Apple A16 Bionic vs Apple M2 Max. Specifications, performance, tests

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

• Family
  Apple A series Apple M series
• CPU group
  Apple A16 Apple M2
• Segment
  Mobile Mobile
• Generation
  16 2
• Predecessor
  Apple A15 Bionic (5-GPU) Apple M1 Max (32-GPU)

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.

• CPU Cores / Threads
  6 / 6 12 / 12
• Core architecture
  hybrid (big.LITTLE) hybrid (big.LITTLE)
• A-Core
  2x Everest 8x Avalanche
• B-Core
  4x Sawtooth 4x Blizzard
• Hyperthreading / SMT
  No No
• Overclocking
  No No
• A-Core Frequency
  3.46 GHz 3.50 GHz
• B-Core Frequency
  2.02 GHz 2.80 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.

• GPU name
  Apple A16 (5 GPU Cores) Apple M2 Max (32 Core)
• GPU frequency
  0.70 GHz 1.40 GHz
• GPU (Turbo)
  No turbo No turbo
• Execution units
  160 512
• Shader
  1280 4096
• Max. GPU Memory
  8 GB 32 GB
• Max. displays
  3 2
• Generation
  13 2
• Technology
  4 nm 5 nm
• Release date
  Q3/2022 Q4/2022

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
• VP8
  Decode / Encode Decode
• VP9
  Decode / Encode Decode / Encode
• AV1
  No No
• AVC
  Decode Decode
• VC-1
  Decode Decode
• JPEG
  Decode / Encode Decode / Encode

Types, channel quantity of RAM supported by Apple M2 Max and Apple A16 Bionic. Depending on the motherboards, higher or lower memory frequencies may be supported.

• Memory type
  LPDDR5-6400 LPDDR5-6400
• Max. Memory
  6 GB 64 GB
• Memory channels
  1 (Single Channel) 2 (Dual Channel)
• Bandwidth
  51.2 GB/s 409.6 GB/s
• ECC
  No No
• PCIe
  4.0
• AES-NI
  No Yes

Compare the TDP requirements of TDP Apple A16 Bionic and Apple M2 Max to select a cooling system. Note, the TDP value refers to thermal watts, not electrical watts.

• TDP (PL1)
  8.5 W 45 W
• Tjunction max.
  -- 100 °C

Architecture, interfaces, additional instructions supported by Apple A16 Bionic and Apple A16 Bionic, virtual machine technologies and process technology.

• Technology
  4 nm 5 nm
• Chip design
  Chiplet Chiplet
• Socket
  N/A N/A
• L2-Cache
  20.00 MB 36.00 MB
• L3-Cache
  24.00 MB --
• Architecture
  A16 M2
• Operating systems
  iOS macOS, iPadOS
• Virtualization
  None Apple Virtualization Framework
• Instruction set (ISA)
  ARMv8-A64 (64 bit) ARMv8-A64 (64 bit)
• ISA extensions
  Rosetta 2 x86-Emulation
• Release date
  Q3/2022 Q2/2022