Kirin 980 vs A14 Bionic

We compared the 8-core HiSilicon Kirin 980 (Mali G76 MP10) with the newer 6-core Apple A14 Bionic (Apple 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

General comparison of performance, power consumption, and other indicators
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

Main differences and advantages of each chip
Pros of HiSilicon Kirin 980
  • Has 2 more cores
Pros of Apple A14 Bionic
  • Shows significantly better (up to 51%) AnTuTu 9 score – 721K vs 479K
  • Announced 2-years and 1-month later
  • Has a smaller size transistor (5 versus 7 nm)
  • Supports 34% higher memory bandwidth (42.7 against 31.78 GB/s)
  • 19% higher CPU clock speed (3100 vs 2600 MHz)
  • Better instruction set architecture
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Benchmarks

Performance tests in popular benchmarks

AnTuTu 9

The AnTuTu Benchmark measures CPU, GPU, RAM, and I/O performance in different scenarios
479197
A14 Bionic +51%
721673
CPU 142989 202575
GPU 148351 273954
Memory 83790 115865
UX 108898 129781
Total score 479197 721673
AnTuTu results from iOS and Android are not directly comparable! They won't affect NanoReview scores.

GeekBench 5

The GeekBench test shows raw single-threaded and multithreaded CPU performance
Single-Core Score
694
A14 Bionic +129%
1591
Multi-Core Score
2464
A14 Bionic +65%
4077
Image compression 124.1 Mpixels/s 171.5 Mpixels/s
Face detection 20.4 images/s 33.6 images/s
Speech recognition 47.9 words/s 94.8 words/s
Machine learning 49.9 images/s 93.1 images/s
Camera shooting 23.3 images/s 38.7 images/s
HTML 5 2.4 Mnodes/s 4.5 Mnodes/s
SQLite 655 Krows/s 1060 Krows/s

3DMark

A cross-platform benchmark that assesses graphics performance in Vulkan (Metal)
3DMark Wild Life Performance
2490
A14 Bionic +206%
7608
Stability 48% 77%
Graphics test 14 FPS 45 FPS
Score 2490 7608

Gaming

Table of average FPS and graphics settings in mobile games
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 A14 Bionic

CPU

Architecture 2x 2.6 GHz – Cortex-A76
2x 1.92 GHz – Cortex-A76
4x 1.8 GHz – Cortex-A55
2x 3.1 GHz – Firestorm
4x 1.8 GHz – Icestorm
Cores 8 6
Frequency 2600 MHz 3100 MHz
Instruction set ARMv8-A ARMv8.5-A
L1 cache 512 KB -
L2 cache 512 KB 8 MB
L3 cache 4 MB -
Process 7 nanometers 5 nanometers
Transistor count 6.9 billion 11.8 billion
TDP 6 W 6 W

Graphics

GPU name Mali G76 MP10 Apple GPU
Architecture Bifrost -
GPU frequency 720 MHz -
Execution units 10 4
Shading units 160 -
FLOPS 691 Gigaflops -
Vulkan version 1.0 -
OpenCL version 1.2 -
DirectX version 12 -

Memory

Memory type LPDDR4X LPDDR4X
Memory frequency 2133 MHz -
Bus 4x 16 Bit -
Max bandwidth 31.78 Gbit/s 42.7 Gbit/s
Max size 8 GB 6 GB

Multimedia (ISP)

Neural processor (NPU) Yes Neural Engine
Storage type UFS 3.0 NVMe
Max display resolution 3120 x 1440 2732 x 2048
Max camera resolution 1x 48MP, 2x 20MP -
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, AIFF, CAF, MP3, MP4, WAV, AC-3, E-AC-3, AAX, AAX+

Connectivity

4G support LTE Cat. 21 LTE Cat. 18
5G support No Yes
Download speed Up to 1400 Mbps Up to 7500 Mbps
Upload speed Up to 200 Mbps Up to 2500 Mbps
Wi-Fi 6 6
Bluetooth 5.0 5.0
Navigation GPS, GLONASS GPS, GLONASS, Beidou, Galileo

Info

Announced August 2018 September 2020
Class Flagship Flagship
Model number - APL1W01
Official page HiSilicon Kirin 980 official site -

Cast your vote

So, which SoC would you choose?
24 (31.6%)
52 (68.4%)
Total votes: 76

Comments

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