This year, Apple launched two new chipsets—the A18 & A18 Pro—bringing significant performance upgrades to the iPhone 16 lineup. For the first time, the standard iPhone models, specifically the iPhone 16 and 16 Plus, are equipped with a new chipset, unlike last year’s model. This upgrade allows the phones to handle the demanding AI features under the Apple Intelligence umbrella, which the older A16 Bionic did not support.
A18 Pro: Powering the iPhone 16 Pro and Pro Max
The A18 Pro chip, built on a refined 3nm process, powers the iPhone 16 Pro and 16 Pro Max. Apple claims it has the fastest CPU ever in a smartphone, with a 6-core design that includes two high-performance cores and four energy-efficient ones. This setup delivers 15% better performance than last year’s A17 Pro, using 20% less power.
The A18 Pro’s GPU features desktop-class architecture, offering 20% better performance and twice the speed for ray tracing compared to its predecessor. With improved memory bandwidth and a larger cache, this chip supports advanced features like ProMotion displays, Always-On Display, faster USB 3 speeds, and ProRes video recording, all exclusive to the Pro models.
The A18 Pro also enhances camera performance with a faster image processing unit, doubling the speed for video encoding. Its Neural Processing Unit (NPU) now boasts 16 cores and can handle up to 35 trillion operations per second, making it twice as fast and efficient as the previous model.
A18: Powering the iPhone 16 and 16 Plus
The A18 chip shares many similarities with the A18 Pro, including a 6-core CPU 30% faster than last year’s A16 Bionic while using 30% less power. However, the A18 has a 5-core GPU and lacks the advanced media features found in the Pro models. Despite this, it still delivers a 40% improvement in graphics performance while using 35% less power than its predecessor. As usual, Apple has kept detailed specs like clock speeds under wraps, but the performance improvements are clear.
