Apple A12 Bionic vs Huawei Kirin 990 5G
30.5CPU33.3
30.2GPU—
46.6Benchmarks48.6
20AIspec-based—
41.8Efficiencyspec-based20
1 spec wins — Apple A12 Bionic4 spec wins — Huawei Kirin 990 5G
InnoReviews verdict
This one is close to a dead heat: Apple A12 Bionic scores 34.3 against 34.9 for Huawei Kirin 990 5G. Pick by the categories that matter to you — Huawei Kirin 990 5G edges ahead in CPU and benchmarks, or by price.
Which would you pick?
Key differences
Reasons to pick the Apple A12 Bionic
No decisive spec advantages — this side competes on price and preference.
Reasons to pick the Huawei Kirin 990 5G
- 33% higher cores: 8 vs 6
- 22% higher Geekbench 6 (multi): 3,419 vs 2,800
- 15% higher Max clock: 2.86 GHz vs 2.49 GHz
General
| Spec | Apple A12 Bionic | Huawei Kirin 990 5G |
|---|---|---|
| Announced | 2018 | 2019 |
| Process | 7 nm | 7 nm |
| TDP (typical) | 6 W | — |
| Architecture | Armv8.3 | ARM (Cortex-A76 and Cortex-A55 cores) |
CPU
| Spec | Apple A12 Bionic | Huawei Kirin 990 5G |
|---|---|---|
| Cores | 6 | 8+33% |
| Core configuration | 2x2.49 GHz Vortex + 4x1.52 GHz Tempest | 2x2.86 GHz Cortex-A76 + 2x2.36 GHz Cortex-A76 + 4x1.95 GHz Cortex-A55 |
| Max clock | 2.49 GHz | 2.86 GHz+15% |
GPU
| Spec | Apple A12 Bionic | Huawei Kirin 990 5G |
|---|---|---|
| GPU | Apple GPU (4-core) | Arm Mali-G76 MP16 |
AI
| Spec | Apple A12 Bionic | Huawei Kirin 990 5G |
|---|---|---|
| NPU | Neural Engine (8-core) | HUAWEI Da Vinci NPU (2x Ascend Lite + 1x Ascend Tiny) |
| AI performance | 5 TOPS | — |
Memory
| Spec | Apple A12 Bionic | Huawei Kirin 990 5G |
|---|---|---|
| Memory type | LPDDR4X-2133 | LPDDR4X |
| Max bandwidth | 34.1 GB/s | — |
Connectivity
| Spec | Apple A12 Bionic | Huawei Kirin 990 5G |
|---|---|---|
| Modem | Intel XMM 7560 LTE (external) | Integrated 5G modem (SA/NSA) |
| Max download | — | 2.3 Gbps |
| Wi-Fi | Wi-Fi 5 | — |
| Bluetooth | 5.0 | — |
Media
| Spec | Apple A12 Bionic | Huawei Kirin 990 5G |
|---|---|---|
| Max display | Retina XDR | — |
| Video capture | 4K@60fps | — |
Benchmarks
| Spec | Apple A12 Bionic | Huawei Kirin 990 5G |
|---|---|---|
| AnTuTuDifferent AnTuTu versions — not compared | 720,000 | 778,713Bottom 27% |
| AnTuTu 11 (CPU) | — | 267,234Bottom 22% |
| AnTuTu 11 (GPU) | — | 130,102Bottom 34% |
| AnTuTu 11 (Memory) | — | 188,134Bottom 50% |
| AnTuTu 11 (UX) | — | 193,243Bottom 15% |
| Geekbench 6 (single) | 1,100+8%Top 43% | 1,023Top 50% |
| Geekbench 6 (multi) | 2,800Bottom 50% | 3,419+22%Top 38% |
| 3DMark Wild Life Extreme | 1,450Bottom 46% | — |
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