Apple A9X vs Samsung Exynos 9609

Apple A9X

The Apple A9X is a high-end ARM SoC (System on a Chip) that was announced in September 2015 in the iPad Pro. Technical details are scarce, what we know is that it is based on the third generation of Apples 64 Bit architecture (Cyclone 3) and manufactured with a "new transistor technology" (14 or 16nm FINFet probably).

The performance of the A9X did improve a lot according to Apple. The CPU part should be 1.8x faster and the GPU part even 2x faster than the already speedy Apple A8X. Apple even stated in the keynote of the iPad Pro that the performance should be "faster than 80% of portable PCs shipped in the last 12 month". Furthermore the iPad Pro now features a 2x higher memory bandwidth (DDR4?) and 2x faster storage performance. The integrated graphics card will most likely be a PowerVR design again (Power VR Series7?).

Samsung Exynos 9609

The Samsung Exynos 9609 (or Exynos 7 Series 9609) is a mid-range SoC for Android based smartphones and tablets. It integrates 8 processor cores in two clusters (big.LITTLE concept). Four ARM Cortex A73 cores at up to 2.2 GHz for demanding tasks and four ARM Cortex A53 at up to 1.6 GHz for power efficiency. Compared to the older Exynos 9610, the 9609 offers 100 MHz less clock speed for both clusters.

The integrated LTE modem supports 4G at up to 600 Mbps download and 150 Mbps upload. Furthermore, 802.11ac WiFi and Bluetooth 5.0 are also integrated in the chip.

The on-board ARM Mali-G72 MP3 graphics card offers three clusters and support for Vulkan, DirectX 12 and OpenGL ES 3.2.

The Exynos 9609 is manufactured in the modern 10nm FinFET process and therefore relatively power efficient and also suited for smaller smartphones.