Apple’s iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone Ultra are coming in less than a week, and they may be mighty powerful. A new leak claims that the A20 Pro chipset will feature several major upgrades, which should help it against the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 Pro.
Apple’s A20 Pro chip may come with a major GPU upgrade
Apple’s upcoming smartphone chip may feature several significant improvements, including a larger L2 cache for some of its CPU cores and a massive GPU upgrade. A reconstruction (source in Chinese) of the chip’s configuration based on a leaked solder joint diagram suggests the A20 Pro will have a 2+4-core CPU and a 7-core GPU.
The new chip may raise the L2 cache of the efficiency cores to 8MB, compared to 6MB on the A19 Pro. The performance cores are still expected to use a 16MB L2 cache, but there’s still no information about the shared system-level cache.
More importantly, the GPU will move to a seven-core configuration, compared to the six cores on the A19 Pro’s GPU. The chip may also get a 96-bit memory interface for LPDDR5x RAM, up from the 64-bit interface, boosting memory bandwidth. This could be particularly impactful because graphic performance usually improves with higher memory bandwidth.
The A20 Pro will probably end up in other devices, too. | Image by MacRumors
We can safely assume that the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max are going to use the A20 Pro chip. While there’s a slight chance that won’t be the case, the foldable iPhone Ultra is also expected to use Apple’s best smartphone processor available.
Earlier leaks suggested that the A20 Pro could be 18% faster than the A19 Pro inside the iPhone 17 Pro, and 30% more power-efficient. Part of the reason is that the chip will be manufactured on TSMC’s N2 or 2nm process.
The new processor is also reportedly adopting Wafer-Level Multi-Chip Module packaging, which is a new architecture that integrates the chip with RAM. This aids memory access times and could help heat management, which is crucial for high performance under sustained load.
What makes me excited about these upgrades is not the performance with today’s apps and games. With the expected price bump, I would expect many iPhone 18 Pro buyers to hold their phones for a few years, and a powerful chipset can help them work well longer. This seems much more meaningful to me than extra points in a benchmark.
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Ilia, a tech journalist at PhoneArena, has been covering the mobile industry since 2011, with experience at outlets like Forbes Bulgaria. Passionate about smartphones, tablets, and consumer tech, he blends deep industry knowledge with a personal fascination that began with his first Nokia and Sony Ericsson devices. Originally from Bulgaria and now based in Lima, Peru, Ilia balances his tech obsessions with walking his dog, training at the gym, and slowly mastering Spanish.
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