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Thread: Apple A4 chip up to 60% faster than Snapdragon

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    Apple A4 chip up to 60% faster than Snapdragon

    Source: http://www.electronista.com/
    The A4 processor in the iPad is far faster than the Qualcomm Snapdragon processor running the Nexus One, according to early benchmarks. Although both run at 1GHz, Apple's chip is usually at least 9 percent faster loading most websites; it's up to 60 percent faster with very visually intensive websites. The AnandTech tests noted some unusual spikes, but even discarding these is an average of 10 percent faster.

    It's unclear how much of the performance difference comes from software, as the iPad and Nexus One use different web browsers and different JavaScript engines. However, both use modern WebKit engines. The tests also show it being much faster than the iPhone 3GS, which is much more likely to be directly comparable; in most cases, pages loaded in just over half the time on the tablet.

    The design is believed to still be based on the ARM Cortex-A8 architecture and has the chief advantages of a larger enclosure and battery that let it run at the higher speeds. However, it's not known how much if at all Apple will need to scale down the clock speed to accommodate it in the next iPhone, as no one has checked the power consumption of the A4 independently of its other components.

    Apple will face stiffer competition after a 1.3GHz Snapdragon appears, but it's unlikely to ship in finished phones until late this year.

    Woah, unexpected!
    Also, read the Anand's article the one I quoted is referring to, here. There are a few very interesting benchmark results.
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    It could be a 45nm A8 derivative that has a 1Ghz clock... I would really like these guys to include a OCed palm pre for comparison.
    Coming Soon

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    Let the iPad bashing continue...

    Even though this article is generally postitive.

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    God damit.. what is wrong with Anand...

    Did he really just implied that he did some sort of benchmarking? Running different software on different platforms with different OSs...

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    one slight advantage with the snapdragon based systems, most of them are in phones, whereas the A4 is in the fat mans ipod touch

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    Quote Originally Posted by Hornet331 View Post
    God damit.. what is wrong with Anand...

    Did he really just implied that he did some sort of benchmarking? Running different software on different platforms with different OSs...
    He did say it can be due to different OS and environments and said he will investigate further this week.
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    Sounds like an awful lot of sensationalism in both the title and article. "Up to 60% faster than snapdragon". That's nice, I too can make a product look much better than it is by detailing its best aspect of performance.

    Big picture = apple's modified chip is outperforming snapdragon by a margin of around 10 - 15 percent.

    Lets see how they do adapting it for use in smart phones, shall we?

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    this is like saying "hd 5970 is %500 faster than GTS 360M"
    Has anyone really been far even as decided to use even go want to do look more like?
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    Quote Originally Posted by annihilat0r View Post
    this is like saying "hd 5970 is %500 faster than GTS 360M"
    It is not so absurd as to be akin to that. They are both ARM based mobile processors. The main area of contention / debate is with the favoritism and questionable testing methods used in benchmarking the two products.

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    Quote Originally Posted by ajaidev View Post
    He did say it can be due to different OS and environments and said he will investigate further this week.
    Only a blind man has to look into this, its guranteed to be influenced by the OS and the environment (browser, java engien) it runs.

    Just look at the desktop pcs and the peacekeeper benchmark. There you have same cpu, same platform and same OS, only the browser is different and you get huge discrepancies.

    Imho this is joke, if he wants to benchmark the hardware he needs to have at least the same software environment.

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    At least they are getting some current hardware now.
    Damn... I can't call those Fanatics morons for getting it.

    Wait I still can... crappy, restricted, can't multitask OS, with 3G but can't make calls?
    Limited side ports, etc...

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    Comparing a phone to a tablet seems a bit unfair.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Hornet331 View Post
    Only a blind man has to look into this, its guranteed to be influenced by the OS and the environment (browser, java engien) it runs.

    Just look at the desktop pcs and the peacekeeper benchmark. There you have same cpu, same platform and same OS, only the browser is different and you get huge discrepancies.

    Imho this is joke, if he wants to benchmark the hardware he needs to have at least the same software environment.
    i think 90% of the users will run each platform on it is own software so this comparison is valid for larger percentage of users
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    Quote Originally Posted by kemo View Post
    i think 90% of the users will run each platform on it is own software so this comparison is valid for larger percentage of users
    This comprison only says which device loads pages faster. From this standpoint it is valid. But it can't be used as processor speed comparison. Not only different software and OS can affect a test result, but instant network speed and latency.

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    Quote Originally Posted by kemo View Post
    i think 90% of the users will run each platform on it is own software so this comparison is valid for larger percentage of users
    That may be valid for the enduser, but it still doesn't say anything about the hardware or which on is faster.

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    Quote Originally Posted by urgrandpasdog View Post
    Comparing a phone to a tablet seems a bit unfair.
    Just a bit...
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    considering how different each platform is, theres not many ways to compare them scientifically. and even if its the OS or browser, guess what, its still faster. but like others have said, a phone vs a tablet, its still damn impressive how well phones are doing.

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    anand compares two completely different platforms (hardware as well as software is completely different) and then he comes to the conclusion it's the processor that makes the difference? wtf...

    this kind of sensationalism is what i hate about apple products. writing about an apple product even if there's nothing really to say about it.

    just grabbed my phone (nokia e51) and did a test myself:
    anandtech.com 10s
    digg.com 8s
    tomshardware.com (automated redirect to tomshardware.de) 4s
    arstechnica.com (full site) 6s
    legitreviews.com 11s
    techreport.com 6s
    engadget.com 12s
    gizmodo.com (the page didn't load at all, i guess routing problem or smth...)
    m.cnn.com 3s

    breaking news:
    the 300mhz arm cpu of my nokia e51 is up to 50% faster (see tomshardware) than the a4 in the ipad!
    (opera mini 5, wlan)

    this comparison is as "valid" as anand's. and my e51 even wins in many scenarios, lmao, didn't expect that
    (and opera mini is approx. 3287428375482375% faster than the built in nokia browser )
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    If you look at the WebKit SunSpider JavaScript Benchmark @ Anandtech, A4 is 37,55% slower than Snapdragon, and 65,73% slower than iPhones A8
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    This comparison is so completely wrong, as you guys have said. This is a comparison of page load time differences between the different devices, not a comparison of their respective CPUs. I'm pretty sure that iPhoneOS is quite a bit(/lot) better optimized for the hardware that's used in the iPhone and iPad compared to Android. AFAIK, Android does not make use of all the features present in the Scorpion CPU used in Qualcomm's Snapdragon platform (the same goes for the Cortex-A8 used in the Droid). Android does not make use of Scorpion/Cortex's NEON instructions for example.
    These extensions will eventually be supported by Android, but Android will always be at a disadvantage compared to iPhoneOS in this regard. Android has to support a much broader range of hardware compared to iPhoneOS, which simply makes it hard to optimize for specific hardware features. This will improve over time, but in this case you can clearly see iPhoneOS making better use of the available hardware.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Helmore View Post
    This comparison is so completely wrong, as you guys have said. This is a comparison of page load time differences between the different devices, not a comparison of their respective CPUs. I'm pretty sure that iPhoneOS is quite a bit(/lot) better optimized for the hardware that's used in the iPhone and iPad compared to Android. AFAIK, Android does not make use of all the features present in the Scorpion CPU used in Qualcomm's Snapdragon platform (the same goes for the Cortex-A8 used in the Droid). Android does not make use of Scorpion/Cortex's NEON instructions for example.
    These extensions will eventually be supported by Android, but Android will always be at a disadvantage compared to iPhoneOS in this regard. Android has to support a much broader range of hardware compared to iPhoneOS, which simply makes it hard to optimize for specific hardware features. This will improve over time, but in this case you can clearly see iPhoneOS making better use of the available hardware.
    Yup because its closely tiede to the hardware, its always possible to optimize a closed software to support all the features of a closed hardware...

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    So the A4 is faster than the snapdragon but the Tegra2 Still tramples it.
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    Quote Originally Posted by =SOC= Admiral View Post
    So the A4 is faster than the snapdragon but the Tegra2 Still tramples it.
    I actually think the story is a little different. I think the CPU in Snapdragon is faster than the CPU in the iPad, presuming that the iPad has a Cortex-A8 and not an A9. The GPU in the iPad is more powerful than the GPU in Snapdragon though.

    Tegra 2 on the other hand is faster than both, although I'm more interested on comparing Tegra 2 to the Snapdragon QSD8672 chipset. Both Tegra 2 and the QSD8672 will be on the market at around the same time and they match up pretty nicely in both CPU and GPU performance. I mean, they are both dual core CPUs and they both have a massive GPU.
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    Quote Originally Posted by =SOC= Admiral View Post
    So the A4 is faster than the snapdragon but the Tegra2 Still tramples it.
    No not really, the only thing that was said, is that iPad(tablet) is faster then the Nexus One (smart phone). Nothing more and nothing less.

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    Quote Originally Posted by annihilat0r View Post
    this is like saying "hd 5970 is %500 faster than GTS 360M"
    No this falls under the lame example of its like saying "the GTS360M is 5000% faster then the GTX260M"
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