Apple A8 vs Apple A15 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
  8 15
• CPU group
  Apple A8/A8X Apple A15
• Predecessor
  Apple A7 Apple A14 Bionic
• Successor
  Apple A9 --

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
  1.10 GHz 3.23 GHz
• CPU Cores
  2 6
• Turbo (1 Core)
  1.50 GHz No turbo
• CPU Threads
  2 6
• Hyperthreading
  No No
• Overclocking
  No No
• Core architecture
  normal hybrid (big.LITTLE)
• A core
  2x Typhoon 2x 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
  Apple A8 Apple A15 (5 GPU Cores)
• GPU frequency
  0.53 GHz 1.80 GHz
• GPU (Turbo)
  No turbo 3.20 GHz
• Execution units
  4 5
• Shader
  128 0
• Max. GPU Memory
  4 GB 8 GB
• Max. displays
  1 3
• Generation
  5 12
• Technology
  20 nm 5 nm
• Release date
  Q3/2014 Q3/2021

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

Types, channel quantity of RAM supported by Apple A15 Bionic and Apple A8. Depending on the motherboards, higher or lower memory frequencies may be supported.

• Memory type
  LPDDR3-1600 LPDDR4X-4266
• Max. Memory
  2 GB 8 GB
• ECC
  No No
• Memory channels
  1 2

• AES-NI
  No No

Compare the TDP requirements of TDP Apple A8 and Apple A15 Bionic to select a cooling system. Note, the TDP value refers to thermal watts, not electrical watts.

• TDP (PL1)
  5 W 8.5 W

Architecture, interfaces, additional instructions supported by Apple A8 and Apple A8, virtual machine technologies and process technology.

• Instruction set (ISA)
  x86-64 (64 bit) x86-64 (64 bit)
• Virtualization
  None None
• L2-Cache
  1.00 MB 4.00 MB
• L3-Cache
  4.00 MB --
• Architecture
  A8 A15
• Technology
  20 nm 5 nm
• Socket
  N/A N/A
• Release date
  Q3/2014 Q3/2021