Apple M3 (iPad) vs HiSilicon Kirin 980

[ VERDICT ] Winner: Apple M3 (iPad) (97/100)

Apple M3 (iPad) leads overall with a score of 97/100 compared to HiSilicon Kirin 980 (35/100), offering superior measured performance and technical specifications.

[ WINNER ]
Apple M3 (iPad)
Apple

Apple M3 (iPad)

97/100
View Full Specs →
HiSilicon Kirin 980
HiSilicon

HiSilicon Kirin 980

35/100
View Full Specs →

Benchmark Performance Comparison

Normalized Lab Scores
Benchmark measurements and scores across compared devices
Benchmark Apple M3 (iPad) HiSilicon Kirin 980
NanoReview Score 97.0 Excellent WINNER 35.0 Poor
Performance 98.0 Excellent WINNER 33.0 Poor

Detailed Technical Specifications

3DMark

3DMark specifications comparison
Specification Apple M3 (iPad) HiSilicon Kirin 980
Graphics test 20 FPS 4 FPS
Section 1 52 FPS —
Section 2 38 FPS —
Section 3 28 FPS —
Stability 70% 48%

AI Accelerator

AI Accelerator specifications comparison
Specification Apple M3 (iPad) HiSilicon Kirin 980
NPU theoretical performance 18 TOPS —
Neural processor (NPU) Apple Neural Engine Yes

AnTuTu 11

AnTuTu 11 specifications comparison
Specification Apple M3 (iPad) HiSilicon Kirin 980
CPU 782907 322481
GPU 1029236 107109
Memory 305749 146249
Total score 2777287 736755
UX 659395 160916

CPU

CPU specifications comparison
Specification Apple M3 (iPad) HiSilicon Kirin 980
Architecture 4x 4.05 GHz –4x 2.75 GHz – 2x 2.6 GHz – Cortex-A762x 1.92 GHz – Cortex-A764x 1.8 GHz – Cortex-A55
Cores 8 8
Frequency 4050 MHz 2600 MHz
Instruction set ARMv8.6-A ARMv8.2-A
L1 cache 256 KB 512 KB
L2 cache 16 MB 4 MB
Manufacturing TSMC TSMC
Process 3 nanometers 7 nanometers
TDP (Sustained Power Limit) 20 W 6 W
Transistor count 25 billion 6.9 billion

Connectivity

Connectivity specifications comparison
Specification Apple M3 (iPad) HiSilicon Kirin 980
5G support Yes No
Bluetooth 5.3 5.0
Download speed Up to 7500 Mbps Up to 1400 Mbps
Navigation GPS, GLONASS, Beidou, Galileo, QZSS GPS, GLONASS, Beidou, Galileo
Upload speed Up to 3500 Mbps Up to 200 Mbps
Wi-Fi 6 6
4G support — LTE Cat. 21

GeekBench 6

GeekBench 6 specifications comparison
Specification Apple M3 (iPad) HiSilicon Kirin 980
API Metal Vulkan
Asset compression 458.1 MB/sec 128.6 MB/sec
Background blur 48.2 images/sec 10.1 images/sec
Edge detection 1.93 Gpixels/sec 0.28 Gpixels/sec
Face detection 108.3 images/sec 3.47 images/sec
Feature matching 0.62 Gpixels/sec 0.04 Gpixels/sec
Gaussian blur 2.41 Gpixels/sec 0.16 Gpixels/sec
HDR 422.1 Mpixels/sec 85.1 Mpixels/sec
HTML 5 Browser 270.6 pages/sec 75 pages/sec
Horizon detection 1.43 Gpixels/sec 0.17 Gpixels/sec
Image detection 287.2 images/sec 59.9 images/sec
PDF Renderer 299.9 Mpixels/sec 97.4 Mpixels/sec
Particle physics 4690 FPS 485.7 FPS
Photo processing 116.1 images/sec 22.7 images/sec
Ray tracing 13.4 Mpixels/sec 3.74 Mpixels/sec
Samples 4 tests 18 tests
Stereo matching 128.9 Gpixels/sec 12.1 Gpixels/sec

Graphics

Graphics specifications comparison
Specification Apple M3 (iPad) HiSilicon Kirin 980
FLOPS 3179.5 Gigaflops 345.6 Gigaflops
GPU frequency 1380 MHz 720 MHz
Pipelines 9 10
Shading units 128 24
Total shaders 1152 240
OpenCL version — 2.0
Vulkan version — 1.3

Info

Info specifications comparison
Specification Apple M3 (iPad) HiSilicon Kirin 980
Announced October 2023 August 2018
Class Flagship Flagship
Official page — HiSilicon Kirin 980 official site
Successor — -HiSilicon Kirin 9000S

Memory

Memory specifications comparison
Specification Apple M3 (iPad) HiSilicon Kirin 980
Bus 8x 16 Bit 4x 16 Bit
Max bandwidth 102.4 Gb/s 34.1 Gb/s
Max size 24 GB 8 GB
Memory frequency 3200 MHz 2133 MHz
Memory type LPDDR5 LPDDR4X

Multimedia (ISP)

Multimedia (ISP) specifications comparison
Specification Apple M3 (iPad) HiSilicon Kirin 980
Audio codecs - AAC- AIFF- CAF- MP3- MP4- WAV - AIFF- CAF- MP3- MP4- WAV
Max camera resolution 1x 48MP 1x 48MP, 2x 20MP
Max display resolution 2732 x 2048 3120 x 1440
Storage type NVMe UFS 2.1, UFS 3.0
Video capture 4K at 60FPS 4K at 30FPS
Video codecs - H.264- H.265- AV1- VP9 - H.264- H.265- VP9
Video playback 4K at 60FPS 4K at 30FPS

Recent User Tests

Recent User Tests specifications comparison
Specification Apple M3 (iPad) HiSilicon Kirin 980
Date Benchmark Benchmark
📘 2025-09-28->will09 GeekBench CPU —
📘 2026-01-26(Bearry) AnTuTu —
📘 2026-03-03(Bearry) AnTuTu —
📘 2026-03-21(Noora) AnTuTu —
📘 2026-03-22(Noora) AnTuTu —
📘 2026-04-08(Bearry) AnTuTu —
📘 2026-04-12(Kaimen) AnTuTu —
📘 2026-04-17(Jacob) AnTuTu —
📘 2026-05-01(gay) — AnTuTu
📘 2026-05-03(KiviEgg228) — AnTuTu
📘 2026-05-16(Absolute_Subzero) — AnTuTu
📘 2026-05-29(Chakwawkun) — AnTuTu
📘 2026-06-23(Ha0ntslo) — AnTuTu
📘 2026-07-25(Mrhuh) — AnTuTu
📘 2026-08-01(Kiên 🐜) — AnTuTu
📘 2026-08-14(Adiit) — GeekBench GPU

Gaming

Gaming specifications comparison
Specification Apple M3 (iPad) HiSilicon Kirin 980
Call of Duty: Mobile — 39 FPS[Ultra]
Device — Huawei Nova 5T1080 x 2340
Fortnite — 28 FPS[High]
Mobile Legends: Bang Bang — 60 FPS[Ultra]
PUBG Mobile — 56 FPS[Ultra]
Shadowgun Legends — 51 FPS[Ultra]
World of Tanks Blitz — 60 FPS[Ultra]

PCMark 3.0

PCMark 3.0 specifications comparison
Specification Apple M3 (iPad) HiSilicon Kirin 980
Data manipulation score — 7472
Phones tested — 6 models
Photo editing score — 14221
Video editing score — 5774
Web score — 7820
Writing score — 10928

Smartphones

Smartphones specifications comparison
Specification Apple M3 (iPad) HiSilicon Kirin 980
1.Huawei P30 Pro — 751826
2.Honor 20 — 736836
3.Huawei Mate 20 Pro — 736755
4.Honor 20 Pro — 734635
5.Huawei Nova 5T — 733241
6.Huawei P30 — 732904
Phones with Kirin 980 — AnTuTu v11

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