A week ago, Apple’s latest Apple TV 4K went on sale, using the new A15 Bionic chip. Foreign technology media FlatpanelsHD conducted an in-depth test and compared it with the Sony PlayStation 4/5 game console.
Apple TV 4K performance test
The A15 chip used in this year’s Apple TV 4K has 4 GPU cores, while the chip used on the iPhone 13 Pro series has 5 GPU cores. Also in terms of CPU cores, the Apple TV uses 4 CPU cores, while the iPhone has 5 CPU cores.
Tests done by FlatpanelsHD show that this year’s Apple TV 4K is “about 40 percent faster” compared to the previous-generation Apple TV with the built-in A12 chip. Apple claims it should be 50% faster, but the difference can simply be attributed to differences in testing methods.
Another change this year is that the new Apple TV 4K has no fans inside, making it a smaller and lighter design. How does this affect performance, cooling and throttling? The new Apple TV 4K actually throttles less than the previous model.
In CPU benchmarks, the A15 was about 40 percent faster than the A12 in the previous Apple TV — down from the 50 percent improvement Apple claims. There are two reasons for this: on the one hand, different testing methods may be used, and on the other hand, considering that the A15 has no active cooling, we were surprised to see that the A15 throttles less than the A12.
A 20-minute CPU stress test limited the A12 to 65 percent, while the A15 was limited to just 84 percent, meaning the new Apple TV 4K can sustain most of its CPU performance during long, heavy-duty games.
Apple TV Stress Test Results for the 2021 Model Year
Apple TV Stress Test Results for the 2022 Model Year
Comparing performance with PS5 and Xbox One
CPU aspect
The CPU in the A15 Bionic is much faster than previous generation consoles like the Xbox One and PlayStation 5. The CPU performance core of the A15 is also significantly faster than the PS5’s CPU core (single-core performance), but the PS5 leads the core performance in multi-core because it has 8 cores.
GPU aspect
As for the GPU, Apple TV 4K (2022) graphics performance is spec’d at over 1 TFlops, but it’s somewhat vague as there’s no GPU info or benchmark app for tvOS. It still can’t match previous-generation consoles like the Xbox One in terms of TFlops performance, and it has half the RAM (4GB vs. 8GB).
Image courtesy of FlatpanelsHD
Storage
On the other hand, Apple TV 4K (2022) has faster RAM with a very fast NVMe SSD, unlike the older hard drives found in previous generation consoles. In theory, both Xbox One and PS4 games should be playable on Apple TV without sacrificing much in terms of frame rate.
The problem with Apple TV isn’t performance, it’s the gaming ecosystem.
Apple has been trying to turn Apple TV into a gaming device for years, but with little success. These performance tests underscore that the problem isn’t performance, but the lack of broader support from developers and game studios. These tests show little change in that department, but the performance of available games continues to impress.
