Intro:
There is a thing about Apple that it always manufactures everything in-house, meaning t uses everything that is designed by itself. Take the processors as an example. Apple does not use Qualcomm or any other companies’ processors in its iPhones but designs its processors. This is the distinguishing factor as Apple fine-tunes its processors specifically for its iPhones.
The processors built by Apple are not necessarily only used in iPhones. They are also used in iPads, iPods, and Apple TV. On the contrary, the other Android mobile phones don’t use Apple’s processors as they are built specifically for Apple devices. Just as the Windows cant be installed on a Mac device, similarly, Apple’s processors can’t be used with Android phones.
There is another major player in the mobile processor’s game, which is very famous. The. This company is the primary processor provider to the majority of Android mobile phones. The processors produced by Qualcomm Snapdragon are used by mid-range and flagship-level mobile phones. These processors are most prominent as they are used in the latest flagship mobile phones that roll out each year. The latest mobile phones use their latest processors.
This is why there is a competition between Apple produced processors and Qualcomm’s processor as both of them are used in the flagship phones which roll out each year. This competition extends to the iPhone vs. all other flagship phones.
Today we have chosen one processor from Apple and one from Qualcomm Snapdragon to compare with each other. Both of these processors are direct competition with one another. Let’s begin with the introduction of each processor.
Apple A7:
The A7 is a 64-bit processor designed by Apple. It is a system on a chip ARM processor. This processor was first used in the iPhone 5S, which was released back on September 10, 2013. The Apple A7 is marginally faster than its predecessor, the Apple A6.
Apple states that this processor is two times faster in the CPU performance, and twice as fast in the GPU domain than its predecessor, the Apple A6. The last software update that the systems using this processor received was iOS 12.4.7.
Snapdragon 625:
The Snapdragon 625 is also a 64-bit processor designed and manufactured by Qualcomm. This system on chip is an octa-core processor. This processor is a mid-range processor that is also used in budget or mid-range smartphones. Some smartphones this processor is used in are Lenovo S5, Xiaomi Redmi 6 Pro, Motorola One, Asus Zenfone 3, Blackberry Keyone, Vivo X27, Lenovo Moto G5, and Xiaomi Redmi S2. These are just a few smartphones.
Apple A7 vs. Snapdragon 625:
Starting by the lithography, the Apple A7 is built on the 28nm process, while Snapdragon 625 is built on 14nm LPP process. The Apple A7 houses 1 billion transistors.
The Snapdragon 625 is an Octa-core processor with eight threads, while the Apple A7 is only a dual-core processor with two threads.
The Apple A7 has a base clock speed of 1.4 GHz, while the Snapdragon 625 has a base clock speed of 2.0 GHz. The Snapdragon 625 is much 6.15 times faster than Apple A7 with more cores and faster clock speed. None of them have a turbo boost.
Apple has both energy-efficient cores called Cyclone cores, while the Snapdragon 625 has all 8 ARM Cortex high-performance cores.
The cache memory on Apple’s A7 processor is 4 MB, while the cache memory on the Snapdragon 625 is just 1MB. Both of these processors support the LPDDR3 memory type. The TDP is also the same for both processors as their TDP is only 5 Watt.
Now let’s move on to graphics. The Snapdragon 625 has Qualcomm Adreno 506 built into it with a single GPU execution unit, 96 GPU shading units, and a GPU clock rate of 650 MHz. On the contrary, the Apple A7 has Imagination PowerVR G6430 built into it with 4 GPU execution units, 64 shading units, and a GPU clock rate of 600 MHz.
Both of the processors were tested on different processor testing applications.
The benchmark software AnTuTu was used to test, which gave the following results; 77,300 score for the Snapdragon 625 and 65,000 scores for the Apple A7.
The Snapdragon 625 scored 4,069 on multi-core and 868 on a single-core test on Geekbench 4. The Apple A7 scored 2,076 on multi-core and 1,210 on the single-core test.
The Apple A7 uses DirectX version 10, while the Snapdragon 625 uses DirectX version 11.1. The Snapdragon 625 uses OpenGL version 3, while Apple A7 uses version 3.1.
The Apple A7 does not have an integrated LTE, while the Snapdragon 625 does. Both have dynamic frequency scaling, NX Bit, AES, and support hardware-assisted virtualization.
The only mobile with the A7 processor is the Apple iPhone 5S, while many mid-tier phones house the Snapdragon 625 processor.
Verdict:
The Snapdragon 625 is a clear winner over the Apple A7, with more cores, higher clock speed, and smaller lithography of 14nm.
