Benchmark tests show A18 Pro beating predecessor but getting outperformed by Snapdragon 8 Gen 4

All iPhone 16 models are expected to be powered by a 3nm A18 chipset this year. The difference is that the iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max will use a more powerful A18 Pro application processor (AP) compared to the A18 or A18 Bionic that will run the non-Pro iPhone 16 handsets. After an alleged Geekbench test, the A18 Pro showed double-digit gains over the scores generated by the A17 Pro which is currently found in the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max.

A previous Geekbench run-through for the A18 Pro AP found that it scored a very high 3500 single-core score which topped the 3076 single-core score tallied by Apple's powerful M3 chip. The most current benchmark score showed that the A18 Pro is 22% faster than the A17 Pro in single-core performance with a score of 3570, and 28% faster in multi-core performance with a score of 9310. The A18 Pro is being built using TSMC's second-generation N3E 3nm process node while the A17 Pro is produced using the foundry's first-gen N3B 3nm node.

Earlier this month a tweet on "X" written by @negativeonehero said that the A18 Pro had a multi-core score that was only 10% above the A17 Pro. Other benchmark results show that the A18 Pro's performance over its predecessor pales compared to the whopping 46% improvement in multi-core score delivered by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 over the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3. The Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 AP is shaping up to be Qualcomm's beast with a multi-core score of over 10,000 compared to 9310 for the A18 Pro.

As Wccftech notes, during these early testing periods, it is likely that performance is the main focus and only later is a balance created between performance and power efficiency. This means that we will have to wait for benchmark tests conducted further down the road to get a better idea of how the A18 Pro really rates against its predecessor and its peers. The latter group not only includes Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 SoC but also includes MediaTek's powerful Dimensity 9400 chipset.