Apple A15 Bionic vs Apple A12Z Bionic. 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
  15 12
• CPU group
  Apple A15 Apple A12/A12X/A12Z
• Predecessor
  Apple A14 Bionic Apple A10X 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
  3.23 GHz 1.59 GHz
• CPU Cores
  6 8
• Turbo (1 Core)
  No turbo 2.49 GHz
• CPU Threads
  6 8
• Hyperthreading
  No No
• Overclocking
  No No
• Core architecture
  hybrid (big.LITTLE) hybrid (big.LITTLE)
• A core
  2x Avalanche 4x Vortex
• B core
  4x Blizzard 4x Tempest

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 A15 (5 GPU Cores) Apple A12Z
• GPU frequency
  1.80 GHz 1.59 GHz
• GPU (Turbo)
  3.20 GHz 2.49 GHz
• Execution units
  5 8
• Max. GPU Memory
  8 GB 6 GB
• Max. displays
  3 2
• Generation
  12 9
• DirectX Version
  --
• Technology
  5 nm 7 nm
• Release date
  Q3/2021 Q1/2020

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
  Decode No
• AVC
  Decode Decode
• VC-1
  Decode Decode
• JPEG
  Decode / Encode Decode / Encode

Types, channel quantity of RAM supported by Apple A12Z Bionic and Apple A15 Bionic. Depending on the motherboards, higher or lower memory frequencies may be supported.

• Memory type
  LPDDR4X-4266 LPDDR4X-4266
• Max. Memory
  8 GB 16 GB
• ECC
  No No
• Memory channels
  2 2

• AES-NI
  No No

Compare the TDP requirements of TDP Apple A15 Bionic and Apple A12Z Bionic to select a cooling system. Note, the TDP value refers to thermal watts, not electrical watts.

• TDP (PL1)
  8.5 W 15 W

Architecture, interfaces, additional instructions supported by Apple A15 Bionic and Apple A15 Bionic, virtual machine technologies and process technology.

• Instruction set (ISA)
  x86-64 (64 bit) x86-64 (64 bit)
• Virtualization
  None None
• L2-Cache
  4.00 MB 8.00 MB
• Architecture
  A15 A12
• Technology
  5 nm 7 nm
• Socket
  N/A N/A
• Release date
  Q3/2021 Q1/2020