Comparison of the Apple A20 iPhone Processor with Other Computers

In terms of microprocessor development, there is a stark difference between the last decade and the current decade. The 2010s were kind of depressing because processors weren't advancing very quickly, with companies bragging about improvements of only 5% to 10% from one year to the next. Likewise, Intel was having difficulty making chips with smaller circuits. During that decade, the manufacturing process went from 45 nm to 14 nm, which mirrors the progression of all the iMacs I have owned, but Intel couldn't advance much further.

However, during the 2010s, Apple's mobile processors were making much bigger improvements.

Everything changed in 2020 when Apple introduced the M1 chip for its desktop computers. Not only did Apple switch from Intel processors to the more efficient ARM architecture, but the chip also used a 5-nanometer manufacturing process, allowing it to be more powerful while using considerably less power. Skeptics complained that this was essentially just a different version of Apple's iPhone processors, but the chip was beating most Intel computers.

For comparison, I am going to use my 2020 iMac with its 14-nm i7-10700K as a baseline. The previous-generation iMac I owned had a 4-core i7 processor and was plenty powerful, but the new chip nearly doubled the computing power by having 8 cores instead of 4. It can also consume up to 250 watts of power and get quite hot, compared with the 168 watts of the previous generation.

My 2023 AMD Ryzen 9 7940HS 8-core mini-computer has a 4-nm processor, consumes only 45 watts, and scores 50% better on the Geekbench 7 benchmark. It is a powerful computer in a small box that uses far less electricity.

All the recent iPhone processors have two performance cores and four efficiency cores. For this reason, their single-core performance is impressive, sometimes even beating desktop computers. However, their overall multi-core performance is typically only about 2.5 to 3 times their single-core performance. For most applications, single-core performance is going to be more important anyway.

Compared with my 2020 iMac, my cheap 2018 iPhone XR with the A12 Bionic 7-nm processor is 45% as powerful in single-core performance and 17% as powerful in multi-core performance. Still, for a mobile chip that uses only about 6 watts, that is pretty impressive.

Again, compared with the 2020 iMac, the Apple A20 processor in the new iPhones, with its amazing 2-nm process, is 237% as powerful in single-core performance but only 83% as powerful in multi-core performance. It uses only 10 watts, which is 25 times less power than the desktop processor.

These benchmarks don't include the more powerful graphics and neural-engine capabilities of the A20 chip. This chip is powerful enough to run some modern video games.

Some people complained that the new A20 chip is only a marginal improvement over the previous-generation 3-nm A19. Actually, it is 29% more powerful while using 2 fewer watts of power. Still, both processors deliver desktop-level performance that I would be happy with. If Apple were to put either of these chips into a budget tablet, as it did with the A16 chip, it would make for a very powerful tablet.

Apple has tried to promote the idea that you can use your phone or tablet for all of your computing needs. Although the chips are amazing, most of the software I use only runs on Intel-compatible computers. For me, this includes chess programs, video games, and software development tools, so I still need my Intel-compatible computers. Maybe someday everything will run on Apple hardware, which would make Intel-compatible computers obsolete, but that is nowhere close to being true at the moment.

For everyday phone or tablet use, most people don't need this much power, especially if they aren't using these devices as their main computer. However, having desktop-level performance in mobile devices should keep them relevant for many years to come.

Android devices often cost less than Apple devices, but some of their processors are only half as powerful as their Apple counterparts.