Apple’s superiority in mobile chip design is once again demonstrated. The company, which has been creating SoCs for its mobile devices for several years, and which will now also design those for its Macs, progresses each year towards new milestones in power and efficiency. And Qualcomm continues to try to catch up.
Qualcomm and Apple aren’t rival companies, at least not quite. The two still have alliances when it comes to iPhone modems. And it is thanks to them that Apple was able to launch its first 5G devicesbecause they have not yet managed to develop their own designed modem.
However, in the field of processors, the story is very different. Apple has been ahead of Qualcomm for some time, managing to place its A-series chips at the top of their category rankings. And even if the latter has just presented its new generation of chips, still does not approach the Cupertino giant.
As the Anandtech share, the first Geekbench 5 benchmarks of the Snapdragon 888. In the single-core test, the new chip hit 1,135 points, while in the multi-core test it hit 3,794. Compared to the A14 Bionic of the ‘iPhone 12, the latter is always ahead with scores of 1,603 and 4,187, respectively.
However, it doesn’t end there. The A13 Bionic, which powers the iPhone 11, achieved scores of 1331 and 3366. So the Snapdragon 888 only manages to beat the A13 in the multi-core test, and no big difference.
Where the new Snapdragon 888 seems to shine is in its GPU efficiency. Although in Anandtech tests underperforming the Vulkan / Metal test at 86 FPSCompared to the 91 or 102 that the A14 and A13 chips are capable of achieving, the new Qualcomm chip might be able to maintain that peak performance for longer with less power consumption.
Since then, The crown of the ARM processor remains in dispute. The big chipmakers are trying to react against the arrival of Apple’s M1 chip, and in the next few years we should see big improvements from the competition. It will be a most interesting battle, the result of which will benefit only the users.
