Apple iPhone 6s Plus review: The bigger picture

Apple A9 chip performance

The new generation of iPhones is powered by a brand new Apple A9 chipset, which packs a dual-core 1.85 GHz Twister processor, PowerVR GT7600 six-core graphics and 2GB RAM. The chips are made either by Samsung on 14nm process, or TSMC on 16nm process. All of these mean the A9 has more processing power, a stronger GPU punch, double the RAM and better thermal properties.

Apple has always focused on the single-core performance since it is the most important one when it comes to interacting with the iOS user interface and early tests showed that the 64-bit Twister core is the best and fastest CPU core currently on the market. On the other hand you are only getting two of those, so we'll see how it goes. In come the benchmarks.

The multi-core score of GeekBench 3 shows how powerful the new dual-core Twister processor is. It beats the Snapdragon 810 chips with their quad-Cortex-A57 CPU, but trails behind the Exynos 7420, which uses a similar architecture but a higher clock speed.

GeekBench 3

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy S6
  5215
• Samsung Galaxy S6 edge+
  5158
• Samsung Galaxy Note5
  5124
• Apple iPhone 6s
  4427
• Apple iPhone 6s Plus
  4413
• Sony Xperia Z5 Compact
  3796
• LG G Flex2
  3604
• Sony Xperia M5 Dual
  3554
• LG G4 (final)
  3522
• Sony Xperia Z3+ final
  3402
• Apple iPhone 6
  2924
• Apple iPhone 6 Plus
  2884
• Meizu m2 note
  2649

The single-core results show you the difference. A single Twister does insanely better than any other CPU core on the market today. In fact, a single Twister core is equal to the 8-core Cortex-A53 performance on the Meizu m2 note.

GeekBench 3 single core

Higher is better

• Apple iPhone 6s
  2542
• Apple iPhone 6s Plus
  2537
• Apple iPhone 6
  1594
• Samsung Galaxy S6
  1484
• Sony Xperia Z5 Compact
  1351
• HTC One M9
  1239

The compound BaseMark OS II 2.0 test gauges CPU, GPU, Memory, Web and System performance. In this test there is no one to come even close to the iPhone 6s/6s Plus thanks to Apple's optimized OS. The fact that it has the latest A9 chipset doesn't hurt either.

Basemark OS 2.0

Higher is better

• Apple iPhone 6s Plus
  2261
• Apple iPhone 6s
  2195
• LG G Flex2
  1726
• Samsung Galaxy S6
  1674
• Sony Xperia Z5 Compact
  1440
• Sony Xperia Z3+ final
  1226
• Sony Xperia M5 Dual
  860

Next - graphics performance. The new iPhone generation utilizes the six-core PowerVR GT7600 GPU, which is quite the beast. The 1080p off-screen benchmarks speak for themselves.

GFX 2.7 T-Rex (1080p offscreen)

Higher is better

• Apple iPhone 6s
  79.8
• Apple iPhone 6s Plus
  79.6
• Samsung Galaxy S6
  59
• Sony Xperia Z5 Compact
  56
• Samsung Galaxy S6 edge+
  56
• Samsung Galaxy Note5
  56
• Sony Xperia Z3+ final
  50
• LG G Flex2
  49
• Apple iPhone 6 Plus
  44.6
• Apple iPhone 6
  42.6
• LG G4 (final)
  34
• Sony Xperia M5 Dual
  23

GFX 3.0 Manhattan (1080p offscreen)

Higher is better

• Apple iPhone 6s Plus
  39.5
• Apple iPhone 6s
  39.5
• Sony Xperia Z5 Compact
  25
• Samsung Galaxy S6 edge+
  25
• Samsung Galaxy S6
  24
• LG G Flex2
  22
• Samsung Galaxy Note5
  21
• Sony Xperia Z3+ final
  21
• Apple iPhone 6 Plus
  18.6
• Apple iPhone 6
  17.7
• LG G4 (final)
  15
• Sony Xperia M5 Dual
  8.4

In the onscreen tests the iPhone 6s pair hits the cap on T-Rex, and the difference between the two finally shows in the onscreen routine. With nearly 39fps, the 6s Plus scores more than 50% higher than the HTC One M9, which has the next fastest GPU paired to a 1080p display. Quad HD phones are inevitably trailing here.

GFX 2.7 T-Rex (onscreen)

Higher is better

• Apple iPhone 6s
  59.6
• Apple iPhone 6s Plus
  59.6
• Sony Xperia Z5 Compact
  57
• Apple iPhone 6
  51
• LG G Flex2
  48
• Sony Xperia Z3+ final
  46
• Samsung Galaxy S6
  38
• Samsung Galaxy S6 edge+
  37
• Samsung Galaxy Note5
  29
• LG G4 (final)
  25
• Sony Xperia M5 Dual
  24

GFX 3.0 Manhattan (onscreen)

Higher is better

• Apple iPhone 6s
  53.6
• Sony Xperia Z5 Compact
  39
• Apple iPhone 6s Plus
  38.6
• Apple iPhone 6
  29.2
• LG G Flex2
  22
• Sony Xperia Z3+ final
  21
• Samsung Galaxy Note5
  15
• Samsung Galaxy S6 edge+
  15
• Samsung Galaxy S6
  14
• LG G4 (final)
  9.4
• Sony Xperia M5 Dual
  8.7

Finally, Android has OpenGL ES 3.1 as latest generation graphics, while iOS 9 has Metal. Both allow games to make full use of the built-in GPUs and BaseMark has launched the BaseMark ES3.1 / Metal apps so we can compare the performance cross-platform. The two iPhone 6s models are in a league of their own here.

Basemark ES 3.1 / Metal

Higher is better

• Apple iPhone 6s Plus
  916
• Apple iPhone 6s
  879
• HTC One M9
  409
• Apple iPhone 6
  370
• Samsung Galaxy S6 edge+
  348
• Samsung Galaxy S6
  311

Unfortunately, the BrowserMark 2.1 web test wasn't compatible with the new version of Safari and we couldn't perform the benchmark. We were able to test the pure JavaScript performance via the Kraken benchmark though, and it came out class-leading.

Kraken 1.1

Lower is better

• Apple iPhone 6s Plus
  1731
• Apple iPhone 6s
  1737
• Samsung Galaxy Note5
  3702
• Samsung Galaxy S6 edge+
  3767
• Samsung Galaxy S6
  4154
• LG G Flex2
  4621
• LG G4 (final)
  4639
• Apple iPhone 6 Plus
  4650
• Apple iPhone 6
  4710
• Sony Xperia Z5 Compact
  7868
• Sony Xperia Z3+ final
  9204
• Sony Xperia M5 Dual
  25088

We said it once, and we'll just repeat it here - Apple A9 is a beast. The differences between the iPhone 6s and the 6s Plus are marginal, but both are in a league of their own and nothing else comes close. Apple's choice of designing its own processor pays out every year and makes sure iOS users never have to worry about lackluster performance.

Apple A9 has the power to handle everything you can get on your phone today and is future-proof for the years to come with some huge power reserves under the hood.