The new Apple TV 4K is powered by the A15 Bionic chip: and some are asking whether it could become a genuine games console competitor, allowing Apple to tap into a new market.
According to a new study from FlatpanelsHD, the new model compares to the Playstation 4 and Playstation 5 and could start a revolution in the world of family gaming, changing the way we play and interact with content together and on our own.
Sure, the $129 model isn’t going to compete with a state-of-the-art Xbox Series X, but the testing results are conclusive: the Apple TV is an excellent choice for gamers.
Apple added an A15 chip into this year’s Apple TV 4K with a 4-core GPU and 4-core CPU, and when compared to the A12 chip featured in the previous Apple TV model, the new unit is “roughly 40% faster,” according to new benchmarks. Apple previously advertised that the model was up to 50% faster and it’s a superior product.
One of the most significant changes in this year’s model is that the Apple TV 4K doesn’t have a fan, allowing for a smaller and lighter design that looks better in the home. As a result, Apple throttles less than the previous model. In tests, the Apple TV with an A12 chip throttled to 65%, but without active cooling, the A15 Bionic model throttled to 84%, meaning it can sustain most of its CPU performance during prolonged gaming periods. What’s even more exciting is that the CPU in A15 Bionic is “much, much faster” than previous-generation game consoles such as Xbox One and PlayStation 5.
Indeed, the A15’s CPU performance core is significantly faster than PS5’s CPU core (single-core performance). However, the PS5 pulls ahead in multi-core performance as it has eight cores as opposed to five in the Apple TV version of A15.
Even more exciting is that the Apple TV 4K exceeds the 1 TFlops of graphical performance, but there is no GPU info or benchmark apps available for tvOS. FlatpanelsHD suggests that the Apple TV 4K has much faster RAM and is equipped with a “very fast NVMe SSD unlike the old-school hard drive in last-gen consoles,” meaning that Xbox One and PS4 could be played on Apple TV without too many compromises.
Of course, that’s in theory, porting games from the Xbox to the Apple TV is a little more challenging. But things are changing, and with Apple Arcade allowing developers to utilize the power of the new M1-powered Macs and the power of the latest iPhones like the iPhone 14 Pro Max, we’re starting to see cutting-edge mobile games that translate well onto the TV.
Have you played games on your Apple TV? Let us know and check back soon for more.