A14X Bionic allegedly benchmarked days before Apple Silicon Mac event
The chip expected to be at the core of the first Apple Silicon Mac -- the "A14X" -- may have been benchmarked just days before the next Apple event.
![Apple's first Mac with Apple Silicon will have A14X](https://photos5.appleinsider.com/gallery/38652-73684-IMG_3834-l.jpg)
Apple's first Mac with Apple Silicon will have A14X
The alleged CPU benchmarks for the "A14X" show a 1.80GHz processor capable of turbo-boosting to 3.10GHz marking this the first custom Apple Silicon to ever clock above 3GHz. It is an 8-core processor with big-little arrangement. The GPU results show 8GB of RAM will be included with the processor.
The single-core benchmark for the "A14X" scored 1634 vs the A12Z at 1118. The A14 scored 1,583 points for single-core tests, which is expected as single-core results shouldn't change much between the regular and "X" models.
The multi-core benchmark for the "A14X" scored 7220 vs the A12Z at 4657. The A14 scored 4198 for multi-core, which means the "A14X" delivers a marked increase in performance in the sorts of environments that the GeekBench test suite focuses on. The additional RAM and graphics capabilities boost this result much higher than the standard iPhone processor.
For comparison, a 16-inch MacBook Pro with the Intel Core-i9 processor scores 1096 for single and 6869 for multi-core tests. This means the alleged "A14X" outperforms the existing MacBook Pro lineup by a notable margin.
The benchmark testing was reportedly performed with Geekbench 5 on an unknown device. It is unknown if this benchmark is real, and AppleInsider was unable to verify the provenance of the information with certainty.
If accurate, the tests are a good indication of the performance gains a Mac with Apple Silicon will have. Apple is expected to announce a 13-inch MacBook Air, 13-inch MacBook Pro, and 16-inch MacBook Pro during the November 10 "One More Thing" event.
![Apple's first Mac with Apple Silicon will have A14X](https://photos5.appleinsider.com/gallery/38652-73684-IMG_3834-l.jpg)
Apple's first Mac with Apple Silicon will have A14X
The alleged CPU benchmarks for the "A14X" show a 1.80GHz processor capable of turbo-boosting to 3.10GHz marking this the first custom Apple Silicon to ever clock above 3GHz. It is an 8-core processor with big-little arrangement. The GPU results show 8GB of RAM will be included with the processor.
The single-core benchmark for the "A14X" scored 1634 vs the A12Z at 1118. The A14 scored 1,583 points for single-core tests, which is expected as single-core results shouldn't change much between the regular and "X" models.
The multi-core benchmark for the "A14X" scored 7220 vs the A12Z at 4657. The A14 scored 4198 for multi-core, which means the "A14X" delivers a marked increase in performance in the sorts of environments that the GeekBench test suite focuses on. The additional RAM and graphics capabilities boost this result much higher than the standard iPhone processor.
For comparison, a 16-inch MacBook Pro with the Intel Core-i9 processor scores 1096 for single and 6869 for multi-core tests. This means the alleged "A14X" outperforms the existing MacBook Pro lineup by a notable margin.
The benchmark testing was reportedly performed with Geekbench 5 on an unknown device. It is unknown if this benchmark is real, and AppleInsider was unable to verify the provenance of the information with certainty.
If accurate, the tests are a good indication of the performance gains a Mac with Apple Silicon will have. Apple is expected to announce a 13-inch MacBook Air, 13-inch MacBook Pro, and 16-inch MacBook Pro during the November 10 "One More Thing" event.
Comments
Surely an A14T would be more powerful than an A14X - I’m thinking a Mac will need a better GPU than an iPad?
It’s the performance of MBP16 in a fanless machine.
For higher performance Mac SKUs, I totally expect the core and GPU counts to go up. Like, the MBP16 could have a SKU that performs like an 18 core iMac Pro.
https://www.cpu-monkey.com/en/compare_cpu-apple_a14x_bionic-1795-vs-intel_core_i9_9880h-958
iGPU - FP32 Performance (Single-precision GFLOPS)
The theoretical computing performance of the internal graphics unit of the processor with simple accuracy (32 bit) in GFLOPS. GFLOPS indicates how many billion floating point operations the iGPU can perform per second.Apple A14X @ 3.10 GHz
Intel UHD Graphics 630 @ 1.20 GHz
Geekbench 5, 64bit (Single-Core)
Geekbench 5 is a cross plattform benchmark that heavily uses the systems memory. A fast memory will push the result a lot. The single-core test only uses one CPU core, the amount of cores or hyperthreading ability doesn't count.8x 1.80 GHz (3.10 GHz)
8x 2.30 GHz (4.80 GHz) HT
Geekbench 5, 64bit (Multi-Core)
Geekbench 5 is a cross plattform benchmark that heavily uses the systems memory. A fast memory will push the result a lot. The multi-core test involves all CPU cores and taks a big advantage of hyperthreading.8x 1.80 GHz (3.10 GHz)
8x 2.30 GHz (4.80 GHz) HT
https://www.notebookcheck.net/Qualcomm-s-Snapdragon-8cx-amasses-respectable-score-on-Geekbench-and-closes-in-on-Intel-s-Core-i5-8250U.434104.0.html
And the 8cx came out in early-mid 2019 on the 7nm process, making it equivalent to the Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 that is in the Microsoft Surface Duo phone/tablet and last year's flagship Android phones like the Pixel 4 and OnePlus 7. Meaning that the next Qualcomm Snapdragon laptop chip - which will come out this year on a 5nm process and contain the new Cortex X1 super core jointly designed by ARM Holdings and Samsung - will match the Intel Core i7. Early benchmarks from Qualcomm and Samsung chips are in that use the new Cortex X1 design and 5nm process which state that the increase in performance over the 865 - the same basic architecture as the 8cx - is significant.
So the ability of smartphone SOCs to surpass AMD and Intel CPUs in clock frequencies and benchmark tests has been no big deal for quite some time. For example, Snapdragon CPUs in Android phones surpassed the 1.1 GHz dual core Intel Core i3 that is in the MacBook Air some time ago. The question is whether these ARM CPUs can have similar or better performance when running a laptop operating system - macOS as opposed to iOS - with equivalent workloads - i.e. true multitasking/multithreading and heavy I/O that Apple doesn't allow on iOS or even an iPad Pro running iPadOS. For example, running a demo full stack application that has the client app, server app and middleware in separate containers ... the sort of thing that college students in web development classes run all the time.
THAT is what everyone is waiting to see. The Windows on ARM devices don't give us any indication because the app support is terrible, and the first ChromeOS device on Snapdragon 8cx won't hit until 2021. So next week is when everyone is going to find out how much better Apple Silicon is going to be than i5, i7 and possibly i9 chips on professional workloads.
In any event this would make for a very nice MBA if they don't screw up the rest of the design.
Would probably still be cheaper than what Apple was paying Intel.
This has been tested already with the DTK. macOS already runs on an A12Z-based Mac mini - an SoC that's over 2 years old. The overall consensus was that it is a perfectly capable system. And that was with an SoC that was specifically designed for mobile only. In fact, one developer said that system ran x86-64 apps in translation (thru Rosetta) faster than a Surface Pro X could run natively!
Also, you have to remember Apple did say they were designing a family of SoCs specifically for the Mac.
No need to put 2 of these in a single system. Instead you just bump up core counts. This is what they do with An and AnX SoCs... double up the high performance cores, GPU cores, and memory bandwidth.
Gurman says the first Mac parts will be 12C, 8 big/4 little, so I think this 8C part won't be it, unless they are only counting big cores. Or else A14X for the 13" Air and/or 12", this 12C Firestorm/Icestorm part for Pro? A14T will be that, perhaps.
I still think the A14X is for the iPad Pro and the A14T for a new gaming-centric Apple TV. (The A14T was mentioned alongside a new custom GPU.)
Mac SoCs will have different branding to differentiate them from iOS devices, even though they'll most certainly be "based" off the A-series, i.e. use many of the same IP blocks. I think Apple's goal is to get the Mac line completely above (or match) the performance of the iPad. Seriously, it is embarrassing when a phone you put in your pocket is almost twice as powerful as your laptop! So Apple will want to draw a performance line across all their devices. Where performance of the top iPhone mixes with bottom iPad, and top iPad mixes with bottom Macs.
In short, I think Apple will be introducing a whole new line of chips vs. using the A series in a Mac. My reasoning is that the A series is heavily customized for mobile purposes - specifically in power usage (i.e. lower power usage) to keep heat generation down and increase battery life. Neither of these will be as much of a concern even on a MacBook that will have both active cooling and a bigger battery.
I'm not sure if the A series is flexible enough to be reconfigured with a higher TDP (thermal design power), or if maybe Apple is going to choose to go with efficiency vs. raw power at the outset.
Regardless, we will find out soon!