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iPhone 13 Pro Max Why is the A15-chip faster than M1-chip?

S

silas_2001

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Oct 30, 2018
26
22
Yes, you heard right.

I just bought the iPad Pro M1 8 GB RAM and 11 inch. I decided to test how faster the M1-chip was, compared to my iPhone 13 Pro Max, and therefore downloaded LumaFusion. And now it's become a little weird. Because the A15 chip is actually faster than the M1 chip.



The original file was an: 8K IPB 29,97 fps MPEG-4 film with a duration of 1 minute and 54 seconds.

The output file was 4K 29,97 fps Apple ProRess 422 with the format Quicktime (.mov)

A15 chip export time: 2 minutes and 20 seconds
M1 chip export time: 3 minutes and 32 seconds

How is that possible. I mean, the M1 chip has a much higher Multi-core score, so why is the iPhone still faster in rendering/exporting the file?

I ran the test three times, and all with the same result.

Actually, I am beginning a new YouTube-channel, and wanted to make a video comparison with the iPad Pro M1, Mac Mini M1 (16 GB RAM), MacBook Air M1 (8 GB RAM), and a monster of a PC - an Nvidia Geforce RTX 3090 with Intel Core i9 12. gen - all that together and comparing multiple rendering processes and see how much different they all are

But I am not sure about making the video, because I cant figure out, why the M1-chip is slower than a A15 chip

Is there anyone who can explain that?
 
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w5jck

w5jck

Suspended
Nov 9, 2013
1,516
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Has LumaFusion been tweaked to take advantage of the M1 chip? Few iPads and no iPhones have the M1, so maybe the app hasn't been upgraded for it. Or maybe the development team for the iPhone version of the app did a better job than the iPad team. My guess is that the issue is with the app.
 
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AmazingTechGeek

AmazingTechGeek

macrumors demi-god
Mar 6, 2015
684
304
Los Angeles
The A15's in the regular 13's has the same engine as the M1 Pro, but scaled down because one less GPU core means less bandwidth to use for ProRes encoding/decoding. The 13 Pro series captures ProRes and uses that additional GPU to have a more robust engine compared to the non pro's.

Else, there's not much difference in the chips themselves outside of what Apple enables via software. The biggest hardware difference is actually the display.
 
JPack

JPack

macrumors G5
Mar 27, 2017
13,158
25,253
Unregistered 4U said:
On the tech spec pages, only the Pro lists:
“ProRes video recording up to 4K at 30 fps (1080p at 30 fps for 128GB storage)“
There’s no mention of ProRes on the non-Pro page.
Click to expand...

Can't record, but doesn't mean can't encode.

You remember Portrait Lighting photos on iPhone 8? It was available as a real-time feature on iPhone 8, but iPhone 7 could do it post-capture. The speed of the processor was the issue.
 
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U

Unregistered 4U

macrumors G4
Jul 22, 2002
10,461
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JPack said:
Can't record, but doesn't mean can't encode.

You remember Portrait Lighting photos on iPhone 8? It was available as a real-time feature on iPhone 8, but iPhone 7 could do it post-capture. The speed of the processor was the issue.
Click to expand...
I should have just went to LumaFusion’s website. :) As of last October, they support editing (which I’m assuming includes export) on both the Pro and non-Pro. I’m curious on if there’s a speed difference, but I don’t have a non-Pro 13 to check!
 
U

Unregistered 4U

macrumors G4
Jul 22, 2002
10,461
8,486
silas_2001 said:
Actually, I am beginning a new YouTube-channel, and wanted to make a video comparison with the iPad Pro M1, Mac Mini M1 (16 GB RAM), MacBook Air M1 (8 GB RAM), and a monster of a PC - an Nvidia Geforce RTX 3090 with Intel Core i9 12. gen - all that together and comparing multiple rendering processes and see how much different they all are
Click to expand...
Make the video. It’s even BETTER that it’s inconclusive because you can ask folks to “drop why they think this is in the comments” and you’ll get good engagement numbers right off the bat. Then, you have a reason to ask people to subscribe for part 2. :)
 
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L

leman

macrumors Core
Oct 14, 2008
19,409
19,491
AmazingTechGeek said:
I rarely say this:

Architecture:

A14 -> M1
A14 -> A15
A15 -> M1 Pro/Max
M1 Max -> M1 Ultra

Encoders/Decoders/ISP/Audio Engine:

A15 (iPhone 13) -> M1 Pro
A15 (iPhone Pro) -> M1 Max
Click to expand...

All M1 chips are based on A14, not A15. The encoders/display engine in Pro/Max might be the same as in A15, we don’t know. But CPU/GPU etc. is all from A14.
 
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A

aknova

macrumors newbie
Dec 2, 2020
13
15
So correct me if I’m wrong, but does this basically tell us there’s a 30% difference in the A14(M1) to A15? Does this mean we could see a 45% performance gain between m1(A14) to m2(A16)????? Or am I reading to much into this?
 
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