Apple A9 vs Qualcomm Snapdragon 835. Specifications, performance, tests

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

• Segment
  Mobile Mobile
• Family
  Apple A series Qualcomm Snapdragon
• Generation
  9 4
• CPU group
  Apple A9/A9X Qualcomm Snapdragon 830
• Predecessor
  Apple A8 --
• Successor
  Apple A10 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
  1.85 GHz 1.90 GHz
• CPU Cores
  2 8
• Turbo (1 Core)
  No turbo 2.45 GHz
• CPU Threads
  2 8
• Hyperthreading
  No No
• Overclocking
  No No
• Core architecture
  normal hybrid (big.LITTLE)
• A core
  2x Twister 4x Kryo 280 Gold
• B core
  -- 4x Kryo 280 Silver

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 A9 Qualcomm Adreno 540
• GPU frequency
  0.65 GHz 0.71 GHz
• GPU (Turbo)
  No turbo 0.71 GHz
• Execution units
  6 0
• Shader
  192 384
• Max. GPU Memory
  4 GB --
• Max. displays
  1 0
• Generation
  6 5
• DirectX Version
  11.1
• Technology
  16 nm 10 nm
• Release date
  Q3/2015 Q1/2017

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

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

Types, channel quantity of RAM supported by Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 and Apple A9. Depending on the motherboards, higher or lower memory frequencies may be supported.

• Memory type
  LPDDR4-3200 LPDDR4X-1866
• Max. Memory
  2 GB
• ECC
  No No
• Memory channels
  1 2

• AES-NI
  No No

Compare the TDP requirements of TDP Apple A9 and Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 to select a cooling system. Note, the TDP value refers to thermal watts, not electrical watts.

• TDP (PL1)
  5 W

Architecture, interfaces, additional instructions supported by Apple A9 and Apple A9, virtual machine technologies and process technology.

• Instruction set (ISA)
  x86-64 (64 bit) ARMv8-A64 (64 bit)
• Virtualization
  None None
• L2-Cache
  3.00 MB --
• L3-Cache
  4.00 MB --
• Architecture
  A9 Kryo 280
• Technology
  16 nm 10 nm
• Socket
  N/A N/A
• Release date
  Q3/2015 Q2/2017
• Part Number
  -- MSM8998