Apple A4 vs Apple A5

Let's find out which one of Apple A5 and Apple A4 is of a more recent generation, and what segment it belongs to.

• Name
  Apple A5 Apple A4
• Family
  Apple A series Apple A series
• CPU group
  Apple A5/A5X Apple A4
• Segment
  Mobile Mobile
• Generation
  5 4
• Successor
  Apple A6 --

In this block we are going to compare Apple A5 vs Apple A4 by main technical specifications: number of cores and threads, base and maximum frequencies, process technology and cache size. The higher these specifications are, the more powerful your CPU will be.

• CPU Cores / Threads
  2 / 2 1 / 1
• Core architecture
  normal normal
• Cores
  2x Cortex-A9 1x Cortex-A8
• Hyperthreading / SMT
  No No
• Overclocking
  No No
• Frequency
  1.00 GHz 0.80 GHz
• Turbo Frequency (1 Core)
  -- 1.00 GHz

Common specifications for integrated graphics cards in Apple A5 and Apple A4 along with supported interfaces and connection options. This block has no effect on the final efficiency of the CPU.

• GPU name
  PowerVR SGX543MP2 (2 Cores) PowerVR SGX535
• GPU frequency
  0.20 GHz
• GPU (Turbo)
  No turbo No turbo
• Execution units
  4 2
• Shader
  32 2
• Max. displays
  1 1
• Direct X
  10 10.1
• Technology
  32 nm 65nm
• Release date
  Q1/2012 Q4/2007

Let's compare the support of video codecs between Apple A5 and Apple A4. Hardware support of video decoding by embedded graphics cards directly affects the speed and quality of rendering videos.

• h265 / HEVC (8 bit)
  No No
• h265 / HEVC (10 bit)
  No No
• h264
  No No
• VP8
  No No
• VP9
  No No
• AV1
  No No
• AVC
  No No
• VC-1
  No No
• JPEG
  No No

To choose the best model between Apple A5 and Apple A4 you need to pay special attention to memory type, clock frequency, multi-channel features, and PCIe version. The higher these numbers are, the better your CPU will be. Keep in mind that the maximum memory and frequency may also depend on the model of the motherboard.

• Memory type
  LPDDR2-800 LPDDR2-800
• Max. Memory
  1 GB
• Memory channels
  2 (Dual Channel) 1 (Single Channel)
• Bandwidth
  6.4 GB/s --
• ECC
  No No
• AES-NI
  No No

Let's find out what TDP value would be better for Apple A5 or Apple A4? The Thermal Design Power (TDP) indicates the maximum amount of heat that should be dissipated by the chip cooling system. However, the value of TDP gives only a rough indication of the real power consumption of the CPU.

Here you can find a comparison of 2nd and 3rd level cache sizes for Apple A5 and Apple A4 CPUs along with a list of ISA extensions.

• Technology
  32 nm 45 nm
• Chip design
  Chiplet Chiplet
• Socket
  N/A N/A
• L2-Cache
  1.00 MB 0.51 MB
• Architecture
  A5 A4
• Operating systems
  iOS iOS
• Virtualization
  None None
• Instruction set (ISA)
  ARMv7-A32 (32 bit) ARMv7-A32 (32 bit)
• Release date
  Q1/2011 Q2/2010
• Part Number
  APL 0498 --