1 can actually be seen as a magic version of the A14, just like the A12X and A12Z used by the previous iPad Pro, which are actually variants of the A12 chip. Nothing more than CPU expansion to 8 cores, GPU expansion to 7 or 8 cores.
Before analyzing the strength of the two, it is necessary to understand that the A15 of the iPhone 13 is a standard version with only four Gpus. The A15 on the iPhone 13 Pro is an enhanced version with five Gpus. The A15 on the iPad mini 6 is a reduced version of the A15 on the iPhone 13 Pro.
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The same goes for the M1, which has a seven-GPU version for the MacBook Air and the iMac. There is also an 8-GPU version for the MacBook Pro, iMac, and iPad Pro. For the sake of description, the five GPU non-downcelled version of the A15 and the eight GPU M1 are discussed below.
I believe that most people will take it for granted that M1 must be stronger. After all, the M1 gave the impression that it was for the Mac! You don't have to tell me. I don't know. Apple has piled up enough material on the A15, simply putting a square chip into a rectangle. This year's A15 is much larger than last year's A14, and the number of transistors alone has increased by 3.2 billion to 15 billion. And this incredibly powerful M1, in fact, only 16 billion transistors. From this point of view, is there already a certain comparability?
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Thanks to TSMC's latest N5P process, the A15's two large cores have been increased to 3.2GHz, while the four small cores have also been increased to 2.0GHz. Therefore, in terms of single-core performance, there is no difference between the A15 and the M1. But M1's large core actually has 4, compared with A15 more than two high-performance large core, so when it comes to CPU multi-core performance, A15 really can not beat.
The GPU is in fact a similar situation, A15 has only 5 Gpus, while M1 has 8, but also multi-core performance is significantly stronger. No way, the M1's TDP is originally 20W+, which is unthinkable for the A15.
So first of all, we can draw a preliminary conclusion that in the case of single-core CPU, A15 and M1 performance is comparable. In terms of multi-core performance, whether it is CPU or GPU, M1 can beat A15. In fact, this is also easy to understand, after all, computers really have a lot of multitasking needs, and power consumption is not as harsh as mobile phones.
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However, the same 16-core neural network engine, but the A15 speed reached 15.8TOPS, while the M1 actually only 11TOPS, A15 almost 44% faster ah!
In terms of energy efficiency, the A15 has actually put more effort than the M1. For example, although the A15 is a mobile phone chip, its level 2 cache reaches an astonishing 12MB, which is a 50% increase compared to the A14. If it is compared with Qualcomm's chip, it is almost twice the sum of Snapdragon 888 II and III caches. Even the M1 desktop chip, in fact, the level 2 cache is only 12MB. Yes, the A15's secondary cache is desktop-level chip level.
Another magic weapon for Apple's chip performance and energy efficiency is actually SLC, which is system-level cache. This device can significantly avoid frequent access to DRAM, the main role is not only to reduce latency, but also to significantly reduce access to high-energy DRAM ah! In my impression, the A12 only has 8MB SLC, the A13 and A14 have been raised to 16MB, and this year's A15 has been directly raised to 32MB. When it comes to mobile phone chip stacking, I really haven't seen more ruthless than Apple!
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How crazy is this thing? May wish to compare the Snapdragon 888, the SLC equipped with this goods is 3MB, almost one-tenth of the A15! The M1 is essentially more like an upgrade of the A14, no official SLC data on the M1 can be found, but it is basically certain that the M1 SLC is not less than 16MB, but it should not reach 32MB. Not less than 16MB because the specifications of this product will not be lower than A14, and not higher than 32MB because from the perspective of the SLC part of M1, it should not reach 32MB scale.
So, in terms of energy efficiency, the A15 is actually a step further.
But to be honest, these two different uses of the chip, in fact, pure comparison does not make much sense. What really matters is that both have done the best they can in their respective fields. When Apple announced the MacBook Air M1, it said that even if it removed the fan and gave up active cooling, its performance was better than 98% of similar products on the market. When the M1 was used in the iPad Pro, it was once again shocked by the ultra-high energy efficiency of the M1.
Of course, the a15 chip is more powerful. 5 chip as Apple's newest processor. The small power consumption is very small, and the fluency of the system is very good. It is currently ranked number one among all processors. As a technology company, Apple carries the dreams of many young people. Science and technology research and development personnel are the world's best. My answer can help you.
m1, of course. m1 is one of the most powerful chips in mobile phones