As iPhone 13 looms, Apple’s A15 chip speed claims appear

Image c/o Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., Ltd.

If a spate of holiday weekend reports can be believed, iPhone 13’s A15 processor will deliver a big leap in performance when compared to its predecessor, and may deliver even greater gains in larger devices running the chip.

What’s in a report?

Now, I don’t know for certain that these claims are of any substance at all, but they do seem to be emerging at the traditional time at which leaked processor performance data begins to slip. Ie. Just before the product ships, juicing interest and spiking speculation.

So, the story:

A forum post claims the A15 chip can hit 198FPS, falling to 140-150FPS after throttling. Throttling reduces performance but also reduces heat, so that’s why it seems logical to anticipate greater gains in larger devices, such as iPads and Macs, which have larger heat sinks.

Apple A15 GPU peak benchmark test
Manhattan 3.1: 198 FPS (July unit sample)
However, after second round of test, throttling kicks in and drops to 140~150FPS.
(1/2)

Source: https://t.co/Sl1xfN5ktB

— Tron ❂ (@FrontTron) September 6, 2021

In contrast, the A14 hit 120FPS, so we have Apple’s regularly met 10-20% performance boost in every processor generation right there. The new chip also exceeds Samsung’s new Exynos processor, though the latter does contrast reasonably against the A14 chip. But the A15 is simply streets ahead.

Exynos 2200 AMD mRDNA architecture GPU
June sample
6CU based 1.31Ghz clock test
with AMD provided development beta version driver

Manhattan 3.1: 170.7 fps
Aztec normal: 121.4 fps
Aztec high: 51.5 fps

Similar to A14 (reference below)

Source:https://t.co/kO58OaB12b

— Tron ❂ (@FrontTron) August 24, 2021

No data yet has slipped on overall performance, graphics power or battery life, but Apple’s track record in processor development so far makes improvements in those predictably likely.

The future of history

Think back to last year when leaked benchmarks showed that the A14 Bionic GPU beats the A12Z Bionic and that the SoC is 72% faster than the older processor. Apple is already working on the A16 chips for next-generation devices and will continue to innovate in Apple Silicon.

Further ahead (though perhaps now not as soon as planned) we anticipate a move to TSMC 3nm chips ahead, and these will unleash further performance, speed and battery life improvements.

Apple’s teams seeming determination to continue work to put the entire system on a single chip also appears undimmed, tweaking further improvements from these technologies.

On the present path I think it more likely that a taste for annual chip upgrades will shrink to a more climate friendly bi-annual chip rollout before we see Apple reach the zenith of its processor design. Even when it does, we know the company is already exploring alternatives.

The iPhone 13 is expected to be made available for sale later this month. mmWave, A15 chips, better camera and displays and multiple colors are the leading rumors at this time.

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