Snapdragon 660 vs Apple A9
We compared the 8-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 660 (Adreno 512) with the older 2-core Apple A9 (PowerVR GT7600) 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 Qualcomm Snapdragon 660
- Has 6 more cores
- Supports 100% higher memory bandwidth (29.8 against 14.9 GB/s)
- Announced 1-year and 8-months later
- Higher GPU frequency (~31%)
- 19% higher CPU clock speed (2200 vs 1850 MHz)
Pros of Apple A9
- Shows better (up to 10%) AnTuTu 8 score – 168K vs 153K
Benchmarks
Performance tests in popular benchmarksAnTuTu 8
| CPU | 69937 | 70699 |
| GPU | 24360 | 36687 |
| Memory | 32441 | 31959 |
| UX | 27977 | 35338 |
| Total score | 153249 | 168989 |
GeekBench 5
Single-Core Score
Multi-Core Score
| Image compression | 88.7 Mpixels/s | 53.4 Mpixels/s |
| Face detection | 12 images/s | 9.04 images/s |
| Speech recognition | 24.1 words/s | 21.9 words/s |
| Machine learning | 18.3 images/s | 26.3 images/s |
| Camera shooting | 11 images/s | 12.2 images/s |
| HTML 5 | 1.76 Mnodes/s | 1.34 Mnodes/s |
| SQLite | 487.4 Krows/s | 313 Krows/s |
Specifications
Full list of technical specifications of Snapdragon 660 and Apple A9CPU
| Architecture | 4x 2.2 GHz – Kryo 260 Gold (Cortex-A73) 4x 1.84 GHz – Kryo 260 Silver (Cortex-A53) |
2x 1.85 GHz – Twister |
| Cores | 8 | 2 |
| Frequency | 2200 MHz | 1850 MHz |
| Instruction set | ARMv8-A | ARMv8-A |
| L2 cache | 2 MB | 3 MB |
| L3 cache | - | 8 MB |
| Process | 14 nanometers | 14 nanometers |
| Transistor count | 1.75 billion | 2 billion |
| TDP | 9 W | 5 W |
Graphics
| GPU name | Adreno 512 | PowerVR GT7600 |
| Architecture | Adreno 500 | Rogue |
| GPU frequency | 850 MHz | 650 MHz |
| Execution units | 1 | 6 |
| Shading units | 128 | 192 |
| FLOPS | 217 Gigaflops | - |
| Vulkan version | 1.0 | 1.1 |
| OpenCL version | 2.0 | 1.2 |
| DirectX version | 12 | 11 |
Memory
| Memory type | LPDDR4 | LPDDR4 |
| Memory frequency | 1866 MHz | 1333 MHz |
| Bus | 2x 32 Bit | 2x 32 Bit |
| Max bandwidth | 29.8 Gbit/s | 14.9 Gbit/s |
| Max size | 8 GB | 4 GB |
Multimedia (ISP)
| Neural processor (NPU) | Hexagon 680 | No |
| Storage type | UFS 2.1 | NVMe |
| Max display resolution | 2560 x 1600 | 1920 x 1080 |
| Max camera resolution | 1x 48MP, 2x 16MP | 1x 32MP, 2x 12MP |
| Video capture | 4K at 30FPS | 4K at 30FPS |
| Video playback | 4K at 30FPS | 4K at 30FPS |
| Video codecs | H.264, H.265, VP8, VP9 | H.264, H.265 |
| Audio codecs | AAC LC, MP3, HE-AACv1, HE-AACv2, FLAC | AAC, AIFF, CAF, MP3, MP4, WAV |
Connectivity
| Modem | X12 | Qualcomm MDM9635M |
| 4G support | LTE Cat. 12 | LTE Cat. 6 |
| 5G support | No | No |
| Download speed | Up to 600 Mbps | Up to 450 Mbps |
| Upload speed | Up to 150 Mbps | Up to 150 Mbps |
| Wi-Fi | 5 | 4 |
| Bluetooth | 5.0 | 4.2 |
| Navigation | GPS, GLONASS, Beidou, Galileo, QZSS, SBAS | GPS, GLONASS, Beidou, Galileo |
Info
| Announced | May 2017 | September 2015 |
| Class | Mid range | Flagship |
| Model number | SDM660 | - |
| Official page | Qualcomm Snapdragon 660 official site | - |
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