The iPhone 16 and 16 Plus have an A18 chip, the iPhone 16 Pro and 16 Pro Max have an A18 Pro – here’s the difference.
This is the difference between the A18 and A18 Pro
The A18 and A18 Pro are similar, but there are some differences to consider. The new thermal design of the iPhone 16 and 16 Pro also makes a difference.
A18 / iPhone 16 features
The biggest difference is that the A18 has a 5-core GPU and the A18 Pro has a 6-core GPU. In addition, all iPhone 16 models have a new thermal design. The placement of the chips is centralized and the architecture around them is optimized. This allows for better heat dissipation, which results in a 30 percent increase in gaming performance.
The A18 also adds hardware accelerated ray tracing, a feature that was available on the iPhone 15 Pro models with the A17 Pro but is new to the standard iPhone lineup. The feature allows the iPhone 16 models to run all of the games Apple announced for the iPhone 15 Pro models last year.
A18 Pro / iPhone 16 Pro features
The A18 Pro has the same 6-core CPU and Neural Engine as the A18, but a 6-core GPU instead of a 5-core GPU. According to Apple, the iPhone 16 Pro maximizes the thermal capacity of its enclosure, which is made from 100 percent recycled aluminum. The new thermal architecture delivers a 20 percent improvement in long-duration gaming compared to the A17 Pro.
Performance of the A18
Compared to the A16 Bionic chip, the CPU in the A18 Pro is 30 percent faster and delivers the same performance while using 30 percent less power. The GPU is 40 percent faster than the GPU in the A16 Bionic chip and is also more efficient, delivering the same performance while using 35 percent less power. The new Neural Engine is twice as fast as the one in the A16 Bionic chip.
Performance of the A18 Pro
The new 6-core CPU is 15 percent faster than the A17 Pro CPU, delivering the same performance while consuming 20 percent less power. The GPU is 20 percent faster than the GPU in the A17 Pro, and hardware accelerated ray tracing is two times faster. The enhanced Neural Engine is faster and more efficient than the one in the A17 Pro. Apple claims that Apple Intelligence features are now 15 percent faster than on the A17 Pro.
There is also a new display engine for ProMotion, a new video encoder and a new image signal processor, which together process twice as much data for fast video encoding.
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