Apple A6 Benchmark Review, Specs & Phones

Apple A6 system on a chip (SoC) was introduced in 2012 alongside the iPhone 5, and the Apple A6X was introduced shortly thereafter for the iPad 4. They represent first custom processors from Apple. Previous versions of Apple A-series, including the A4, A5, and A5X, all ran previous existing mobile processor designs like the ARM Cortex A9.

Instead of sticking with the Cortex A9 or moving on the new ARM A15, Apple has licensed the ARM v7s instruction set for something very unique. Apple’s new iPhone 5 has some newer features inside. The A6 chip is 22 percent smaller than the A5 chip, and according to Apple, it has a capability of twice the CPU power and twice the graphical power inside.

Process Technology (nm)

Battery life in the A6 appears to be more improved, possibly due to the chip’s low power consumption. Apple claims the iPhone 5 can browse the web at LTE speeds for eight hours, video for ten hours, and achieve 225 hours of standby which is thought to be the first Apple chip made on Samsung’s HKMG new 32-nanometer manufacturing process. By moving to a more advanced manufacturing process,it tends to benefit by exhibiting faster speeds and more efficient power consumption.

Apple A6 Processor

It is a dual-core Apple CPU that can run from between 800MHz and 1.2GHz. The A6 chip was made on Apple’s first custom processor which was called “Swift”. Having had previous experiences between the ARM Cortex A9 and A15 gave Apple reasons to find the best balance between performance and power consumption.

What’s more, Apple laid out the processor manually, which is almost unheard of these days, and shows just how seriously Apple is taking every bit and atom of the iPhone’s design. Apple with the A6 chip sought to make the iPhone 5 twice as fast as the iPhone 4S and they’ve succeeded to a large extent. The Apple A6 is absolutely excellent.

Earlier results posted by Geekbench suggested that the A6 chip was roughly twice as fast as any chip in an existing iOS product, beating the dual-core A5 and A5X processors in the iPhone 4S and third-generation iPad, the performance might be compared with modern day Snapdragon 439. However, the previous software version wasn’t measuring the clock speed properly.

Apple A6 Graphics

The integrated GPU in the A6 is a PowerVR SGX543MP3 graphics processor which is clocked at 266MHz. The A6 processor package also incorporates 1 GB LPDDR2-1066 RAM compared with 512MB of LPDDR2-800 RAM in the Apple A5, providing double capacity of memory while increasing the theoretical memory bandwidth from 6.4 GBps to 8.5 GBps.

Performance

The A6 includes an all improved image signal processor (ISP), when compared with the ISP in the A5 allows the iPhone 5 to capture images 40 percent faster, and has better low-light performance with spatial noise reduction.

Video stabilization has also been improved, and you can take photos while recording video. There’s no doubt the Graphics in the iPhone 5 is a superb optical improvement.

Apple A6 Phones

• Apple iPhone 5
• Apple iPhone 5C

Apple A6 Full Specifications

Chipset Details

==> Disclaimer: Specifications, features shown for this chipset was inserted manually. We cannot guarantee that the info on this page is 100% correct. If you think that any information of this particular chipset is wrong or missing, please don’t hesitate to Contact Us.

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