Iphone 14 | Performance duel: A16 from the iPhone 14 vs. the new Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 | news | apple iphone

Every year Apple introduces a new generation of chips for iPhones, and since 2010 Apple has also had its own brand name for the processors. What started with the A4 (iPad, iPhone 4) has now reached the A16. However, the current model series has the special feature that Apple only gives the Pro models the latest chips, whereas the iPhone 14 and the iPhone 14 Plus have to make do with the A15 from the previous year. In the Android camp, however, Qualcomm is the most important chip provider, many smartphones are equipped with the Snapdragon system chips. This week, Qualcomm presented the new generation, namely the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 manufactured by TSMC using the 4 nm process.

Snapdragon 8 Gen 2: comparison with the A16 and A15
Qualcomm promises to revolutionize flagship smartphones and deliver breakthrough performance. It will still be months before the corresponding devices are delivered, but performance data are already known. The press release mentions 35 percent more CPU power and 25 percent more GPU power at the same time circulate first benchmark tests. It is particularly interesting how they behave in comparison to the A16 or A15 and whether Qualcomm is dangerous for the Apple processors. The short answer: Apple stays on top. Geekbench provides the following comparison values.

	Snapdragon 8	A16 (2022)	A15 (2021)
single core	1483	1874	1709
multi-core	4709	5372	4650

Multi core on par with A15
The performance per core is therefore roughly equivalent to an A13 chip from 2019, used in devices from the iPhone 11. All cores combined just surpass the A15, but cannot compete with the A16 measure up. It should also be mentioned that the A16 has been on the market since September, but the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 is still a long way off. At the Apple event in September, marketing director Greg Joswiak emphasized that Apple was several years ahead of the competition. The recent values ​​show that the statement is not made out of thin air.

The computer market is calling
Yet another aspect should not be neglected: Qualcomm chips have long since arrived in the performance class that would justify their use in normal computers. If you look at Microsoft’s efforts to push the development of Windows for ARM, manufacturers such as Intel or AMD are facing some headwinds. Even if the performance is not yet on par with the fastest X86 chips, the available offerings are far superior in terms of efficiency.