Preliminary benchmark tests show that the iPhone 6 is more capable than its rivals in a number of key areas.
You may have noticed that the iPhone 6 has been rather popular since its release late last week. Of course, there are plenty who claim that the hype is unwarranted.
While we’d agree that some of it has been excessive, there can be no denying that the iPhone 6 is a highly capable device. That’s empirically the case, as Anandtech‘s preliminary benchmark results reveal.
The hardware-focused tech site has posted early benchmark results for the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus ahead of its full technical review. These include browser, game, and battery tests that put the Apple A8 chip’s processor and GPU components through their paces.
Put simply, the iPhone 6 is seriously fast. In all three of the browser tests – which as the site says “serve as a relatively useful proxy for CPU performance” – the A8 trounces most of the competition. Only the Nvidia Shield Tablet with its Tegra K1 CPU really competes, with the iPhone 5S following not too far behind.
As the reviewer notes, though, the subtle but notable improvement from the latter’s A7 to the A8 suggests that the new chip – while having a similar architecture – has more about it than a simple frequency bump.
On the GPU front, the iPhone 6 also performs strongly, though it doesn’t have things all its own way. The Nvidia Shield Tablet hammers all-comers, as befits a chip based on desktop and console architecture, but the iPhone 6’s A8 chip comes second on all but one of the GFXBench tests (and it’s the iPhone 5S’s A7 that pips it there).
3DMark performance shows the A8 chip’s one weakness against its rivals. While it comes second on the graphics test again, it comes near the bottom of the pile on the physics test – something the iPhone 5S also struggled with.
The final test relates to the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus’s battery life. Using the site’s web browsing test, the iPhone 6 Plus came second out of 25 behind the Huawei Ascend Mate 2, while the iPhone 6 came fifth, immediately behind the Motorola Moto G and the HTC One E8.
So, the iPhone 6 may “only” run on a dual-core 1.4GHz CPU with 1GB of RAM, but it certainly knows how to use it.
Read More: iPhone 6 vs iPhone 6 Plus
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Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
