New tests conducted over at AnandTech reveal that Apple has chosen to underclock the A5 system-on-a-chip nestled inside the iPhone 4S to ~800MHz, just slightly slower than the iPad 2's 1GHz, but still far better than the iPhone 4's A4 SoC -- by margins as high as 73%.

Using some of the integer and fp tests of published Geekbench scores we can already conclude that Apple is shipping a lower clocked A5 in the iPhone 4S than it does in the iPad 2 [...] Based on the Geekbench results it looks like the iPad 2 is clocked around 25% higher than the iPhone 4S, pegging the latter's clock speed at 800MHz.

They go on to speculate that the reduction in processor speed is attributed to power-saving methods used by Apple, just as they did with the A4 chip in the iPhone 4 when compared to the original iPad.

The tests also reveal a slightly lower-clocked SGX 543MP2 GPU chip, but it's safe to say that the iPhone 4S is easily the fastest smartphone on the planet -- we just can't wait to see how games like Infinity Blade 2 perform on this thing!

Source: AnandTech

A video purportedly showing the iPhone 4S in action reveals a new "Raise to Speak" feature for Siri, letting users bring the iPhone up to their ear instead of holding down the home button in order to active the feature. The video also reveals benchmarks showing the iPhone 4S to be about twice as powerful as the iPhone 4.

Early Sunspider marks show a total score of 2222.1ms and a BrowserMark score of 89567. For comparison, it appears that the BrowserMark score for an iPhone 4 running iOS 5 is44856, so the new iPhone 4S benches twice as fast in the browser.

Additional features found in the video show more options for Siri, including language selection settings, voice feedback, user information and the ability to turn off the service system-wide.

These benchmarks are in-line with Apple's suggestion of the iPhone 4S being roughly twice as powerful as the iPhone 4 with its new A5 SoC powering the device.

Source: AppVV via MacRumors

While Apple believes the mainstream cares more about iPad 2 experience and feeling than feeds and speeds, Anandtech clearly favors the latter and using an array of tests, they claim they've deduced that -- as suspected -- the Apple A5 system-on-a-chip is indeed powered by an ARM Cortex A9 CPU and Imagination PowerVR SGX 543MP2 GPU. It's also fast, beating out not only the 2010 iPad's A4 but the 2011 Motorola Zoom's Tegra 2 in a number of benchmark tests.

In the CPU and JavaScript render tests iPad 2 was a little faster than iOS 4.3 on iPad 1 and Android 3.0 Honeycomb on the Xoom. In GPU tests it was devastatingly faster. Faster as in it digs a hole, stomps them into the mud, refills the whole, stomps it again, and repeats ten more times before the others even try to fight back. It's fast.

What all these geekily benchmarked numbers mean in the real world is faster access to your web pages, especially JavaScript-heavy pages like Facebook, and far smoother, more detailed, and more high-performance graphics in everything from OS transitions to full 3D games.

In other words, Apple may have changed the specs into an experience fight, but they're more than got the SoC specs to make that experience.

(Can't wait for this to come to iPhone 5, can you?)

[Anandtech x2]

We've been talking about the zippiness of the iPhone 3GS -- S as in Speed -- since it launched, and report after report has confirmed that not only is it fast, it's faster than we initially thought.

Here's more of the same. Running OpenGL 1.x like the iPhone 3G (never mind that it can run OpenGL 2.0 which the iPhone 3G can't), the results are most impressive:

• The CPU performance is Faster by 40-70%
• The fillrate* is 3x to 4x higher
• Texture effects and filters are about 10x faster

These are probably better indicators for now, since game developers likely won't abandon the 40 million previous generation users (and their money) any time soon. Does make you wonder when it will happen, though, and what the games -- and other apps -- will eventually look like.

[via Gizmodo via glbenchmark via Extremetech viaUbergizmo -- phew!]

Once again validating Dieter's iPhone 3GS vs. Palm Pre web rendering smackdown, MacRumors reports on Medialets' latest Sunspider Javascript tests pitting the iPhone 3GS against the iPhone 3G (both on 3.0 and 2.2.1), Palm Pre, and Google Android G1.

As MacRumors points out, not only is iPhone 3GS' clear, current speed advantage impressive, but the 3x improvement iPhone 3.0 gives the iPhone 3G is most impressive as well.

Bill Gates' "power of software" indeed...

Update: Engadget re-did the math and it looks like the iPhone 3G S is actually 21% faster than the Palm Pre (for now).

According to Anandtech, Dieter was spot on in his iPhone 3G S vs. Palm Pre browser speed test video. (as was our iPhone 3G S vs. iPhone 3G smackdown video)

The bigger story, of course, is not only do we have several great devices pushing competition and better serving users these days, but Mobile WebKit (the rendering engine behind Apple's Safari, Google's Chrome Lite, Palm Pre's browser, and Nokia S60 (tip of the hat to Sascha Segan) has become the mobile internet platform.

That it's relentlessly standards based, scales elegantly from desktop (where it ironically holds minimal share) to handset, and is continually being improved upon makes us especially happy for all concerned devices.

We mentioned yesterday that iPhone OS 3.0's Mobile Safari Browser was being reported as faster than the current iPhone OS 2.2.1 version. Now Ars Technica has run the numbers and the results are pretty impressive. Check out their full report for all the details, but this sums it up nicely:

According to our sources, the 3.0 beta still has some stability and speed issues, so that makes these results that much more impressive. While the overall average gives the iPhone 3.0 beta a 300 percent speed advantage, some of the individual tests show 6x, 8x, or even 11x improvements—the bitwise "AND" function even runs 16x faster than in the current version of Mobile Safari.

Should make the release version of the new, Nitro-powered Mobile Safari 3.0 fairly impressive, come summer! Bring on them multi-app Facebook pages, the iPhone will be ready! (Joking... a bit.)