iPhone 8 Faster than a Core i5 13-Inch MacBook Pro in Geekbench

Megalith

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The iPhone 8 supposedly has a MacBook Pro Intel-level processor inside that “leaves the Samsung S8 for dead”: on the multicore portion of one test, the iPhone 8 hit 10,170, edging out the score from the 13-inch Apple MacBook Pro with a 7th-generation Core i5 processor (9,213). They say that the impressive performance won’t necessarily make a massive difference in everyday use when it comes to simple tasks like opening apps, however. Thanks gritan.

Geekbench comparisons between phones and laptops used to be pretty meaningless, as the tests were not directly comparable, but that hasn’t been the case for some time now. Founder John Poole confirmed that it is legitimate to directly compare scores across platforms, though he did add an important caveat: “Laptops are better at delivering sustained performance over a longer period of time, as opposed to the shorter max burst performance that benchmarks like Geekbench 4 are designed to measure. In other words, the iPhone 8 simply doesn’t have the thermals and heat dissipation necessary to replace your laptop.”
 
I would add that different OSes with different scheduling priorities also make a difference.
And the data sets used by Geekbench probably fit in the cache of the mobile processor. Try using a bigger dataset or promote cache thrashing or more intercore communication.
 
i don't know anything about phone cpus, and I only use a cheap android phone as daily driver, but damn.
As long as no one touches them on speed, apple will always have one more thing to brag about.

42 seconds vs 183 seconds. Samsung is a slug.
 
is that XPS running an i3? what it looks like to me is that it seems that benchmark is a very OSX/IOS friendly benchmark if the numbers are accurate at least
 
And Apple will still intentionally handicap the iPhone 8's performance in two years when that year's Next Great iPhone is released.
 
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Samsung = potato based on this
 

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Kdawg said:
As long as no one touches them on speed, apple will always have one more thing to brag about.
Click to expand...

Unfortunately, only since about the iPhone 3GS, the iPhone has consistently led nearly every single performance based benchmark possible on a phone. But outside of that, they are cheap junk with subpar components....so I've heard.
 
westrock2000 said:
Unfortunately, only since about the iPhone 3GS, the iPhone has consistently led nearly every single performance based benchmark possible on a phone. But outside of that, they are cheap junk with subpar components....so I've heard.
Click to expand...

Well at least that is partly true, now that the iPhone X uses a Samsung OLED screen they are not entirely made of sub-par components anymore. ;)
 
Would be nice to see a dozen different benchmarks that simulate real world workloads to come to any real conclusion.
 
shpankey said:
Name one iPhone app that takes advantage of this in any noteable way.
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Photo pre and post processing, there are others but I'm sure this is what Apple wanted it for.
westrock2000 said:
Unfortunately, only since about the iPhone 3GS, the iPhone has consistently led nearly every single performance based benchmark possible on a phone. But outside of that, they are cheap junk with subpar components....so I've heard.
Click to expand...

Every release it goes like this:
Android Benchmark does well "WOO LOOK AT IT GO!"
Apple demolishes Benchmark "We need more benchmarks to know for sure..."
 
I wouldn't trust Geekbench results any further than I could take those results, print them on a sheet of paper, fold the paper into one damned awesome streamlined paper airplane, and throw it off the southern rim of the Grand Canyon. :D

We all known - being on a computer hardware enthusiast's forum - that benchmarks AND hardware can be gimped to provide boosted results in specific benchmarks and there has been enough of that over the past decade or so in a variety of such tests so, again, I don't trust Geekbench with respect to iOS device testing. I see the single core scores being so high for one single core, then I look at the multithreaded scores and when it's merely a close doubling (most of the time) of the single core score even in spite of there being multiple cores more than just 2 then there's got to be something wrong with either the benhcmark itself (poorly coded multithreaded aspects?) or there's something gimped about the execution of the benchmark on the given device/platform.

There's just no believable way that a single core of the A11 can produce that single core score and then 6 of those cores (even with the differential in clock speed for 2 of them) working together can barely provide a doubling of the single core score.

People can see that, right? People can see and understand that either the benchmark code is fucking busted to Hell and back or there's something else going on someplace during the execution of the benchmark, right?
 
And yet they still don't try to really nail the desktop replacement schtick.

Imagine a wireless dock, phone on a wireless charger (that can disengage the battery for direct power so it doesn't stuff it), that lets you run your office applications, web browser and play simple games. Laptops and Desktops reduced to large screen devices with a keyboard at a stroke.

It's been done a few times but it's always been crappy. We're so close.
 
Trimlock said:
Photo pre and post processing, there are others but I'm sure this is what Apple wanted it for.


Every release it goes like this:
Android Benchmark does well "WOO LOOK AT IT GO!"
Apple demolishes Benchmark "We need more benchmarks to know for sure..."
Click to expand...
Its so weird how people will do this all the time. Especially intel fanbois.

The geekbench creator said it on the linked article, that he made the benchmark as truthful as possible for this type of test and its even mentioned on the post, that thermal throttling and the OS (gimped ios vs windows or osx) are the factors that would give the laptop the win over the iphone.

Now, who knows if in the future, apple releases some type of device with these cpus but with proper cooling and that would be another story.
 
I'm no iphone fan. Never owned one amd probably never will. That being said im less than impressed with the performance of my s8.
 
Don't be surprised some day if Apple ditches Intel for macOS. The single core performance is impressive. Apple has been buying research companies for several years so they have more control (can't blame them).
By using Intel, Apple is bound to another companies decisions and planning. This doesn't always work out for both companies. Innovation is good - even if you don't like Apple.
 
steakman1971 said:
Don't be surprised some day if Apple ditches Intel for macOS. The single core performance is impressive. Apple has been buying research companies for several years so they have more control (can't blame them).
By using Intel, Apple is bound to another companies decisions and planning. This doesn't always work out for both companies. Innovation is good - even if you don't like Apple.
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For now they will fake as if going with AMD and extract concessions from Intel.
 
iPhones have some attractive features. Still haven't bought one, but I'm open to it someday in the future. Maybe I'll be more courageous at some point.
 
What was that image everyone was posting? “Welcome to 3 years ago?”

Specs matter remember that.

Only a couple more years till Apple ditches Intel.
 
Kdawg said:
i don't know anything about phone cpus, and I only use a cheap android phone as daily driver, but damn.
As long as no one touches them on speed, apple will always have one more thing to brag about.

42 seconds vs 183 seconds. Samsung is a slug.
Click to expand...
Apple has designed in-house ARM processors that they design for their software, and program their software specifically around their processors, very similarly to game console software for a specific hardware platform.
Samsung and other Android smartphone manufacturers are using off-the-shelf ARM processors, which are generally run-of-the-mill processors without many/any custom designs within the CPU portion of the SoC.

Also, Apple-based ARM CPUs/SoCs are clock-for-clock much faster than standard off-the-shelf ARM processors.
This isn't a pro-Apple post or anything, it just is what it is hardware-wise.
 
Apple’s ARM has really been taking off in the past few iterations.

This one benchmark aside - it’s a single canned datapoint, so take it for what it’s worth. But it’s still a data point.

There have been rumors of an ARM OS X device for a long time now. I think we are still a ways from that, but the curve that Apple has been taking lately with ARM progression may change my mind.

A11 may struggle on long term tasks because of power and thermal constraints of being in a phone. Put that same chip in a laptop form factor and then we would be able to draw some more interesting comparisons. Or, for an even more interesting thought experiment - put that Core i5 into a phone.
 
Red Falcon said:
Apple has designed in-house ARM processors that they design for their software, and program their software specifically around their processors, very similarly to game console software for a specific hardware platform.
Samsung and other Android smartphone manufacturers are using off-the-shelf ARM processors, which are generally run-of-the-mill processors without many/any custom designs within the CPU portion of the SoC.

Also, Apple-based ARM CPUs/SoCs are clock-for-clock much faster than standard off-the-shelf ARM processors.
This isn't a pro-Apple post or anything, it just is what it is hardware-wise.
Click to expand...

Thing is, Samsung is nearly as big as Apple, they are the two largest tech companies in the world. Samsung sells more phones, by a lot. They have their own fabrication capability as well - a lot of it too actually. Heck, they even produce a lot of the components in an iPhone.

So to try to say that Samsung is lagging because they are using off the shelf and lack integration is true, but also a bit disingenuous. Samsung certainly has the capability to do that same level of customization if they wished. LG could probably as well. Xiaomi is just starting down this path. That level of integration isn’t cheap and doesn’t come overnight, whereas using off the shelf with Android is cheap and low risk.

Unless you are able to integrate really well you risk turning into another Blackberry, Nokia, or Motorola. No company outside of Apple has really been able to do it with a phone, or a computer. Heck, Apple isn’t even really a good computer, software, or hardware company. But they are an excellent company at providing an overall integrated user experience.
 
Brian_B said:
Thing is, Samsung is nearly as big as Apple, they are the two largest tech companies in the world. Samsung sells more phones, by a lot. They have their own fabrication capability as well - a lot of it too actually. Heck, they even produce a lot of the components in an iPhone.

So to try to say that Samsung is lagging because they are using off the shelf and lack integration is true, but also a bit disingenuous. Samsung certainly has the capability to do that same level of customization if they wished. LG could probably as well. Xiaomi is just starting down this path. That level of integration isn’t cheap and doesn’t come overnight, whereas using off the shelf with Android is cheap and low risk.

Unless you are able to integrate really well you risk turning into another Blackberry, Nokia, or Motorola. No company outside of Apple has really been able to do it with a phone, or a computer. Heck, Apple isn’t even really a good computer, software, or hardware company. But they are an excellent company at providing an overall integrated user experience.
Click to expand...

Samsung cant even build software alone to work well, good luck making hardware and software and having them work seamlessly together.

Its not just 1 datapoint, even the iPhone 7 dominates when it comes to multitasking and video encoding, the 8 just takes it to another level and sets android roughly 2yrs behind still.
 
We are at the point with cellphones that CPUs were in during the early 2000s, before GPU computing was something anyone talked about. AMD and Intel were the two major players. It was a race to whoever could do "Computing as we know it" in every way, without fail. Peeps can argue about which won, AMD X2 or Intel P4, but that's where we are with cellphones at this point. Now it's Apple and Samsung fighting for the ubiquitous mobile computing crown.

And yes, "computing as we know it" has evolved, just like everything else. Software is a much bigger deal now, and GPUs are a known resource.

With all that in mind, I'd still rather do certain tasks (playing/working with many-GB files (video/audio/whatevs)) on a mediocre desktop rather then a top-of-the-line cellphone.

I'm sure that will change.
 
GB is as optimized as it can be for Apple. Hence why it also looks extraordinary good against other phones. And then there is the workset and instruction issue between ARM and x86.
 
Would vastly prefer to be able to stick with Android for my phones but every time I get things set up for sms on desktop and messaging that'll work well with iOS and Android friends it inevitably breaks because of a new chrome version, os patch or something. Meanwhile the bloated ecosystem of macos/iOS just works in spite of having the appeal of a toaster. I've gone as long as a couple years on Linux+Android for work, but so many kludges.

Then the Apple shenanigans of using sub par RAM to slow down my older iPhone with bloated updates I have to install for security annoy me but not half as much as my android phone that never got the updates promised by Verizon.

Sigh.
 
aokman said:
What was that image everyone was posting? “Welcome to 3 years ago?”

Specs matter remember that.

Only a couple more years till Apple ditches Intel.
Click to expand...

The A11X early next year will easily and clearly overtake Intel, and the A12 and A12X will outperform Intel even in GPU stakes. All in a device that sips power and gets barely warm to the touch.

The A12 will be an interesting chip, as it must be hard for Apple to keep throwing up huge performance increases each generation. Can't remember the last time a new generation of Intel CPU offered up a genuine 25% performance increase, let alone Intel doing this every year.
 
They really should put "7th-gen" in the graphic for the i5, the graphic itself isn't anywhere near suggestive enough of that, had to dig for the info.
 
Stimpy88 said:
The A11X early next year will easily and clearly overtake Intel, and the A12 and A12X will outperform Intel even in GPU stakes. All in a device that sips power and gets barely warm to the touch.
Click to expand...

Riiiiiiiiiiiight...

So, in 4 years from now we will all change our desktops to get ARM desktops?... ok then, i have heard it all.
 
Shintai said:
GB is as optimized as it can be for Apple. Hence why it also looks extraordinary good against other phones. And then there is the workset and instruction issue between ARM and x86.
Click to expand...

Wow, Intel still sponsoring your posts here?

You need to step it up son, Intel's popularity is slipping fast, and taking bitchy swipes and spreading FUD is not helping the cause dude.
 
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Revdarian said:
Riiiiiiiiiiiight...

So, in 4 years from now we will all change our desktops to get ARM desktops?... ok then, i have heard it all.
Click to expand...

You don't earn enough to afford an Apple CPU man. But regardless, after reading your heavily thought out post, your existing CPU is obviously fast enough for you.
 
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Revdarian said:
Riiiiiiiiiiiight...

So, in 4 years from now we will all change our desktops to get ARM desktops?... ok then, i have heard it all.
Click to expand...

Running these chips in desktops or laptops is not that far fetched, its coming. Even now jist imagine a couple of these packages running in parallel, with an actual heatsink and more power allowances.
 
Revdarian said:
Riiiiiiiiiiiight...

So, in 4 years from now we will all change our desktops to get ARM desktops?... ok then, i have heard it all.
Click to expand...

When they give up on AMD, they always head back to the next in queue, in this case Apple. Qualcomm was also a contender at a time but felt out of favour. ARM servers was also to takeover everything, until EPYC released. Then after sales show up I am sure ARM will be championed again.
 
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