Performance Duel – A16 From iPhone 14 Vs. Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2

Each year, Apple releases a new generation of chips for iPhone – and since 2010, the company has done so under its own branding. Beginning with the A4 (the iPad's and iPhone 4's chip), the chip has just recently been released in its 16th iteration – the A16. However, one interesting thing about the current lineup is that only the Pro models actually possess the most recent chip – whilst the iPhone 14 and iPhone 15 Plus continue to rely on the previous generation's A15 from last year. On the Android side of the marketplace, Qualcomm is the biggest chip provider – with the majority of Android smartphones relying on the Snapdragon SoC. This week, Qualcomm presented its most recent chip generation, produced via the 4-nm production process by the legendary chip manufacturer, TSMC – the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 now makes its arrival.

The Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 Vs. The A16 & A15
Qualcomm promises to revolutionize flagship smartphones by offering groundbreaking performance. Despite two months left until delivery of the corresponding devices, performance data is already known. The press release mentions 35% more CPU power and 25% more GPU power, with the first benchmark tests already in circulation. It is especially interesting, how the chip performs in comparison to the A16/A15, and whether Qualcomm will bring the fight to Apple's processors. To summarize things shortly: Apple remains at the top, coming out ahead as the clear winner of the following compared values on Geekbench:

	Snapdragon 8	A16 (2022)	A15 (2021)
Single Core	1483	1874	1709
Multi Core	4709	5372	4650

Multi Core Performance Comparable To A15
As far as single core performance is concerned, the new Snapdragon chip is comparable to Apple's A13 from 2019 installed in devices following the iPhone 11. When it came to multi core performance, however, Qualcomm's new chip did manage to just barely surpass the A15 – but wasn't able to keep up with the A16. Also of note is the fact that the A16 has been on the market since September, whereas the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 still has some ways to go before release. During September's Apple event, the Senior VP of Marketing, Greg Joswiak, stressed that Apple is several years ahead of its competition. These new values show that the statement clearly wasn't misplaced.

The Call Of The Computer Market
Yet another aspect should not be disregarded: Qualcomm chips have long since been considered a member of the performance category – well suited even to normal computers. A quick glance at Microsoft's current quest to force development of ARM chips for Windows, and it starts to appear as if manufacturers like AMD or Intel are sailing upwind. Even if the performance isn't yet at the same level as the quickest X86 chips, other values such as efficiency make up for the difference by being exponentially more superior.