Apple A16 Bionic vs Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite

The Apple A16 Bionic (A16 architecture, 2022) from Apple and the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite (Oryon 2 architecture) from Qualcomm are high-performance processors for premium smartphones.

The Apple A16 Bionic is manufactured using a 4 nm process and offers 20 MB of Level-2 and 24 MB of Level-3 cache. The Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite uses a finer 3 nm process, for which no Level-2 or Level-3 cache is specified. In Geekbench 6 benchmarks, the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite significantly outperforms the Apple A16 Bionic, with over 10 percent higher single-core and multi-core performance.

For gaming, the Apple A16 Bionic features the Apple A16 (5 GPU Cores) with 51 GB/s memory bandwidth. The Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite uses the Qualcomm Adreno 830 and offers 77 GB/s memory bandwidth, promising advantages in graphics-intensive applications. The Snapdragon 8 Elite's 3 nm process also indicates better energy efficiency.

Both CPUs are permanently integrated into devices and are not available separately. The Apple A16 Bionic is ideal for the Apple ecosystem and optimized software. The Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite offers higher raw performance in benchmarks and gaming, especially due to its higher memory bandwidth.

The choice depends on the preference for the respective ecosystem and the focus on computing power.