Apple’s A18 and A18 Pro Chips are Different Yet Same, Here’s How

Reported by Tanay Singh Thakur September 13th, 2024 at 06:51 pm

Both chips are built on the second-generation 3nm process with smaller transistors. There is a 6-core CPU (four performance cores + two efficiency cores). There is an upgraded 16-core Neural Engine for running more tasks locally on the device leading to a better AI performance. The memory subsystem has been upgraded with 17% more bandwidth.

Highlights

Apple has launched the new iPhone 16 series for consumers globally.
With the new iPhone 16 series, Apple has also unveiled the A18 Bionic chips family.
So there are two chips here - A18 and A18 Pro.

Apple has launched the new iPhone 16 series for consumers globally. With the new iPhone 16 series, Apple has also unveiled the A18 Bionic chips family. So there are two chips here - A18 and A18 Pro. While they are pretty similar, they are quite different too. You want to understand how they are different? Well, let me share it with you.

So the A18 chip is what you will see on the non-Pro variants, i.e., iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Plus. The iPhone 16 Pro and the iPhone 16 Pro Max on the other hand will come with the A18 Pro chips. The A18 family of chips are designed with Apple Intelligence in mind. Here's what you should know about them.

A18 and A18 Pro Performance, Features, and More

Firstly, let's take a look at what's similar between the two chips. Both chips are built on the second-generation 3nm process with smaller transistors. There is a 6-core CPU (four performance cores + two efficiency cores). There is an upgraded 16-core Neural Engine for running more tasks locally on the device leading to a better AI performance. The memory subsystem has been upgraded with 17% more bandwidth.

Now let's look at what's different.

Differences Between A18 and A18 Pro:

The A18 has a 5-core GPU, while the A18 Pro has a 6-core GPU. The iPhone 16 also gets an accelerated ray tracing feature for enhanced visuals. Apple said that the iPhone 16 Pro devices are equipped with the best thermal capacity any iPhone ever had. This would mean that with the A18 Pro, there will be much better efficiency and a better-sustained performance than with the A17 Pro chip on the iPhone 15 Pro.

If you compare the A18 on the iPhone 16 with the A16 on the iPhone 15, the CPU is 30% faster and GPU is 40% faster. The Neural Engine is also 2x faster for machine learning. The A18 Pro on the iPhone 16 Pro devices has a 15% faster CPU than the A17 Pro on the iPhone 15 Pro. The GPU is 20% faster.

These improvements are major in numbers and should certainly give a much improved and faster experience to the users purchasing an iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Pro.