Apple A10 Fusion vs Apple M1. Specifications, performance, tests

Background information about the processors being compared, series, generation and market segment.

• Segment
  Mobile Mobile
• Family
  Apple A series Apple M series
• Generation
  10 1
• CPU group
  Apple A10/A10X Apple M1
• Predecessor
  Apple A9 --
• Successor
  Apple A11 Bionic --

Basic parameters such as number of cores, number of threads, base and turbo frequency, and cache size. These parameters indirectly tell about the speed of the processor, the higher they are the better.

• Frequency
  1.30 GHz 3.20 GHz
• CPU Cores
  4 8
• Turbo (1 Core)
  2.34 GHz No turbo
• CPU Threads
  4 8
• Hyperthreading
  No No
• Overclocking
  No No
• Core architecture
  hybrid (big.LITTLE) hybrid (big.LITTLE)
• A core
  2x Hurricane 4x Firestorm
• B core
  2x Zephyr 4x Icestorm

Internal Graphics does not affect the performance of the CPU, performs the work of the graphics card in its absence or on mobile devices.

• GPU name
  Apple A10 Apple M1 (8 Core)
• GPU frequency
  0.90 GHz 3.20 GHz
• GPU (Turbo)
  No turbo No turbo
• Execution units
  6 128
• Shader
  192 0
• Max. GPU Memory
  4 GB 8 GB
• Max. displays
  1 2
• Generation
  7 1
• Technology
  16 nm 5 nm
• Release date
  Q3/2016 Q4/2020

Built-in codecs used to encode and decode content. Significantly speeds up the required operations.

• h265 / HEVC (8 bit)
  Decode Decode / Encode
• h265 / HEVC (10 bit)
  Decode Decode / Encode
• h264
  Decode / Encode Decode / Encode
• VP9
  Decode Decode / Encode
• VP8
  Decode Decode
• AV1
  No Decode
• AVC
  Decode Decode
• VC-1
  Decode Decode
• JPEG
  Decode / Encode Decode / Encode

Types, channel quantity of RAM supported by Apple M1 and Apple A10 Fusion. Depending on the motherboards, higher or lower memory frequencies may be supported.

• Memory type
  LPDDR4-3200 LPDDR4X-4266
• Max. Memory
  3 GB 16 GB
• ECC
  No No
• Memory channels
  1 2
• PCIe version
  4.0

• AES-NI
  No Yes

Compare the TDP requirements of TDP Apple A10 Fusion and Apple M1 to select a cooling system. Note, the TDP value refers to thermal watts, not electrical watts.

• TDP (PL1)
  5 W 15 W
• TDP up
  -- 20 W
• TDP down
  -- 10 W

Architecture, interfaces, additional instructions supported by Apple A10 Fusion and Apple A10 Fusion, virtual machine technologies and process technology.

• Instruction set (ISA)
  x86-64 (64 bit) ARMv8-A64 (64 bit)
• Virtualization
  None None
• ISA extensions
  Rosetta 2 x86-Emulation
• L2-Cache
  4.00 MB 16.00 MB
• Architecture
  A10 M1
• Technology
  10 nm 5 nm
• Socket
  N/A N/A
• Release date
  Q3/2016 Q4/2020