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

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

• Segment
  Mobile Mobile
• Family
  Apple A series HiSilicon Kirin
• Generation
  12 8
• CPU group
  Apple A12/A12X/A12Z HiSilicon Kirin 990
• Predecessor
  Apple A11 Bionic --
• Successor
  Apple A13 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
  1.59 GHz 1.95 GHz
• CPU Cores
  6 8
• Turbo (1 Core)
  2.49 GHz 2.36 GHz
• CPU Threads
  6 8
• Hyperthreading
  No No
• Overclocking
  No No
• Core architecture
  hybrid (big.LITTLE) hybrid (Prime / big.LITTLE)
• A core
  2x Vortex 2x Cortex-A76
• B core
  4x Tempest 2x Cortex-A76
• C core
  -- 4x Cortex-A55

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 A12 ARM Mali-G76 MP14
• GPU frequency
  1.59 GHz 0.60 GHz
• GPU (Turbo)
  2.49 GHz 0.60 GHz
• Execution units
  4 14
• Shader
  0 224
• Max. GPU Memory
  4 GB 4 GB
• Max. displays
  1 2
• Generation
  9 Bifrost 3
• DirectX Version
  12
• Technology
  7 nm 7 nm
• Release date
  Q3/2018 Q3/2018

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

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

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

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

• AES-NI
  No No

Compare the TDP requirements of TDP Apple A12 Bionic and HiSilicon Kirin 990E 5G to select a cooling system. Note, the TDP value refers to thermal watts, not electrical watts.

• TDP (PL1)
  6 W 6 W

Architecture, interfaces, additional instructions supported by Apple A12 Bionic and Apple A12 Bionic, virtual machine technologies and process technology.

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