Apple A10X Fusion vs Apple A9. Specifications, performance, tests

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

• Segment
  Mobile Mobile
• Family
  Apple A series Apple A series
• Generation
  10 9
• CPU group
  Apple A10/A10X Apple A9/A9X
• Predecessor
  Apple A9X Apple A8
• Successor
  Apple A12Z Bionic Apple A10 Fusion

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 1.85 GHz
• CPU Cores
  6 2
• Turbo (1 Core)
  2.38 GHz No turbo
• CPU Threads
  6 2
• Hyperthreading
  No No
• Overclocking
  No No
• Core architecture
  hybrid (big.LITTLE) normal
• A core
  3x Hurricane 2x Twister
• B core
  3x Zephyr --

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 A10X Apple A9
• GPU frequency
  0.90 GHz 0.65 GHz
• GPU (Turbo)
  No turbo No turbo
• Execution units
  12 6
• Shader
  384 192
• Max. GPU Memory
  4 GB 4 GB
• Max. displays
  1 1
• Generation
  7 6
• Technology
  10 nm 16 nm
• Release date
  Q2/2017 Q3/2015

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

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

Types, channel quantity of RAM supported by Apple A9 and Apple A10X Fusion. Depending on the motherboards, higher or lower memory frequencies may be supported.

• Memory type
  LPDDR4-3200 LPDDR4-3200
• Max. Memory
  3 GB 2 GB
• ECC
  No No
• Memory channels
  2 1

• AES-NI
  No No

Compare the TDP requirements of TDP Apple A10X Fusion and Apple A9 to select a cooling system. Note, the TDP value refers to thermal watts, not electrical watts.

• TDP (PL1)
  8 W 5 W

Architecture, interfaces, additional instructions supported by Apple A10X Fusion and Apple A10X Fusion, virtual machine technologies and process technology.

• Instruction set (ISA)
  x86-64 (64 bit) x86-64 (64 bit)
• Virtualization
  None None
• L2-Cache
  8.00 MB 3.00 MB
• L3-Cache
  -- 4.00 MB
• Architecture
  A10 A9
• Technology
  10 nm 16 nm
• Socket
  N/A N/A
• Release date
  Q2/2017 Q3/2015