Apple A12 Bionic Benchmark, Test and specs

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The Apple A12 Bionic has 6 cores with 6 threads and is based on the 12. gen of the Apple A series series. The processor was released in Q3/2018. The Apple A12 Bionic scores 1,116 points in the Geekbench 5 single-core benchmark. In the Geekbench 5 multi-core benchmark, the result is 2,731 points.
Apple A12 Bionic

CPU lineage

The segment in which we have classified the Apple A12 Bionic. Here you can see if it is a desktop processor or a mobile processor or which processor may be the successor of the Apple A12 Bionic.

Name: Apple A12 Bionic
Family: Apple A series
CPU group: Apple A12/A12X/A12Z
Segment: Mobile
Generation: 12
Predecessor: Apple A11 Bionic
Successor: Apple A13 Bionic

CPU Cores and Base Frequency

The Apple A12 Bionic has 6 CPU cores and can calculate 6 threads in parallel. The clock frequency of the Apple A12 Bionic is 2.49 GHz. The number of CPU cores greatly affects the speed of the processor and is an important performance indicator.

CPU Cores / Threads: 6 / 6
Core architecture: hybrid (big.LITTLE)
A-Core: 2x Vortex
B-Core: 4x Tempest
Hyperthreading / SMT: No
Overclocking: No
A-Core Frequency: 2.49 GHz
B-Core Frequency: 1.59 GHz

Internal Graphics

The Apple A12 Bionic has integrated graphics, called iGPU for short. Specifically, the Apple A12 Bionic uses the Apple A12, which has 256 texture shaders and 32 execution units. The iGPU uses the system's main memory as graphics memory and sits on the processor's die.

GPU name: Apple A12
GPU frequency: 1.13 GHz
GPU (Turbo): No turbo
Execution units: 32
Shader: 256
Max. GPU Memory: 4 GB
Max. displays: 1
Generation: 9
Direct X: --
Technology: 7 nm
Release date: Q3/2018

Hardware codec support

A photo or video codec that is accelerated in hardware can greatly accelerate the working speed of a processor and extend the battery life of notebooks or smartphones when playing videos.

h265 / HEVC (8 bit): Decode / Encode
h265 / HEVC (10 bit): Decode / Encode
h264: Decode / Encode
VP8: Decode / Encode
VP9: Decode / Encode
AV1: No
AVC: Decode
VC-1: Decode
JPEG: Decode / Encode

Memory & PCIe

The processor can use up to 4 GB memory in 1 (Single Channel) memory channels. The maximum memory bandwidth is 34.1 GB/s. The memory type as well as the amount of memory can greatly affect the speed of the system.

Memory type: LPDDR4X-4266
Max. Memory: 4 GB
Memory channels: 1 (Single Channel)
Bandwidth: 34.1 GB/s
ECC: No
PCIe: --
AES-NI: No

Thermal Management

The thermal design power (TDP for short) of the processor is 6 W. The TDP specifies the necessary cooling solution that is required to cool the processor sufficiently. The TDP usually gives a rough idea of the actual power consumption of the CPU.

TDP (PL1 / PBP): 6 W
TDP (PL2): --
TDP up: --
TDP down: --
Tjunction max.: --

Technical details

The Apple A12 Bionic is made in 7 nm. The smaller the manufacturing process of a CPU, the more modern and energy-efficient it is. Overall, the processor has 8.00 MB cache. A large cache can greatly speed up the processor's speed in some cases such as games.

Technology: 7 nm
Chip design: Chiplet
Socket: --
L2-Cache: 8.00 MB
L3-Cache: --
Architecture: A12
Operating systems: iOS
Virtualization: None
Instruction set (ISA): ARMv8-A64 (64 bit)
ISA extensions:
Release date: Q3/2018
Release price: --
Part Number: --
Documents: --

Benchmark results

Verified Benchmark results
The benchmark results for the Apple A12 Bionic have been carefully checked by us. We only publish benchmark results that have been created by us or that have been submitted by a visitor and then checked by a team member. All results are based on and fullfill our benchmark guidelines.

Screenshots:

Geekbench 6 (Single-Core)

Geekbench 6 is a benchmark for modern computers, notebooks and smartphones. What is new is an optimized utilization of newer CPU architectures, e.g. based on the big.LITTLE concept and combining CPU cores of different sizes. The single-core benchmark only evaluates the performance of the fastest CPU core, the number of CPU cores in a processor is irrelevant here.

Intel Core i7-6700 Intel Core i7-6700
4C 8T @ 4.00 GHz
1291
Intel Core i5-10210U Intel Core i5-10210U
4C 8T @ 4.20 GHz
1289
AMD Ryzen 5 2600X AMD Ryzen 5 2600X
6C 12T @ 4.20 GHz
1287
Apple A12 Bionic Apple A12 Bionic
6C 6T @ 2.49 GHz
1286
Intel Core i5-8265U Intel Core i5-8265U
4C 8T @ 3.90 GHz
1286
Intel Core i7-7660U Intel Core i7-7660U
2C 4T @ 4.00 GHz
1283
Intel Core i5-4670K Intel Core i5-4670K
4C 4T @ 3.80 GHz
1281
Show all Geekbench 6 (Single-Core) results



Geekbench 6 (Multi-Core)

Geekbench 6 is a benchmark for modern computers, notebooks and smartphones. What is new is an optimized utilization of newer CPU architectures, e.g. based on the big.LITTLE concept and combining CPU cores of different sizes. The multi-core benchmark evaluates the performance of all of the processor's CPU cores. Virtual thread improvements such as AMD SMT or Intel's Hyper-Threading have a positive impact on the benchmark result.

Intel Core i5-7267U Intel Core i5-7267U
2C 4T @ 3.50 GHz
2369
AMD FX-8350 AMD FX-8350
8C 8T @ 4.10 GHz
2361
Apple A10X Fusion Apple A10X Fusion
6C 6T @ 2.36 GHz
2354
Apple A12 Bionic Apple A12 Bionic
6C 6T @ 2.49 GHz
2353
Intel Core i7-3635QM Intel Core i7-3635QM
4C 8T @ 2.40 GHz
2328
Intel Core i3-10110U Intel Core i3-10110U
2C 4T @ 3.20 GHz
2289
MediaTek Dimensity 800 MediaTek Dimensity 800
8C 8T @ 2.00 GHz
2280
Show all Geekbench 6 (Multi-Core) results



Geekbench 5, 64bit (Single-Core)

Geekbench 5 is a cross plattform benchmark that heavily uses the systems memory. A fast memory will push the result a lot. The single-core test only uses one CPU core, the amount of cores or hyperthreading ability doesn't count.

Intel Core i3-10300 Intel Core i3-10300
4C 8T @ 4.40 GHz
1118
Intel Core i7-10510U Intel Core i7-10510U
4C 8T @ 4.80 GHz
1118
Intel Core i5-1034G1 Intel Core i5-1034G1
4C 8T @ 3.60 GHz
1117
Apple A12 Bionic Apple A12 Bionic
6C 6T @ 2.49 GHz
1116
Intel Core i5-1038NG7 Intel Core i5-1038NG7
4C 8T @ 3.80 GHz
1114
Intel Xeon W-2170B Intel Xeon W-2170B
14C 28T @ 4.30 GHz
1114
Intel Core i7-7800X Intel Core i7-7800X
6C 12T @ 4.20 GHz
1114
Show all Geekbench 5, 64bit (Single-Core) results



Geekbench 5, 64bit (Multi-Core)

Geekbench 5 is a cross plattform benchmark that heavily uses the systems memory. A fast memory will push the result a lot. The multi-core test involves all CPU cores and taks a big advantage of hyperthreading.

AMD Ryzen 3 2200G AMD Ryzen 3 2200G
4C 4T @ 3.65 GHz
2750
AMD Ryzen 5 3450U AMD Ryzen 5 3450U
4C 8T @ 3.10 GHz
2745
Intel Core i7-4700HQ Intel Core i7-4700HQ
4C 8T @ 3.00 GHz
2735
Apple A12 Bionic Apple A12 Bionic
6C 6T @ 2.49 GHz
2731
Intel Core i5-7500T Intel Core i5-7500T
4C 4T @ 3.10 GHz
2718
Intel Core i5-6400 Intel Core i5-6400
4C 4T @ 3.00 GHz
2706
Intel Core i3-8100T Intel Core i3-8100T
4C 4T @ 3.10 GHz
2700
Show all Geekbench 5, 64bit (Multi-Core) results



iGPU - FP32 Performance (Single-precision GFLOPS)

The theoretical computing performance of the internal graphics unit of the processor with simple accuracy (32 bit) in GFLOPS. GFLOPS indicates how many billion floating point operations the iGPU can perform per second.

Qualcomm Snapdragon 765G Qualcomm Snapdragon 765G
Qualcomm Adreno 620 @ 0.75 GHz
588
AMD A8-7670K AMD A8-7670K
AMD Radeon R7 - 384 (Kaveri) @ 0.76 GHz
581
AMD A10-9620P AMD A10-9620P
AMD Radeon R5 - 384 (Bristol Ridge) @ 0.76 GHz
579
Apple A12 Bionic Apple A12 Bionic
Apple A12 @ 1.13 GHz
576
Intel Core i3-13100TE Intel Core i3-13100TE
Intel UHD Graphics 730 @ 1.50 GHz
576
Intel Core i3-13100E Intel Core i3-13100E
Intel UHD Graphics 730 @ 1.50 GHz
576
Intel Core i3-13100T Intel Core i3-13100T
Intel UHD Graphics 730 @ 1.50 GHz
576
Show all iGPU - FP32 Performance (Single-precision GFLOPS) results



AnTuTu 8 Benchmark

The AnTuTu 8 Benchmark measures the performance of a SoC. AnTuTu benchmarks the CPU, GPU, Memory as well as the UX (User Experience) by simulating browser and app usage. AnTuTu can benchmark any ARM CPU that runs under Android or iOS. Devices may not be directly compareable if the benchmark has been performed under different operating systems.

In the AnTuTu 8 benchmark, the single-core performance of a processor is only slightly weighted. The evaluation consists of the multi-core performance of the processor, the speed of the RAM and the performance of the internal graphics.

MediaTek Dimensity 1000L MediaTek Dimensity 1000L
8C 8T @ 2.20 GHz
437506
Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 Qualcomm Snapdragon 855
8C 8T @ 2.84 GHz
432560
MediaTek Dimensity 1000C MediaTek Dimensity 1000C
8C 8T @ 2.00 GHz
427863
Apple A12 Bionic Apple A12 Bionic
6C 6T @ 2.49 GHz
425605
MediaTek Dimensity 820 MediaTek Dimensity 820
8C 8T @ 2.60 GHz
407964
HiSilicon Kirin 985 5G HiSilicon Kirin 985 5G
8C 8T @ 2.58 GHz
406830
MediaTek Kompanio 820 MediaTek Kompanio 820
8C 8T @ 2.20 GHz
403759
Show all AnTuTu 8 Benchmark results



Benchmarks


The Apple A12 Bionic processor commissioned by Apple is manufactured by the Taiwanese company TSMC using the 7-nanometer FinFET process. It was first installed in the iPhone XR and iPhone XS, which were launched in the third quarter of 2018. In 2019 it was also installed in the new third-generation iPad Air and in the fifth-generation iPad Mini. The Apple A14 Bionic came onto the market in 2020, but the 8th generation standard iPad was then given the Apple A12 Bionic again.

The Apple A12 Bionic consists of 2 high-performance cores (Vortex) and 4 efficiency cores (Tempest). The Vortex cores clock at up to 2.49 gigahertz and the Tempest cores at up to 1.59 gigahertz. Due to the hybrid processor design, the Apple A12 Bionic is very efficient, since the built-in high-performance cores are only used for really computing-intensive tasks. The six cores of the Apple A12 Bionic cannot be overclocked, nor does the processor have hyperthreading.

The Apple A12 Bionics own graphics are made up of 32 execution units and 256 shaders. Like the processor, it is manufactured with a structure width of 7 nanometers, has a fixed clock rate of 1.13 gigahertz and thus achieves an FP32 computing power (single precision) of 576 gigaFLOPS.

LPDDR4X-4266 type RAM is installed in the Apple A12 Bionic. In the Apple A12 Bionic, this main memory achieves a maximum bandwidth of 34.1 gigabits per second. the maximum size of the RAM with which the Apple A12 Bionic is equipped is 4 gigabytes and is used in the iPhone XS.

In the Geekbench 5 benchmark, the Apple A12 Bionic achieves a single-core value of 1116 points and a multi-core value of 2731 points.

On our partner site www.check-mac.com you will find an overview of all Apple devices with the Apple A12 Bionic: www.check-mac.com/de/cpu-apple_a12_bionic


Leaderboards

In our leaderboards, we have clearly compiled the best processors for specific categories for you. The leaderboards are always up to date and are regularly updated by us. The best processors are selected according to popularity and speed in benchmarks as well as the price-performance ratio.


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