iPhone 6S' performance is monstrous

[lopri]

You can add all kinds of additional silicon and still stay within the thermal budget as long as you don't try to run all of it constantly. If the third CPU core never turns on when the GPU is under heavy load, it's probably not an issue.

If it is never going to be turned on, then it will not be added. If it is going to be used less than 10% of the time, they will probably look for ways to increase performance without increasing the cost by 50%. (obviously 50% is not a scientific value here but you get the idea)

And arguably A9 is already a triple-core SOC if you count the so-called "Motion Processor." If my memory serves, the "Motion Processor" is some sort of modified Cortex-Mx, making the configuration 2+1 big.LITTLE. (heh)

That is probably a stretch, but the point that I am making here is that no one leaves performance on the plate in the current mobile SOC market. Saying that Apple can add another core "easily" to improve performance is akin to saying that Qualcomm can add more cache "easily" to improve performance. The A9 appears to be a milestone in the history of mobile SOC, but we need to maintain some perspective, IMO. So that leads us to..


Chipworks x-ray'ed the A9!

http://www.chipworks.com/about-chipworks/overview/blog/inside-the-iphone-6s

Apple’s new A9 processor is the APL0898, and it’s ~8.7 x 10.7 mm, or ~94 mm2, which agrees with our 80% shrink guesstimates. Maybe that’s a reflection of the 14/16 nm processes only shrinking the transistor dimensions, not the metallization, maybe it means that Apple have crammed more in there (probably both). And it seems to confirm our postulated 8MB of L3 cache. (emphasis mine)

3MB L2 and 8MB L3!@#&@$%^? That is more cache than non-workstation desktop CPUs have! This chip is truly a monster. Chipworks is not confident whether it is Samsung's 14nm or TSMC's 16nm. Maybe it is TSMC after all?

 

[senseamp]

If it is never going to be turned on, then it will not be added. If it is going to be used less than 10% of the time, they will probably look for ways to increase performance without increasing the cost by 50%. (obviously 50% is not a scientific value here but you get the idea)

And arguably A9 is already a triple-core SOC if you count the so-called "Motion Processor." If my memory serves, the "Motion Processor" is some sort of modified Cortex-Mx, making the configuration 2+1 big.LITTLE. (heh)

That is probably a stretch, but the point that I am making here is that no one leaves performance on the plate in the current mobile SOC market. Saying that Apple can add another core "easily" to improve performance is akin to saying that Qualcomm can add more cache "easily" to improve performance. The A9 appears to be a milestone in the history of mobile SOC, but we need to maintain some perspective, IMO. So that leads us to..


Chipworks x-ray'ed the A9!

http://www.chipworks.com/about-chipworks/overview/blog/inside-the-iphone-6s



3MB L2 and 8MB L3!@#&@$%^? That is more cache than non-workstation desktop CPUs have! This chip is truly a monster. Chipworks is not confident whether it is Samsung's 14nm or TSMC's 16nm. Maybe it is TSMC after all?

That's A8 picture, A9 is the X-ray looking one.

 

[Eug]

Real world the 6s feels much, much speedier than my 5s. No sh!t Sherlock, right? Well the reason I mention this is when I played with the 6 it never felt much faster than the 5s in everyday sorts of basic use. I wonder if it's because the extra CPU power in the 6 over the 5s was consumed pushing all those extra pixels. But the 6s just screams. Totally different feel IMO.

This seems to concur with various reviews out there. They all say the 6s/6s+ feels noticeably faster than the 6/6+.

Mind you even though I have all this speed in iOS devices at home (iPhone 6s and two iPad Air 2s), I'm currently typing this on an iPad 2. Long live A5!

 

[lopri]

My mistake. Here is the correct shot.

8MB L3 seems a tad ridiculous to me, but I guess Apple thought it's justified. I thought it was a little strange that the A9's memory performance does not scale from ST to MT in Geekbench 3. It may as well be that the core is so powerful that memory cannot keep up or that the large L3 cache comes into play. Incredible stuff either way.

Does this mean the A9X has 16MB L3?

 

[Tech_Greek]

Real world the 6s feels much, much speedier than my 5s. No sh!t Sherlock, right? Well the reason I mention this is when I played with the 6 it never felt much faster than the 5s in everyday sorts of basic use. I wonder if it's because the extra CPU power in the 6 over the 5s was consumed pushing all those extra pixels. But the 6s just screams. Totally different feel IMO.

This seems to concur with various reviews out there. They all say the 6s/6s+ feels noticeably faster than the 6/6+.

Mind you even though I have all this speed in iOS devices at home (iPhone 6s and two iPad Air 2s), I'm currently typing this on an iPad 2. Long live A5!

My 6S feels much faster than my 6 (the faster Touch ID is AMAZING)

 

[dawheat]

My 6S feels much faster than my 6 (the faster Touch ID is AMAZING)

Hmm I haven't used the TouchID yet (wife's phone) but poking around different apps in the 6S doesn't feel much different than the 6. I'm not sure if my first impressions jive with reviews that things feel much faster. Not a criticism - everything is snappy and smooth - it's just I thought her 6 was as well.

<edit>Well things do seem a bit snappier, but I'd hesitate to call it significantly difference. I'm not sure how much is also due to a brand new phone vs. a year old 6.

I was also super excited for 3D touch based upon reviews...but I'm kind of split on it right now. I believe in the potential that it was and that it's part of the UX of the future, but having to hold your finger down while say - a safari frame opens a link - is a bit awkward. Peek works when you can very quickly view the content, not so much when you have to wait a couple seconds. The shortcuts are also useful but nothing that really moves the needle in day to day usage.

 

[Crono]

Real world the 6s feels much, much speedier than my 5s. No sh!t Sherlock, right? Well the reason I mention this is when I played with the 6 it never felt much faster than the 5s in everyday sorts of basic use. I wonder if it's because the extra CPU power in the 6 over the 5s was consumed pushing all those extra pixels. But the 6s just screams. Totally different feel IMO.

This seems to concur with various reviews out there. They all say the 6s/6s+ feels noticeably faster than the 6/6+.

Thank you. This is what I really wanted to know. Haven't been this tempted before to buy an iPhone... may have to wait a little while before I can buy it, though. Nexus 5X may get my money first if it's half the price.

 

[deathBOB]

Does the large L3 cache benefit power efficiency? Can power be saved by reducing how frequently it needs to access memory?

 

[soccerballtux]

yeah 2GB RAM finally on iOS, if I'm going to ever jump, now would be the time, that's going to last for 3 years at the very least no problem.

 

[pakotlar]

Something that's interesting to note: On my 6 # of tabs I can keep open without reloading is pretty ridiculous on ios9. I've gotten to 10 or 11, and while many of those tabs weren't media-rich, one was actually a several page long pdf. Cool thing is that up to at least 3-4 tabs (haven't tested much more) stay resident even after using other apps, including some games. For my use case, 1GB is not at all a concern.

So reports that 6s can keep many more tabs resident in memory compared to 6 may be confounded by ios9.

 

[Mopetar]

Does the large L3 cache benefit power efficiency? Can power be saved by reducing how frequently it needs to access memory?

Perhaps to some degree as unless you can keep the pipeline full, a cache miss means you have to wait for data to be read from memory, which means running the CPU for slightly longer, but I don't know how much it matters in the real world where people constantly move between apps which is going to require a lot of memory accesses.

 

[lopri]

This is interesting.

A8

A9

Unlike A8, A9's frequencies are all over the places. This may be due to:

1. More liberal DVFS policies are at work. (Turbo? Throttle? Newly introduced low-power mode might be playing the part?)
2. Reflective of different characterestic SOCs manufactured by different fab houses.
3. The chip is a brand new design and the Geekbench is not reading the clock speeds correctly.

 

[lopri]

(Cross-posting from the CPU forum)

I previously thought Apple simply did not split its SOC manufacturing between different manufacturers but I guess there is a first time for everything. Apparently the A9 inside the 6s Plus is manufactured by TSMC, and the A9 inside the 6s by Samsung.

http://m.mydrivers.com/newsview/448684.html?ref=

I do not read Chinese but the message seems clear enough.

6s APL0898 -> Samsung
6s Plus APL1022 -> TSMC

This would at least alleviate the need for designing multiple motherboards, but it is shocking nonetheless that Apple would do this.

 

[Artdeco]

Apple really hates to single source anything, they have some security in supply that way and can leverage better prices of its components

 

[Bubbleawsome]

(Cross-posting from the CPU forum)

I previously thought Apple simply did not split its SOC manufacturing between different manufacturers but I guess there is a first time for everything. Apparently the A9 inside the 6s Plus is manufactured by TSMC, and the A9 inside the 6s by Samsung.

http://m.mydrivers.com/newsview/448684.html?ref=

I do not read Chinese but the message seems clear enough.

6s APL0898 -> Samsung
6s Plus APL1022 -> TSMC

This would at least alleviate the need for designing multiple motherboards, but it is shocking nonetheless that Apple would do this.

What does this mean? Samsung does 14nm and TSMC is at 16nm right? Does that mean the 6s+ will have more temperature issues?

http://www.technobuffalo.com/2015/09/27/iphone-6s-overheating-for-some-disabling-led-flash/

 

[Eug]

I had posted this in the CPU forum A9X thread, but figure it would be appropriate here too.

Jetstream 1.1 browser benchmark:

160.97: Core i7 870 iMac 2.93 GHz running Safari 9 and Mac OS X 10.11 GM Candidate
152.48: Core i7 870 iMac 2.93 GHz running Safari 8.0.8 and Mac OS X 10.10.5
146.85: Core i7 870 iMac 2.93 GHz running Firefox 41 and Mac OS X 10.10.5
144.82: Core i7 870 iMac 2.93 GHz running Chrome 45 and Mac OS X 10.10.5

84.211: Athlon II X3 435 2.9 GHz running Firefox 41 and Windows 7 SP1

Error: Core 2 Duo T8300 MacBook 2.4 GHz running Safari 6.1.6 and Mac OS X 10.7.5
83.148: Core 2 Duo T8300 MacBook 2.4 GHz running Firefox 41 and Mac OS X 10.7.5
84.655: Core 2 Duo T8300 MacBook 2.4 GHz running Chrome 45 and Mac OS X 10.7.5

75.968: Core 2 Duo P8400 MacBook Pro 2.26 GHz running Safari 8.0.8 and Mac OS X 10.10.5
81.175: Core 2 Duo P8400 MacBook Pro 2.26 GHz running Firefox 41 and Mac OS X 10.10.5
81.403: Core 2 Duo P8400 MacBook Pro 2.26 GHz running Chrome 45 and Mac OS X 10.10.5

50.080: Core Duo T2500 iMac 2.0 GHz running Chrome 34 and Mac OS X 10.6.8
Script timeout: Core Duo T2500 iMac 2.0 GHz running Firefox 41 and Mac OS X 10.6.8

119.47: iPhone 6s with iOS 9.1 Public Beta 2

84.256: iPad Air 2 with iOS 9.1 Public Beta 2

57.389: iPhone 5s with iOS 9.1 Public Beta 2

21.140: iPhone 5 with iOS 9.1 Public Beta 2

Crash: iPad 2 with iOS 9.1 Public Beta 2

 

[Tech_Greek]

Hmm I haven't used the TouchID yet (wife's phone) but poking around different apps in the 6S doesn't feel much different than the 6. I'm not sure if my first impressions jive with reviews that things feel much faster. Not a criticism - everything is snappy and smooth - it's just I thought her 6 was as well.

<edit>Well things do seem a bit snappier, but I'd hesitate to call it significantly difference. I'm not sure how much is also due to a brand new phone vs. a year old 6.

I was also super excited for 3D touch based upon reviews...but I'm kind of split on it right now. I believe in the potential that it was and that it's part of the UX of the future, but having to hold your finger down while say - a safari frame opens a link - is a bit awkward. Peek works when you can very quickly view the content, not so much when you have to wait a couple seconds. The shortcuts are also useful but nothing that really moves the needle in day to day usage.

It was significant when comparing side by side with my 6 (and that was on a fresh install) when using Last Pass and a few other touch ID deals. There always seemed to be a slight lag in the OS, but now it is literally instant (as soon as press my finger on the sensor it's done versus starting then finishing if that makes sense)

The Touch 3D in some stuff is growing on me, the only thing I care about is the keyboard selection at the moment!

 

[lopri]

iPhone8,1

iPhone8,2

It is unclear to me whether these denotations separate regular version and the Plus version, or chips fabricated by Samsung and TSMC.

 

[openwheel]

........

Mind you even though I have all this speed in iOS devices at home (iPhone 6s and two iPad Air 2s), I'm currently typing this on an iPad 2. Long live A5!

ewww, can you even read forums with all that pixelated mess? Welcome to 2015.

 

[catinthefurnace]

iPhone8,1

iPhone8,2

It is unclear to me whether these denotations separate regular version and the Plus version, or chips fabricated by Samsung and TSMC.

It is almost certainly 8,1 = 6s and 8,2 = 6s+ as it was last year.