Apple A10X Fusion vs Apple M2 Pro 10-Core
Apple A10X Fusion
► remove from comparisonThe Apple A10X Fusion is a system on a chip (SoC) from Apple that is built into the 2017 iPad Pro models. It integrates six 64 Bit cores that are divided in two clusters. Three high performance cores are clocked at up to 2.39 GHz. The three power saving cores are used for non demanding tasks. It looks like only one of both clusters is able to run at a time (therefore the apps see only three cores). The principle is similar to the first generation of ARMs big.LITTLE concept.
The performance of the SoC is positioned in the high and and clearly faster than all previous Apple SoCs. Even compared to Android high-end SoCs like the Snapdragon 835, the A10X takes the lead (e.g. in Geekbench or Antutu).
The integrated graphics card of the SoC will most likely stem from PowerVR (again) and features 12 cores instead of 6 in the A10 SoC.
According to TechInsights, the A10X is manufactured in the brand new 10 nm FinFet process at TSMC. Altough it offers more function blocks, the A10X is with measured 96.4 mm2 significantly smaller than the previous A9X (143.9 mm2).
Apple M2 Pro 10-Core
► remove from comparison![Apple M2 Pro 10-Core](fileadmin/_processed_/3/3/csm_apple_m2_pro_chip_b4deb2eab5.jpg)
The Apple M2 Pro 10-Core is a System on a Chip (SoC) from Apple that is found in the early 2023 MacBook Pro 14 and Mac Mini entry level models. It offers 10 of the 12 cores available in the chip divided in six performance cores (P-cores) and four power-efficiency cores (E-cores). The E-cores clock with up to 3.4 GHz, the P-Cores up to 3.7 GHz (mostly 3.3 GHz in multi-threaded workloads and 3.4 GHz in single threaded).
The big cores (codename Avalanche) offer 192 KB instruction cache, 128 KB data cache, and 36 MB shared L2 cache (up from 24 MB in the M1 Pro). The four efficiency cores (codename Blizzard) are a lot smaller and offer only 128 KB instruction cache, 64 KB data cache, and 4 MB shared cache. CPU and GPU can both use the 24 MB SLC (System Level Cache).
The unified memory (16 or 32 GB LPDDR5-6400) next to the chip is connected by a 256 Bit memory controller (200 GB/s bandwidth) and can be used by the GPU and CPU.
The performance of the M2 Pro 10-Core should be similar to the old M1 Pro with all 10 cores. The multi-threaded performance should be slower, as the M2 10-core has two p-cores less (and 2 e-cores more) but the single-threaded performance should be better due to the faster clock speed and architectural improvements. The old M1 Pro 8-core should be noticeably slower.
The integrated graphics card in the M1 Pro 10-core offers all 16 of the 19 cores.
Furthermore, the SoC integrates a fast 16 core neural engine (faster than M1 Pro), a secure enclave (e.g., for encryption), a unified memory architecture, Thunderbolt 4 controller, an ISP, and media de- and encoders (including ProRes).
The M2 Pro is manufactured in 5 nm at TSMC (second generation) and integrates 40 billion transistors.
Model | Apple A10X Fusion | Apple M2 Pro 10-Core | ||||||||||||||||
Series | Apple Apple A-Series | Apple Apple M2 | ||||||||||||||||
Codename | Cyclone 4? | |||||||||||||||||
Clock | 2390 MHz | 2424 - 3696 MHz | ||||||||||||||||
Cores / Threads | 6 / 3 | 10 / 10 | ||||||||||||||||
Transistors | 3300 Million | 40000 Million | ||||||||||||||||
Technology | 10 nm | 5 nm | ||||||||||||||||
Features | ARMv8 Instruction Set | ARMv8 Instruction Set | ||||||||||||||||
iGPU | Apple A10X Fusion GPU / PowerVR | Apple M2 Pro 16-Core GPU | ||||||||||||||||
Architecture | ARM | ARM | ||||||||||||||||
Announced | ||||||||||||||||||
Series: Apple M2 |
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L1 Cache | 7.3 MB | |||||||||||||||||
L2 Cache | 36 MB | |||||||||||||||||
L3 Cache | 24 MB |