X

Apple's A6 processor appears faster than previously thought

The chip in the iPhone 5 has been clocked at 1.3GHz by a new version of iOS benchmarking software Geekbench, faster than the 1.02GHz previously reported.

Steven Musil Night Editor / News
Steven Musil is the night news editor at CNET News. He's been hooked on tech since learning BASIC in the late '70s. When not cleaning up after his daughter and son, Steven can be found pedaling around the San Francisco Bay Area. Before joining CNET in 2000, Steven spent 10 years at various Bay Area newspapers.
Expertise I have more than 30 years' experience in journalism in the heart of the Silicon Valley.
Steven Musil
iPhone 5 packs the fastest Apple A series chip to date, according to benchmarks posted by Geekbench. Apple

The silicon powering the new iPhone 5 appears to be more powerful than previously thought.

The A6 processor found in Apple's next-generation smartphone has been clocked at 1.3GHz by a new version of iOS benchmarking software Geekbench, faster than the 1.02 GHz previously reported.

The new version of Geekbench, which landed today at the App Store, "features a dramatically improved processor frequency detection algorithm, which consistently reports the A6's frequency as 1.3GHz," Primate Labs John Poole told Engadget.

Earlier results posted by Geekbench suggested the A6 was roughly twice as fast as any chip in an existing iOS product, beating the dual-core A5 and A5X processors in the iPhone 4S and third-generation iPad, respectively. However, Poole said the previous software version wasn't measuring the clock speed properly.

"Earlier versions of Geekbench had trouble determining the A6's frequency, which lead to people claiming the A6's frequency as 1.0GHz as it was the most common value Geekbench reported," he said

The new results appear to support Apple's claims that the A6 is "up to twice as fast compared with the A5 chip."

Thought to be the first Apple chip made on Samsung's new 32-nanometer manufacturing process, the A6 is more efficient at processing instructions. Chips moving to a more advanced manufacturing process tend to benefit by exhibiting faster speeds and more efficient power usage.