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iPhone 13 Pro Max Why is the A15-chip faster than M1-chip?
- Thread starter silas_2001
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All M1-series chips use the same Firestorm and Icestorm core microarchitectures as the A14. The A15 uses newer Blizzard and Avalanche core designs. These might be the basis for the M2, or the M2 could be based on whatever weather phenomenon core codename they give the A16 depending on timing, but the M1 Pro/Max/Ultra still use the A14 cores.
Proof: Their single core benchmarks are all almost identical.
Both the A14 and the M1 have the same encoder hardware for ProRes. The A15 has newer, better and bigger encoder hardware. A lot of the additional silicon budget of the A15 went into the encoder and decoder blocks. Hence the A15 is faster at encoding and decoding ProRes.
This has (almost) nothing to do with how these chips performs otherwise. ProRes is rendered exclusively on those blocks, and those block do ProRes and only ProRes. This is what you'd call fixed function hardware, as it can't be utilized to do literally anything else. Where other general purpose computing blocks, such as GPU and CPU can run arbitrary code, these parts have the software more or less baked in. The advantage is that they are much faster and way more efficient at what they do. The disadvantage is that they, as I said, can do only that, and that there is no updating the algorithms with later versions as it is what it is and cannot be changed.
This is also the reason why Apple Silicon flies rendering these codecs, but falls relatively flat rendering other codecs it has no specific hardware for. This is why the M1 chips are only really good for video editing if you commit to using Apples proprietary codecs, but if you do they are very, very fast at doing that.
This has (almost) nothing to do with how these chips performs otherwise. ProRes is rendered exclusively on those blocks, and those block do ProRes and only ProRes. This is what you'd call fixed function hardware, as it can't be utilized to do literally anything else. Where other general purpose computing blocks, such as GPU and CPU can run arbitrary code, these parts have the software more or less baked in. The advantage is that they are much faster and way more efficient at what they do. The disadvantage is that they, as I said, can do only that, and that there is no updating the algorithms with later versions as it is what it is and cannot be changed.
This is also the reason why Apple Silicon flies rendering these codecs, but falls relatively flat rendering other codecs it has no specific hardware for. This is why the M1 chips are only really good for video editing if you commit to using Apples proprietary codecs, but if you do they are very, very fast at doing that.
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A15 has newer cores than M1 as M1 is based on A14 cores.
The advantage of your M1 iPad Pro will be in sustained performance as the iPad has better thermal headroom than the iPhone. Of course, encoding a short video won't show that advantage. But I believe once you are encoding longer videos, the iPhone will probably throttle sooner than the iPad.
Short burst of tests will not fully stress the systems, thus the newer cores of the A15 wins.
So you are cherry picking only the case? it could be due to better new generation encoder. A15 is not faster than M1 speaking in general.
It's a very valid point he's making.
Unless you can actually utilize the additional CPU- and GPU-Cores of the M1 the A15 is the faster chip, and this is an excellent example of it. That's also why the iPad Air would have been better off with a A15 instead of the M1 and that upgrade is such a nothingburger. There hardly is any application that takes actual advantage of the aforementioned features of the M1 on the iPad. Technically the better GPU would offer better graphics, but I doubt any game will actually be sensitive to that.
Since it appears as if Apple has stopped producing the A14 I fully expect the next generation iPad Nothing to also feature the M1 simply for economy of scale reasons. Then maybe we'll see third party applications take advantage of the M1 on the iPad eventually.
Okay so the M1 has no ProRes Encoders in it, so in a ProRes Export it will be slower compared to the iPhone 13
the M1 is basically a higher clocked version of A14 along with the extra CPU and GPU cores
A14 was clocked at 3.0Ghz whereas the M1 had it at 3.2Ghz
the A15 is just the A14 with the cores clocked to 3.2Ghz and the ProRes Encoders added to it for ProRes Recording
GeekBench 5 Single Core Results between the A14,A15 and the M1 make some sense in this regard
I got this from the lumafusion website:
Additionally, LumaFusion can also be installed on a Mac that is using the M1 processor. This type of Mac allows you to install iOS apps and use them
So basically lumafusion is an iOS app. Still looking
What devices will LumaFusion work with?
LumaFusion can be installed on any iOS device that is using iOS 15.0 or later. This means that LumaFusion can be installed on most iPads, iPadPros, iPhones and even the latest iPod.Additionally, LumaFusion can also be installed on a Mac that is using the M1 processor. This type of Mac allows you to install iOS apps and use them
So basically lumafusion is an iOS app. Still looking
According to Anandtech's review of the A15 there's a lot more to it than just a higher clocked A14 with extra encoders. The performance cores received a noticeable increase in performance, the efficiency cores saw a major overhaul, and on top of that the cache was doubled. This reduced the energy consumption of the A15 to below that of the A14 despite it running at a higher clock speed.
I’ve been thinking about this a bit this morning and I’m curious as to what an Intel MacBook Air would have as an export duration. Because, while the M1 is not as fast as the A15, the stuff the M1 can do related to ProRes is still impressive. One wouldn’t expect the same performance from a MacBook Air prior to Apple Silicon.
For all the limitations of Apple devices, there’s a wealth of base performance… the phone is more performant than the MacBook, sure, but both outperform the vast majority of PC’s. That’s just crazy
The A-series processors were I/O limited and didn't have full external display support or the bandwidth for moving large files. It helps round out the weaknesses of iPad, of course the OS now being the weak point.
Yup. Just small iterative changes for now. I expect M2 and A16 to be architecturally different from M1 series.
That's a valid point. Although, frankly, I feel this is also an oversight on Apples part. The A15 should already have included at least USB4 capabilities. But point taken. For this specific use case the change makes sense.
The biggest jump chips get is from processes, and as it appears M2/A16 will be on TSMC N4, which is technically N5++, not the new N3 node, which seems to be delayed. So while I guess improvements on the architecture side can matter (and they do with the A15, just not sooo much with the performance CPU cores, but everything else is notably better), don't expect a revolutionary improvement, but more iterative gains.
Personally I don't think the M2 will not outright obsolete the M1 chips so much you will "need" to upgrade. Some will want to, but these some always get the latest stuff. And honestly I think that's okay. The M1 chips are crazy fast and efficient as they are, and you will be fine daily driving those past 2025.
I wonder if they will ever adopt cool OS naming like android and maybe name its new OS something like AppleCider? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ and for the Pro Models AppleCider-V. Get it, V bc people use apple cider vinegar to do gods work!
And rename HomePod software to “AppleFritter,” because they’re always getting fried