New SoCs in the iPhone 16: What the A18 Pro can do better than the A18
The next Apple Silicon generation for the iPhone is here: this time it is similar for standard and Pro models. But there are differences.
A18 Pro: Apple's new SoC in the iPhone 16 Pro and 16 Pro Max is the company's fastest smartphone chip.
(Image: Apple)
Apple is also delivering new SoCs with the iPhone 16, 16 Plus, 16 Pro and 16 Pro Max. In contrast to the handling of recent years, all four models are getting the same processor generation. The reason is quite self-serving: without the A18 (or the A17 in the iPhone 15 Pro and 15 Pro Max), Apple Intelligence does not work on iPhones – and Apple wants to position all of its new devices on the market as "AI phones". Accordingly, two SoC generations were skipped in the two standard models iPhone 16 and 15 Plus: From the A16 (which is still from 2022) it goes straight up to the A18. Nevertheless, there are differences between the A18 and the A18 Pro to differentiate the more expensive Pro iPhones.
A18 vs A18 Pro: similarities
Both A18 SoCs are based on TSMC's 3nm process, which has now reached the second generation, allowing for "smaller transistors" according to Apple. Furthermore, both chips come with a faster memory subsystem (according to Apple plus 17 percent more bandwidth), four performance cores and two efficiency cores plus an AI co-chip (Neural Engine) with 16 cores each, which should allow larger generative models to be run "on device". On paper, the only key difference of the A18 Pro is that it has one more graphics core (GPU core) – there are six instead of five, which promises 20 percent more performance compared to the A17 Pro.
Videos by heise
However, Apple has given the A18 Pro a few more professional features, although the manufacturer has only partially detailed them. For example, the internal cache of the A18 Pro could be larger and it could contain more modern accelerators for machine learning than the A18. Furthermore, only the A18 Pro has a "new generation video encoder" and a revised image signal processor. Among other things, these should enable new video functions such as 4K120. In addition, only the A18 Pro delivers faster USB speeds on the USB-C port: Apple speaks of "faster USB 3 speeds" compared to the A17 Pro, but does not yet provide any details. What is clear, however, is that the A18 in the iPhone 16 and 16 Plus remains with the completely outdated USB 2.0.
First benchmarks of the new SoCs
All in all, both SoCs are surprisingly close to each other. At least this year, Apple is putting an end to the old game of using the chip from the previous year in the standard models. Both families are also on a par when it comes to RAM, apparently 8 GB each, which in turn is required for Apple Intelligence. The first Geekbench values that emerged on Wednesday confirm that Apple is not going up to 12 GB for the A18 Pro.
The A18 Pro single-core score is 3409, which is an 18 percent increase over the A17 Pro. The multi-core value reaches 8492, also an increase of 18 percent compared to the predecessor. However, the scores should still be treated with caution, as these are only individual benchmarks. The new iPhones will be available to order from Friday and will be launched on September 20.
Empfohlener redaktioneller Inhalt
Mit Ihrer Zustimmung wird hier ein externer Preisvergleich (heise Preisvergleich) geladen.
Ich bin damit einverstanden, dass mir externe Inhalte angezeigt werden. Damit können personenbezogene Daten an Drittplattformen (heise Preisvergleich) übermittelt werden. Mehr dazu in unserer Datenschutzerklärung.
(bsc)
