iPhone X’s A11 Bionic chip: The most powerful processor in Apple’s history
The processors market is really curious because all competition starts from the same common point: ARM designs. However, from that same point, and taking different paths, they reach as disparate places as reflecting the power tests of each other. Qualcomm, Samsung, MediaTek, and of course Apple, which with its latest chip has turned everything upside down.
We knew almost everything about the new iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus and iPhone X. So aggressive were the leaks that on stage were being confirmed one after another, without exception. At least until the section on the new generation processor of Tim Cook’s boys arrived. The Apple A11 Bionic shined and shattered its competition. Apple took advantage of then to remove the chest and, seen the results, deservedly.
The Most Powerful Chip by Apple
Of course, every new processor that launches a manufacturer to replace its previous catalog leader is the most powerful in its history, but this new generation deserves this headline. The Apple A11 Bionic, based on test results that have already leaked, is not only the most powerful but leaves quite a distance to its predecessor, and all its competition.
We knew that the new Apple A11, whose last name Bionic was unveiled during the presentation keynote of the new iPhone, would be the first six-core mobile chip for Americans. Specifically two Monsoon cores and four Mistral cores, the names for the custom cores that are part of each of the clusters: one of high performance and another of low performance and energy saving.
One of the most devastating data: the Aion Bionic achieves the same power as the A10 Fusion with half energy.
Unfortunately, we still do not know the clock speed but Apple was responsible for giving some figures during his presentation. General and compared to the Apple A10 Fusion last year, but will serve us for now until a more detailed analysis of the processor is received. Apple stated, among other things, that the Monsoon is 25% more powerful than the Hurricane of the Apple A10, or that the Mistral outnumbered the Zephyr by 70%.
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Although perhaps the most important performance data came when Apple claimed that the Bionic A11 was able to yield to the same power as the Apple A10 Fusion but with only half energy, thus deducing that at full power left quite behind to its own processor. To the chip that currently arrives inside the iPhone of the 7 series, both the normal and the Plus.
Specifically, the Apple A11 Bionic is capable of running 30% faster than the Apple A10 Fusion and includes enhancement in the ISP, reducing the noise in the shots in low light or improving the focus in these situations.
The evolution also comes in video and in fact, the new iPhone is capable of capturing images at 60 fps in 4K and at 240 fps in FullHD. Double the performance of the Apple A10. Artificial intelligence comes to the Apple A11 Bionic thanks to what Apple calls a neural motor.
Apple also stressed the incorporation of neural networks into its chip. In the fashion of artificial intelligence, both Qualcomm and Huawei are incorporating specialized hardware into their processors, and Apple has followed the same path. Using this neural processing to improve Face ID, to better detect the faces in the videos, and to evolve the gross performance of the processor.
The Apple A11 Bionic, as shown by Apple during its presentation, is capable of running 600,000 million operations per second thanks in part to its 4.3 million transistors but over its neural motor.
Without a doubt, a powerful processor that is all a heavyweight but whose performance was reflected before even its debut in society. And it did so thanks to a direct leak from Geekbench.
The well-known benchmark uncovered an Apple A11 performance test before the keynote began. Controlled or not, the leak showed a phone known as the iPhone 10.5 running iOS 11 on 3GB of RAM and a six-core ARM processor. Of course, all eyes automatically identified the Apple A11, although the performance figures distracted by themselves.
According to Geekbench, the Apple A11 Bionic has been able to get 4,061 points in the performance test for a single core, reaching 9,959 points in the multi-core test.
To put ourselves in context we can observe the last chips of the market render aboard their respective phones, such as the Snapdragon 835 or the Exynos 8895, as there are still possibilities to test what the Kirin 970 is capable of that has not yet arrived on board Huawei Mate 10.
Double mononuclear power, 50% extra multi-core power, this is the Aion Bionic against its competition
Also according to Geekbench, the Galaxy S8 has obtained 1,965 / 6,495 with an Exynos 8895 while the Xiaomi Mi 6 has achieved 1,900 / 5,989 points with the Snapdragon 835. That means that the processor that Apple has mounted inside its new iPhone achieves twice as much power as its monocoque competition and more than 50% extra multi-core. As we said, it a martial stroll in front of its competition.
There is no doubt that this Apple A11 Bionic is going to bring a lot of joy to Apple and possibly get the next generation of Qualcomm and Exynos chips to put the batteries like never before to overcome the current generation. But the most curious thing is, undoubtedly, that this performance has been obtained on the same common basis: ARM. Further proof of how far you can go by customizing the products to the extreme. It will be interesting to see the 2018 chip war.
