AppleInsider Staff
A test of the iPhone 5's new A6 processor yielded a surprisingly quick score on SunSpider's JavaScript benchmarking tool, with the system on chip topping even the Medfield Atom Z2460.
While not an official test, AnandTech was able to run SunSpider v0.9.1 on an iPhone 5 review sample on Wednesday, and watched as the dual-core A6 chip chewed through the benchmark in 914.7 milliseconds, outpacing the second place Lava XOLO X900's time of 1279.4 milliseconds. The Lava XOLO runs a single-core Intel Atom Z2460 Penwell SoC built on the chip maker's Medfield platform.
As noted by the publication, SunSpider is slowly becoming outdated as a smartphone benchmark, however it highlights issues pertaining to ARM's Cortex A9 memory interface.
"Intel originally hinted at issues in the A9's memory interface as being why Atom was able to so easily outperform other ARM based SoCs in SunSpider," reports Anand Shimpi.
In a Monday report, online benchmarking site Geekbench reportedly logged an iPhone 5's performance data, outing the specifications of the handset's A6 chip. At the time, it was thought that Apple made dramatic improvements to the standard ARM core's memory interface as the Geekbench data suggested a drastic improvement from previous Cortex A9 chips.
Although it hasn't yet been confirmed, the A6 chip is reportedly Apple's first attempt at designing an ARM core in-house.
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26 Comments
"At the time, it was thought that Apple made dramatic improvements to the standard ARM core's memory interface as the Geekbench data suggested a drastic improvement from previous Cortex A9 chips." "At the time..." that was then... so what do they think now?
"At the time, it was thought that Apple made dramatic improvements to the standard ARM core's memory interface as the Geekbench data suggested a drastic improvement from previous Cortex A9 chips."
"At the time..." that was then... so what do they think now?
They think it's apple's own in-house arm design now, and not based off of the cortex a9 or a15, but it's not confirmed.
They should have added both 4S iOS 5 and 4S iOS 6 results as any speed increase in sunspider cannot be attributed to the SoC alone.
outpacing the second place Lava XOLO X900's time of 1279.4 milliseconds. The Lava XOLO runs a single-core Intel Atom Z2460 Penwell SoC built on the chip maker's Medfield platform.
So as per the previous discussion with Geekbench, the single core Atom actually does quite well compared to the dual core A6.
My own opinion is that Ghz and core count is irrelevant, performance / Watt is the only relevant number for these kinds of devices and the iPhone5 is a winner in that regard.
So as per the previous discussion with Geekbench, the single core Atom actually does quite well compared to the dual core A6.
In difference to Geekbench Sunspider does only utilize 1 Core.