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
