which brings 2.2x increase in density and 35-40% lower power at same performance. Right now I am sure Apple will be the company driving Intel the most to increase core count and improve performance. Apple have some of the best CPU design talent and loads of money through their cash cow iPhone. Apple rocks. :thumbsup:
Come on, they don't average. Copy and paste into a spreadsheet and play with the numbers. Hint: use GEOMEAN...Geekbench is complete rubbish, they dont weight the scores, individual scores are added the one with the other and then they divide by the number of sub tests....
A9/A9X is still far from Skylake. Plus they are bigger than Skylake 2+2 parts. This is only acceptable as long as Apple can charge "any" money for the parts.
A10 will be made on 16FF.
Even Apple says now in unquestionable actions that "moar cores" doesn't work.
TSMC 10nm brings a 0.52x improvement, according to themselves.
Okay, so here's Intel's R&D spending for 2014, although there's got to be a mistake somewhere since it was...
An amazing, astonishing, mind-blowing >20% of revenue.
http://fortune.com/2014/11/17/top-10-research-development/
Also, tell me if you find Apple somewhere .
Apparently the A9X GPU is Iris Pro 5200-class:
Come on, they don't average. Copy and paste into a spreadsheet and play with the numbers. Hint: use GEOMEAN...
Apple with A9X is embarassing Intel. Apple with their aggressive die sizes is telling Intel to up the game. My guess is A9X is closer to 150 sq mm. Sure Apple needs more die size than Intel but who is stopping Intel from increasing die size on their mobile chips. Right now its clear that Intel has gotten complacent due to lack of competition from AMD. Hopefully Intel gets the message from Apple and starts going for 140-150 sq mm mobile chips.
I don't understand why the view is "OMG INTEL SUX" rather than "Wow, Apple did a damn fine job" with its CPU?
Intel is a merchant chip vendor that is fundamentally in a different business than what Apple is in. Apple makes a lot of money selling fully functional devices; SoC cost is an important but relatively small part of the bill of materials of an Apple product.
SoC cost is literally everything for Intel; it needs to make sure that the die sizes of its products are cheap enough to produce in order to support many customers offering products at many different price points.
Think of the A9X as a custom ASIC designed by Apple for Apple products (which is actually what it is). This gives Apple certain freedoms that a merchant chip vendor like Intel doesn't have.
Also remember that Apple releases precisely two SoCs per year -- Ax and AxX. Intel has to spend its efforts building chips/platforms for many different market segments, so it can't focus in the way that Apple can.
Apple has achieved something truly excellent here with the A9 and the A9X -- these are wonderful chips and are the product of first class engineering and a laser-like focus on a handful of great products. But to criticize Intel because Apple managed to deliver an SoC with competitive single-threaded performance doesn't seem fair to me.
That being said, I think Intel can maybe stop with its claims that Core m is "twice as fast" as any tablet out there because that claim is now very clearly and patently false.