As seen in the iPhone 5s, Apple’s new A7 chip is the world’s first 64-bit ARM-based chip… but it’s not Apple’s first quad-core chip. Instead, the A7 is dual-core in a sea of Android competitors boasting 32-bit quad-core processors.
The revelation that the A7 chip is still dual-core comes from chip review site Anandtech, who have noted that tools used to count cores are only returning two.
That will be a surprise to many, since so many Android phones boast quad-core configurations. But that’s not necessarily a bad thing. According to Anand, speaking to CNET:
“The quad-core card was kind of forced,” Anand said. “It’s definitely not the only way to arrive at the ideal performance-power for a phone.”
Staying dual-core while beefing up the chip in other important ways is a typical Apple move, which marches to the beat of its own drum. Remaining dual-core allows Apple to save power, while a shift to 64-bit allows Apple to improve performance, especially for apps programmed to take advantage of it.
“The dual-core A7 is now the fastest [system-on-a-chip] we’ve tested under SunSpider, even outpacing Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 800 and ARM’s Cortex A15,” wrote Anand.
Source: Anandtech
John Brownlee is a writer for Fast Company, and a contributing writer here at CoM. He has also written for Wired, Playboy, Boing Boing, Popular Mechanics, VentureBeat, and Gizmodo. He lives in Boston with his wife and two parakeets. You can follow him here on Twitter.
