A18 and A18 Pro: What the two new Apple SoCs do differently

Apple is also offering new SoCs with the iPhone 16, 16 Plus, 16 Pro and 16 Pro Max. Unlike the handling of recent years, all four models have the same generation of processor. The reason for this is very 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 market all its new devices as “AI cell 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 to the A18. Nevertheless, there are some differences between the A18 and A18 Pro that differentiate them from the more expensive Pro iPhones.

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A18 vs A18 Pro: Equals

Both A18 SoCs are based on TSMC’s 3nm process, which has now reached the second generation, which Apple says allows for “smaller transistors”. Both chips come with a faster memory subsystem (17 percent more bandwidth, according to Apple), two performance cores and four efficiency cores, as well as an AI unit (Neural Engine) with 16 cores allowing to run large generative models “devices”. On paper, the only significant difference in the A18 Pro is that it has one more graphics core (GPU cores) – there are six instead of five, which promises 20 percent more performance than the A17 Pro.

However, Apple has given the A18 Pro some professional features, which the manufacturer only partially elaborates on. The internal cache on the A18 Pro could be larger and have more modern accelerators for machine learning than on the A18. In addition, only the A18 Pro has a “new generation video encoder” and a revised image signal processor. These should, among other things, enable new video functions such as 4K120. In addition, only the A18 Pro offers faster USB speeds over the USB-C port: Apple speaks of “faster USB 3 speeds” than on the A17 Pro, but does not yet give any details – at first glance the specifications seem unchanged. But one thing is clear: the A18 in the iPhone 16 and 16 Plus remains completely with the old USB 2.0.

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First benchmarks of the new SoCs

Overall, the two SoCs are surprisingly close to each other. At least this year, Apple is ending the old game of installing last year’s chip in the standard models. Both families are on the same side when it comes to RAM; apparently each should have 8 GB, which is essential for Apple intelligence. First Geekbench ScoreWhich surfaced on Wednesday, confirms that Apple is not going up to 12GB for the A18 Pro.

The A18 Pro single-core score is 3409, which is 18 percent higher than the A17 Pro. The multi-core value has reached 8492, which is an 18 percent increase over its predecessor. However, the scores should still be viewed with caution as they are only individual benchmarks. The new iPhones should Available to order from Friday And will be released on 20th September.

(B.Sc.)