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iPhone 4S benchmarks and specs begin to emerge

By | October 11, 2011, 11:25am PDT

Summary: Apple doesn’t spec the CPU and GPU speeds of it’s iOS devices beyond vague statements like “it’s 2x faster.” Early recipients of the iPhone 4S have filled the void by posting benchmarks on the Web.

Apple told us a lot about its shiny, new iPhone 4S when it was formally announced by CEO Tim Cook last week — but it didn’t tell us everything and details are starting to emerge ahead of Friday’s official launch. Although it’s not available in stores until October 14, a number of lucky pre-orderers in Germany received their iPhone 4Ses a few days early and were able to glean additional details about the device that weren’t previously available.

For starters, the A5 processor in the iPhone 4S clocks in at around 800MHz according to AnandTech, making it significantly faster than the iPhone 4’s A4 processor, but slightly slower than the iPad 2’s A5.

According to early benchmarks, iPhone 4S Javascript performance is on par with Tegra 2-based Android devices running Honeycomb like the Galaxy Tab 8.9.

iPhone 4S Javascript performance benchmarks - Jason O'Grady

AnandTech also posted GPU benchmark results from GLBenchmark 2.1 which put the “4S” right behind the iPad 2 in graphics performance but almost doubles performance over the iPhone 4.

GLBenchmark results for the iPhone 4S - GPU Performance

AppVV (via MacRumors) also confirms that the iPhone 4S has 512MB of RAM, just like the iPhone 4 it replaces. This is less than the iPad’s 1GB of RAM and many people speculated that the new iPhone would inherit the larger RAM footprint in the iPad 2.

This gives hope to those wondering about support for Siri running the on the iPhone 4. Although Apple has stated that Siri is only compatible with the iPhone 4S, we now know that it isn’t a limitation of RAM, but more likely a limitation of the A4 processor. Although this still doesn’t explain why Siri couldn’t conceivably run on the iPad 2, since it has the same A5 processor as the one found in the iPhone 4S.

MacRumors also notes that the iPhone 4S achieved a Sunspider total score of 2222.1ms and a BrowserMark score of 89567. An iPhone 4 running iOS 5 achieved a BrowserMark score of 44856, making the new iPhone 4S roughly twice as fast in the browser.

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Topics

Apple iPhone, Apple iPhone 4S, Apple Inc., Smart Phones, Consumer Electronics, Personal Technology, Jason D. O'Grady

Jason O'Grady is a journalist and author specializing in mobile technology. He has published six books on Apple and mobile gadgets and his PowerPage blog has been publishing for over 15 years.

Disclosure

Jason D. O'Grady

Jason D. O'Grady is the creator and editor of O'Grady's PowerPage, which has been publishing mobile technology news since 1995. He maintains an advertising relationship with the following legacy advertisers on the PowerPage:

  • Amazon Associates
  • Google Adsense
  • Tekserve

    • Advertising on the PowerPage is brokered by a third-party agency (BackBeat Media) and he recuses himself from these negotiations.

Biography

Jason D. O'Grady

Jason D. O'Grady developed an affinity for Apple computers after using the original Lisa, and this affinity turned into a bona-fide obsession when he got the original 128 KB Macintosh in 1984.

He started writing one of the first Web sites about Apple (O'Grady's PowerPage) in 1995 and is considered to be one of the fathers of blogging. He has been a frequent speaker at the Macworld Expo conference and a member of the conference faculty. He also co-founded the first dedicated PowerBook User Group (PPUG) in the United States.

After winning a major legal battle with Apple in 2006, he set the precedent that independent journalists are entitled to the same protections under the First Amendment as members of the mainstream media.

O'Grady is the author of The Nexus One Pocket Guide, The Droid Pocket Guide, The Google Phone Pocket Guide, and The Garmin nuvi Pocket Guide (Peachpit Press), the author of Corporations That Changed the World: Apple Inc. (Greenwood Press), and a contributor to The Mac Bible (Peachpit Press). In addition, he has contributed to numerous Mac publications over the years, including MacWEEK, Macworld, and MacPower (Japan).

When he's not writing about Apple for ZDNet at The Apple Core, he enjoys spending time with his family in New Jersey.

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RE: iPhone 4S benchmarks and specs begin to emerge
adam drabik 29th Nov
These generic chips often contain components that are not ideal for it's intended use or even parts that are not used at all by a particular OEM, also the chips are limited by the price .vrasky
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RE: iPhone 4S benchmarks and specs begin to emerge
Peter Perry Updated - 11th Oct
Siri was available for the iPhone 4 before Apple pulled it from the market.

Also, why no tests against the Droid X2 as that phone has the Tegra 2 which gives the A5 the best run for the money. Also, the Droid X2 has been great since the gingerbread update.
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RE: iPhone 4S benchmarks and specs begin to emerge
don.wright Updated - 11th Oct
@Peter Perry

Um...Hate to say this but, DX2, although a very nice phone, would not even come close. The SGS2 gets blown out of the water and it is the latest/greatest Android phone.

I think once Android optimizes its OS a bit more and it gets native support for multi-core processors and hardware accelerated graphics, it maybe able to start hanging with iOS.

But until that is done, the iP4S will rule the roost. But that could be anytime now since ICS is coming out; we just don't know exactly what ICS will bring to the table.
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RE: iPhone 4S benchmarks and specs begin to emerge
Peter Perry 11th Oct
@don.wright Go recheck your benchmarks man, they're wrong.

When the drivers for Tegra 2 were optimized for Honeycomb the scores were close enough. In most cases to reason that increased resolution and more stuff running was the difference between the iPad 2 and the Tegra based Tablets.

There were a few areas that weren't close enough to claim that but over all the SoC did very well and the Droid X2 is fast.

Now the reason why it wasn't talked up more, the Droid X2 shipped extremely buggy and I was honestly glad I hadn't gotten mine until the GB 2.3.3 update released because the 24 hours I ran the phone with the original Froyo build was painful to say the least!
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Sorry, but Tegra 2 is failure comparing to A5: many times slower in graphic
DeRSSS Updated - 11th Oct
@Peter Perry: ... and vector/multimedia FP calculations. And no wonder, since size of the SGX 543MP2 in A5 is bigger than whole Tegra-2 SoC.
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RE: iPhone 4S benchmarks and specs begin to emerge
illwill112 11th Oct
@DeRSSS shoudldnt watse your with Peter. That guys is serious denial. If it looks like apple is better than it's wrong no matter who it is doing the test.
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RE: iPhone 4S benchmarks and specs begin to emerge
illwill112 11th Oct
@Peter Perry What is it with. So now your right and e eryone else is wrong. Man get over yourself seriously.
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RE: iPhone 4S benchmarks and specs begin to emerge
Bates_ 11th Oct
Can't wait for Friday, should have my 4S so I can begin to benchmark it myself.
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I'll be glad to see these
rhonin 11th Oct
Be good to see some real benchmarks across devices and OSs...
happy
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apple with 1000 engineers customizing chips and
Davewrite 11th Oct
with the ability to add functions and build to any size it wants will have an advantage

Rivals buy off the shelf chips and reports show that these OEMS are disadvantaged as the chip makers make a generic product that will sell to multiple customers. These generic chips often contain components that are not ideal for it's intended use or even parts that are not used at all by a particular OEM, also the chips are limited by the price (the chip maker judging a certain price to max out sales to different groups).

Apple can spend a bit more on each chip (reports show a few dollars more per chip can result in huge performance gains), cut out unnecessary parts, make it larger (more circuits etc - the A5 is larger than the Tegra chips), add customizations to fit its products perfectly to get the best power and battery efficiencies.

Although Apple uses base ARM technology, the ability to customize the chips gives it a huge advantage.
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jwenn0@yahoo.com
DeadParrot 11th Oct
> This is less than the iPad???s 1GB of RAM

Both the iPhone 4s and the iPad 2 have 512 MB of RAM. Check out iFixIt's tear down for details.
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RE: iPhone 4S benchmarks and specs begin to emerge
neil.postlethwaite@... 12th Oct
Perhaps Siri is reliant on some shared DSP functionality they laboured on about with the enhanced optics ?

Siri only on iPhone 4S smells, as if it was software only I can't see any reason for it not to work on iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPad, iPad 2, iPod Touch G3/4. Voice recognition is hardly new CPU intensive technology, and much of the processing/service was seemingly off-loaded to Wolfram in the cloud.
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RE: iPhone 4S benchmarks and specs begin to emerge
adam drabik 29th Nov
These generic chips often contain components that are not ideal for it's intended use or even parts that are not used at all by a particular OEM, also the chips are limited by the price .vrasky

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