Apple A7 vs Apple M2. Specifications, performance, tests

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

• Segment
  Mobile Mobile
• Family
  Apple A series Apple M series
• Generation
  7 2
• CPU group
  Apple A7 Apple M2
• Successor
  Apple A8 --

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 3.50 GHz
• CPU Cores
  2 8
• Turbo (1 Core)
  1.40 GHz No turbo
• CPU Threads
  2 8
• Hyperthreading
  No No
• Overclocking
  No No
• Core architecture
  normal hybrid (big.LITTLE)
• A core
  2x Cyclone 4x Avalanche
• B core
  -- 4x Blizzard

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
  PowerVR G6430 Apple M2 (8 Core)
• GPU frequency
  0.45 GHz 3.50 GHz
• GPU (Turbo)
  0.45 GHz No turbo
• Execution units
  4 128
• Shader
  64 0
• Max. GPU Memory
  -- 16 GB
• Max. displays
  1 3
• Generation
  2
• DirectX Version
  10
• Technology
  28 nm 5 nm
• Release date
  Q3/2013 Q1/2022

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

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

Types, channel quantity of RAM supported by Apple M2 and Apple A7. Depending on the motherboards, higher or lower memory frequencies may be supported.

• Memory type
  LPDDR3-1333 LPDDR5-5500
• Max. Memory
  1 GB 16 GB
• ECC
  No No
• Memory channels
  1 2
• PCIe version
  4.0

• AES-NI
  No Yes

Compare the TDP requirements of TDP Apple A7 and Apple M2 to select a cooling system. Note, the TDP value refers to thermal watts, not electrical watts.

• TDP (PL1)
  15 W
• TDP up
  -- 20 W
• TDP down
  -- 10 W

Architecture, interfaces, additional instructions supported by Apple A7 and Apple A7, virtual machine technologies and process technology.

• Instruction set (ISA)
  x86-64 (64 bit) ARMv8-A64 (64 bit)
• Virtualization
  None None
• ISA extensions
  Rosetta 2 x86-Emulation
• L2-Cache
  1.00 MB 16.00 MB
• L3-Cache
  4.00 MB --
• Architecture
  A7 M2
• Technology
  28 nm 5 nm
• Socket
  N/A N/A
• Release date
  Q3/2013 Q1/2022
• Part Number
  S5L8960X --