HiSilicon Kirin 990 5G vs Apple A12 Bionic. Specifications, performance, tests

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

• CPU group
  HiSilicon Kirin 990 Apple A12/A12X/A12Z
• Family
  HiSilicon Kirin Apple A series
• Generation
  8 12
• Predecessor
  - Apple A11 Bionic
• Segment
  Mobile Mobile
• Successor
  - Apple A13 Bionic

Core counts, threads, cache and clock modes describe the CPU configuration. Performance depends on the workload and comparable measured results.

• A-Core
  2x Cortex-A76 2x Vortex
• B-Core
  2x Cortex-A76 4x Tempest
• Base Frequency
  1.95 GHz 1.59 GHz
• C-Core
  4x Cortex-A55 -
• Core architecture
  hybrid (Prime / big.LITTLE) hybrid (big.LITTLE)
• CPU Cores
  8 6
• CPU Threads
  8 6
• Hyperthreading / SMT
  No No
• Overclocking
  No No
• Turbo Frequency (1 Core)
  2.36 GHz 2.49 GHz
• Turbo Frequency (8 Cores)
  2.86 GHz -
• Turbo Frequency (6 Cores)
  - 2.49 GHz

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

• DirectX Version
  12 -
• Execution units
  16 4
• Generation
  Bifrost 3 9
• GPU Frequency
  600 MHz 1590 MHz
• GPU name
  ARM Mali-G76 MP16 Apple A12
• GPU Turbo
  No turbo 2490 MHz
• Max. displays
  2 1
• Max. GPU Memory
  4 GB 4 GB
• Release date
  Q3/2018 Q3/2018
• Shader
  256 0
• Technology
  7 nm 7 nm

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

• AV1
  No No
• H.264 / AVC
  Decode / Encode Conflicting source values: Decode | Decode / Encode
• h265 / HEVC (8 bit)
  Decode / Encode Decode / Encode
• h265 / HEVC (10 bit)
  Decode / Encode Decode / Encode
• JPEG
  Decode / Encode Decode / Encode
• VC-1
  Decode / Encode Decode
• VP8
  Decode / Encode Decode / Encode
• VP9
  Decode / Encode Decode / Encode

Types, channel quantity of RAM supported by Apple A12 Bionic and HiSilicon Kirin 990 5G. Depending on the motherboards, higher or lower memory frequencies may be supported.

• ECC
  No No
• Max. Memory
  8 GB 16 GB
• Memory channels
  4 1
• Memory type
  LPDDR4X-4266 LPDDR4X-4266

• AES-NI
  No No

Compare the TDP requirements of TDP HiSilicon Kirin 990 5G and Apple A12 Bionic Power specifications describe different manufacturer limits. TDP, base power and maximum turbo power are separate values; they do not establish measured system consumption.

• TDP (PL1, legacy label)
  6 W 6 W

Architecture, interfaces, additional instructions supported by HiSilicon Kirin 990 5G and Apple A12 Bionic, virtual machine technologies and process technology.

• Architecture
  Cortex-A76 / Cortex-A55 A12
• Instruction set (ISA)
  ARMv8-A64 (64 bit) x86-64 (64 bit)
• L2-Cache
  - 8 MB
• L3-Cache
  2 MB -
• Release date
  Q3/2019 Q3/2018
• Technology
  7 nm 7 nm
• Virtualization
  None None