Apple A9 vs Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5

[ VERDICT ] Winner: Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 (97/100)

Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 leads overall with a score of 97/100 compared to Apple A9 (24/100), offering superior measured performance and technical specifications.

Why choose Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5:
  • + Higher DeviceBenchmark Score score (97 vs 24)
  • + Higher Performance score (99 vs 18)
Apple A9
Apple

Apple A9

24/100
View Full Specs →
[ WINNER ]
Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5
Qualcomm

Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5

97/100
View Full Specs →

Benchmark Performance Comparison

Normalized Lab Scores
Benchmark measurements and scores across compared devices
Benchmark Apple A9 Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5
DeviceBenchmark Score 24.0 Poor 97.0 Excellent WINNER
Performance 18.0 Poor 99.0 Excellent WINNER

Detailed Technical Specifications

AI Accelerator

AI Accelerator specifications comparison
Specification Apple A9 Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5
Neural processor (NPU) Apple M9 Hexagon

AnTuTu 11

AnTuTu 11 specifications comparison
Specification Apple A9 Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5
CPU 162356 1112833
GPU 70340 1494722
Memory 60725 442350
Total score 419670 3950082
UX 126249 900177

CPU

CPU specifications comparison
Specification Apple A9 Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5
Architecture 2x 1.85 GHz – Twister 2x 4.61 GHz – Oryon Gen 3 Prime6x 3.63 GHz – Oryon Gen 3 Performance
Cores 2 8
Frequency 1850 MHz 4610 MHz
Instruction set ARMv8-A ARMv9.2-A
L1 cache 64 KB 192 KB
L2 cache 3 MB 12 MB
L3 cache 4 MB 12 MB
Manufacturing TSMC TSMC
Process 14 nanometers 3 nanometers
TDP (Sustained Power Limit) 5 W —
Transistor count 2 billion —

Connectivity

Connectivity specifications comparison
Specification Apple A9 Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5
4G support LTE Cat. 6 LTE Cat. 24
5G support No Yes
Bluetooth 4.2 6.0
Download speed Up to 450 Mbps Up to 12500 Mbps
Modem Qualcomm MDM9635M Snapdragon X85
Navigation GPS, GLONASS, Beidou, Galileo GPS, GLONASS, Beidou, Galileo, QZSS, NAVIC
Upload speed Up to 150 Mbps Up to 3700 Mbps
Wi-Fi 5 7

GeekBench 6

GeekBench 6 specifications comparison
Specification Apple A9 Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5
API Metal Vulkan
Asset compression 44.6 MB/sec 421.8 MB/sec
Background blur 2.89 images/sec 40.7 images/sec
Edge detection 0.14 Gpixels/sec 1 Gpixels/sec
Face detection 6.17 images/sec 24.9 images/sec
Feature matching 0.03 Gpixels/sec 0.36 Gpixels/sec
Gaussian blur 0.31 Gpixels/sec 2.04 Gpixels/sec
HDR 40.2 Mpixels/sec 308.4 Mpixels/sec
HTML 5 Browser 14.2 pages/sec 238 pages/sec
Horizon detection 0.1 Gpixels/sec 0.72 Gpixels/sec
Image detection 7.3 images/sec 330.6 images/sec
PDF Renderer 32 Mpixels/sec 286.6 Mpixels/sec
Particle physics 299.1 FPS 4390.2 FPS
Photo processing 7.75 images/sec 98.7 images/sec
Ray tracing 1.28 Mpixels/sec 14.1 Mpixels/sec
Samples 3 tests 79 tests
Stereo matching 7.82 Gpixels/sec 115.4 Gpixels/sec

Graphics

Graphics specifications comparison
Specification Apple A9 Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5
FLOPS 249.6 Gigaflops 3686.4 Gigaflops
GPU frequency 650 MHz 1200 MHz
OpenCL version 1.2 3.0
Pipelines 6 3
Shading units 32 512
Total shaders 192 1536
Vulkan version 1.1 1.4
DirectX version — 12.1

Info

Info specifications comparison
Specification Apple A9 Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5
Announced September 2015 September 2025
Class Flagship Flagship
Model number APL1022 SM8850-AC
Successor -Apple A19 Pro —
Official page — Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 official site

Memory

Memory specifications comparison
Specification Apple A9 Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5
Bus 2x 16 Bit 4x 16 Bit
Max bandwidth 14.9 Gb/s 84.8 Gb/s
Max size 4 GB 24 GB
Memory frequency 1333 MHz 5300 MHz
Memory type LPDDR4 LPDDR5X

Multimedia (ISP)

Multimedia (ISP) specifications comparison
Specification Apple A9 Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5
Audio codecs - AAC- AIFF- CAF- MP3- MP4- WAV - AAC- AIFF- CAF- MP3- MP4- WAV
Max camera resolution 1x 32MP, 2x 12MP 1x 320MP
Max display resolution 2048 x 1536 3840 x 2540
Storage type NVMe UFS 4.0, UFS 4.1
Video capture 4K at 30FPS 8K at 60FPS, 4K at 120FPS
Video codecs - H.264- H.265 - H.264- H.265- AV1- VP8- VP9
Video playback 4K at 30FPS 8K at 60FPS, 4K at 120FPS

Recent User Tests

Recent User Tests specifications comparison
Specification Apple A9 Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5
Date Benchmark Benchmark
📘 2024-03-13(ゆう) GeekBench GPU —
📘 2024-06-26(Heaven) GeekBench GPU —
📘 2024-07-04(Red) GeekBench GPU —
📘 2026-05-13(TestGame) GeekBench GPU —
📘 2026-08-19->2295031556Leon — AnTuTu
📘 2026-08-21(Ilya) — AnTuTu
📘 2026-08-24(q_l8) — AnTuTu
📘 2026-08-24->Ang3L4D — AnTuTu
📘 2026-08-25(Edwin3q) — AnTuTu
📘 2026-08-25(Hüseyn Alizade) — AnTuTu
📘 2026-08-25(erosado-pr) — AnTuTu
📘 2026-08-25(freqr) — AnTuTu

3DMark

3DMark specifications comparison
Specification Apple A9 Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5
Graphics test — 20 FPS
Section 1 — 52 FPS
Section 2 — 46 FPS
Section 3 — 40 FPS
Stability — 67%

PCMark 3.0

PCMark 3.0 specifications comparison
Specification Apple A9 Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5
Data manipulation score — 15949
Phones tested — 13 models
Photo editing score — 40273
Video editing score — 8052
Web score — 16855
Writing score — 26073

Smartphones

Smartphones specifications comparison
Specification Apple A9 Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5
1.ZTE Nubia Red Magic 11S Pro Plus — 4716234
10.Honor Magic 8 — 4037547
2.ZTE Nubia Red Magic 11S Pro — 4678468
3.Vivo iQOO 15 Ultra — 4602290
4.Vivo X300 Ultra — 4247433
5.ZTE Nubia Red Magic 11 Pro Plus — 4244509
6.Oppo Find X9 Ultra — 4231988
7.Honor Robot Phone — 4166339
8.Honor Magic V6 — 4166339
9.ZTE Nubia Red Magic 11 Pro — 4117238
Phones with Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 — AnTuTu v11

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