Apple TV 4K performance compared to Playstation 5 and others. The new Apple TV 4K came out about a week ago and we’re getting more and more details about the changes and improvements to the set-top box. FlatpanelsHD released a great review of the Apple TV 4K comparing it to the popular Playstation 4 and Playstation 5 game consoles.
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- Apple TV 4K performance test
The A15 chip used in the 2022 Apple TV 4K has a 4-core GPU, not the 5-core version of the GPU used in the iPhone 13 Pro. It also has a 4-core processor rather than a 5-core processor, further showing that this is a limited version of the A15 Bionic chip.
In terms of performance compared to the previous generation Apple TV with the A12 chip, tests conducted by FlatpanelsHD show that the Apple TV 4K is “about 40% faster” this year. Apple claims that the set-top box should be 50% faster, such a difference can be justified by differences in testing methodology.
Another change this year is that the latest Apple TV 4K does not have a fan inside, making it smaller and lighter in design. How does this affect performance, cooling and throttling? The new Apple TV 4K actually throttles less than the previous model:
In our testing, the A15’s processor was about 40% faster than the previous generation Apple TV’s A12, falling short of Apple’s claimed 50% improvement… On the other hand, we were surprised that the A15 throttled less than the A12, given that it doesn’t have active cooling. A 20-minute CPU stress test on the A12 throttled at 65% while the A15 started throttling at 84%, meaning the new Apple TV 4K can run at maximum CPU performance longer during long, heavy gaming sessions. .
- As for the comparison with PS5 and Xbox One:
The processor in the A15 Bionic is much faster than previous generation game consoles such as Xbox One and PlayStation 5. The single core performance of the A15 processor is also significantly better than the PS5 processor core, but the PS5 takes the lead in multi-core performance because the game console has 8 cores, not 5 cores like the A15 chip in the Apple TV.In terms of GPU, the Apple TV 4K (2022) tops 1 TFlops of graphics performance on paper, but how much is a bit unclear as there is no GPU information or reference apps available for tvOS. In terms of performance, TFlops still can’t match the latest generation gaming consoles like the Xbox One and only has half the RAM (4GB vs 8GB).
On the other hand, the Apple TV 4K (2022) has much faster RAM and is equipped with a very fast NVMe SSD, as opposed to the old-school hard drive in the latest generation of consoles. We’re coming to the conclusion that Xbox One and PS4 games should, in theory, be available on Apple TV without too many compromises.For years, Apple has been trying to turn the Apple TV into a gaming device, but it hasn’t been very successful. These tests highlight that the issue is not performance, but a lack of broader support from developers and game studios. Tests show that little has changed in this regard, but the performance of available games continues to impress.