Kirin 980 vs A12 Bionic
We compared the 8-core HiSilicon Kirin 980 (Mali G76 MP10) with the newer 6-core Apple A12 Bionic (Apple A12 Bionic GPU) SoC. Here you will find the pros and cons of each chip, technical specs, and comprehensive tests in benchmarks, like AnTuTu and Geekbench.
Review
CPU Performance
Single and multi-core processor tests
Gaming Performance
GPU performance in games and OpenCL/Vulcan
Battery life
Efficiency of battery consumption
NanoReview Score
Overall chip score
Key Differences
Pros of HiSilicon Kirin 980
- Has 2 more cores
- Performs 23% better in floating-point computations
Pros of Apple A12 Bionic
- Higher GPU frequency (~56%)
- Supports 7% higher memory bandwidth (34.1 against 31.78 GB/s)
- Shows better (up to 10%) AnTuTu 9 score – 527K vs 480K
- Better instruction set architecture
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Benchmarks
Performance tests in popular benchmarksAnTuTu 9
| CPU | 142989 | 143402 |
| GPU | 148351 | 186891 |
| Memory | 83790 | 91638 |
| UX | 108898 | 107048 |
| Total score | 480519 | 527967 |
AnTuTu results from iOS and Android are not directly comparable! They won't affect NanoReview scores.
GeekBench 5
Single-Core Score
Multi-Core Score
| Image compression | 124.1 Mpixels/s | 132.8 Mpixels/s |
| Face detection | 20.4 images/s | 14.5 images/s |
| Speech recognition | 47.9 words/s | 67.8 words/s |
| Machine learning | 49.9 images/s | 54.1 images/s |
| Camera shooting | 23.3 images/s | 14.6 images/s |
| HTML 5 | 2.4 Mnodes/s | 3.27 Mnodes/s |
| SQLite | 655 Krows/s | 745 Krows/s |
3DMark
3DMark Wild Life Performance
| Stability | 48% | 69% |
| Graphics test | 14 FPS | 31 FPS |
| Score | 2489 | 5237 |
Gaming
| PUBG Mobile | 56 FPS [Ultra] |
- |
| Call of Duty: Mobile | 39 FPS [Ultra] |
- |
| Fortnite | 28 FPS [High] |
- |
| Shadowgun Legends | 51 FPS [Ultra] |
- |
| World of Tanks Blitz | 60 FPS [Ultra] |
- |
| Mobile Legends: Bang Bang | 60 FPS [Ultra] |
- |
| Device | Huawei Nova 5T 1080 x 2340 |
- |
We provide average results. FPS may differ, depending on game version, OS and other factors.
Specifications
Full list of technical specifications of Kirin 980 and A12 BionicCPU
| Architecture | 2x 2.6 GHz – Cortex-A76 2x 1.92 GHz – Cortex-A76 4x 1.8 GHz – Cortex-A55 |
2x 2.49 GHz – Vortex 4x 1.6 GHz – Tempest |
| Cores | 8 | 6 |
| Frequency | 2600 MHz | 2490 MHz |
| Instruction set | ARMv8-A | ARMv8.3-A |
| L1 cache | 512 KB | 128 KB |
| L2 cache | 512 KB | 8 MB |
| L3 cache | 4 MB | - |
| Process | 7 nanometers | 7 nanometers |
| Transistor count | 6.9 billion | 6.9 billion |
| TDP | 6 W | 6 W |
Graphics
| GPU name | Mali G76 MP10 | Apple A12 Bionic GPU |
| Architecture | Bifrost | - |
| GPU frequency | 720 MHz | 1125 MHz |
| Execution units | 10 | 32 |
| Shading units | 160 | 256 |
| FLOPS | 691 Gigaflops | 560 Gigaflops |
| Vulkan version | 1.0 | 1.1 |
| OpenCL version | 1.2 | 2.0 |
| DirectX version | 12 | 12 |
Memory
| Memory type | LPDDR4X | LPDDR4X |
| Memory frequency | 2133 MHz | 2133 MHz |
| Bus | 4x 16 Bit | 1x 64 Bit |
| Max bandwidth | 31.78 Gbit/s | 34.1 Gbit/s |
| Max size | 8 GB | 12 GB |
Multimedia (ISP)
| Neural processor (NPU) | Yes | Yes |
| Storage type | UFS 3.0 | NVMe |
| Max display resolution | 3120 x 1440 | 2688 x 1242 |
| Max camera resolution | 1x 48MP, 2x 20MP | 2x 12MP |
| Video capture | 4K at 30FPS | 4K at 60FPS |
| Video playback | 4K at 60FPS | 4K at 60FPS |
| Video codecs | H.264, H.265, VP9 | H.264, H.265, Motion JPEG |
| Audio codecs | AIFF, CAF, MP3, MP4, WAV | AAC, AAC‑LC, Apple Lossless, HE‑AAC, Linear PCM, AAX и AAX+, HE‑AAC v2, MP3 |
Connectivity
| 4G support | LTE Cat. 21 | LTE Cat. 18 |
| 5G support | No | No |
| Download speed | Up to 1400 Mbps | Up to 1000 Mbps |
| Upload speed | Up to 200 Mbps | Up to 150 Mbps |
| Wi-Fi | 6 | 5 |
| Bluetooth | 5.0 | 5.0 |
| Navigation | GPS, GLONASS | GPS, GLONASS, Beidou, Galileo |
Info
| Announced | August 2018 | September 2018 |
| Class | Flagship | Flagship |
| Model number | - | APL1W81 |
| Official page | HiSilicon Kirin 980 official site | - |
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