Apple A15 Bionic Chip vs Qualcomm Snapdragon 870

We’ve analyzed the newly launched A15 Bionic Chip and Snapdragon 870 SoCs, created by Apple and Qualcomm respectively. This comparison highlights the key differences and similarities between these 6-core and 8-core processors, evaluated through Geekbench, Antutu, and 3DMark benchmarks, and other technical details.

Review

General comparison of performance, power consumption, and other indicators
CPU Performance
Evaluation of Single-Core and Multi-Core Processor Performance
Gaming Performance
Gaming and OpenCL/Vulkan Performance of the Graphics Processing Unit (GPU)
Battery life
Energy Efficiency in Battery Usage
Tech Insist Score
Overall Performance Rating of the Chip

Key Differences

Main differences and advantages of each chip
Pros of A15 Bionic Chip
  • A15 Bionic Chip has 0.94% higher CPU clock speed than Snapdragon 870 (3230 vs 3200 MHz).
  • A15 Bionic Chip has 55.13% higher memory frequency than Snapdragon 870 (4266 vs 2750 MHz).
  • A15 Bionic Chip has 28.57% smaller sized transistor than Snapdragon 870 (5 vs 7 nm).
  • A15 Bionic Chip has 25.62 % better AnTuTu 9 score than Snapdragon 870 (809 K vs 644 K).
  • A15 Bionic Chip has the latest instruction set, hence better than Snapdragon 870.
Pros of Snapdragon 870
  • Snapdragon 870 has -46.25 % higher GPU clock speed than A15 Bionic Chip ( 645 vs 1200 MHz).
  • Snapdragon 870 Support 29.03 % higher memory bandwidth than A15 Bionic Chip ( 44 vs 34.1 GB/s).

Benchmarks

Evaluating performance through competitive testing in leading benchmarks.

AnTuTu 10

The AnTuTu Benchmark evaluates CPU, GPU, RAM, and I/O capabilities across various scenarios.
CPU 209204 179347
GPU 351594 270188
Memory 118044 98761
UX 130276 95818
Total score 809118 644114

GeekBench 6

The GeekBench test shows raw single-threaded and multithreaded CPU performance
Single-Core Score
Multi-Core Score

3DMark

A cross-platform benchmark that assesses graphics performance in Vulkan (Metal)
3DMark Wild Life Performance
Stability 82% 90%
Graphics test 56 FPS 25 FPS
Score 9524 4258

Specifications

Full list of technical specifications of A15 Bionic Chip and Dimensity 9300

CPU

Architecture 2x 3.23 GHz – Avalanche
4x 2.02 GHz – Blizzard
1x 3.2 GHz – Kryo 585 Prime (Cortex-A77)
3x 2.42 GHz – Kryo 585 Gold (Cortex-A77)
4x 1.8 GHz – Kryo 585 Silver (Cortex-A55)
Cores 6 8
Base Frequency 2020MHz 1800MHz
Turbo Frequency 3230MHz 3200MHz
Instruction set ARMv8.5-A ARMv8.2-A
L2 cache 256 KB 512 KB
L2 cache 32 MB 1 MB
L3 cache - 4 MB
Process 5 nanometers 7 nanometers
Transistor count 15 billion -
TDP (Sustained Power Limit) 6 W 10 W

Graphics

GPU name Apple GPU Adreno 650
Architecture - Adreno 600
GPU frequency 1200 MHz 645 MHz
Pipelines 5 2
Shading units 640 512
Total shaders 1280 1024
FLOPS - 1,267 Gigaflops
Vulkan version - 1.1
OpenCL version - 2.0
DirectX version - 12

AI Accelerator

Neural processor (NPU) Neural Engine Hexagon 698

Memory

Memory type LPDDR4X LPDDR5
Memory frequency 4266 MHz 2750 MHz
Bus - -
Max bandwidth 34.1 Gbit/s 44 Gbit/s
Max size 6 GB 16 GB

Multimedia (ISP)

Storage type NVMe UFS 3.0, UFS 3.1
Max display resolution 2732 x 2048 3840 x 2160
Max camera resolution - 1x 200MP, 2x 25MP
Video capture 4K at 60FPS 8K at 30FPS, 4K at 60FPS
Video playback 4K at 60FPS 8K at 30FPS
Video codecs H.264, H.265, VP8, VP9, Motion JPEG H.264, H.265, VP8, VP9
Audio codecs AAC, AIFF, CAF, MP3, MP4, WAV, AC-3, E-AC-3, AAX, AAX+ AAC, AIFF, CAF, MP3, MP4, WAV

Connectivity

Modem - X55
4G support LTE Cat. 24 LTE Cat. 24
5G support Yes Yes
Download speed 5G Up to 7500 Mbps Up to 7500 Mbps
Download speed 4G - Up to 2500 Mbps
Upload speed 5G Up to 3000 Mbps Up to 3000 Mbps
Upload speed 4G - Up to 316 Mbps
Wi-Fi 6 6
Bluetooth 5.0 5.2
Navigation GPS, GLONASS, Beidou, Galileo, QZSS GPS, GLONASS, Beidou, Galileo, QZSS, SBAS, NAVIC

Info

Announced September 2021 January 2021
Class Flagship Flagship
Model number APL1W07 SM8250-ACSM8250-AC
Official page A15 Bionic Chip official site Snapdragon 870 official site