Apple’s A18 Pro Delivers 13% Performance Boost Over A17 Pro in GFXBench

Earlier this week, however, a new report suggested that the chip is well on track to becoming Apple‘s most powerful smartphone chipset yet as the A18 Pro bested its predecessor A17 Pro by 18% in Geekbench 6 Metal benchmark for iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max respectively. It is also surprisingly competitive compared to an M1 chip in both single-core and multi-core tests.

All About the A18 Pro Performance

The recent GFXBench Aztec Ruins test results, however, indicate the A18 Pro is a higher-performing chip but one that delivers this impressive performance at a higher power draw than its predecessor, coefficient to less efficient ‘performance per watt.

This review tested Bilibili on the benchmark body lines, focusing on the GFXBench test of Aztec Ruins. This test tests the GPU under High Tier at 1440p. The A18 Pro hit a framerate of 72 FPS, which is six frames per second (or 16 percent) faster than the A18’s 62 FPS and eight frames per second (13 percent) ahead of the A17 Pro’s 64 FPS.

The A18 Pro does draw more power as a result of the performance uplift, operating at 11.5W instead of the A17 Pro’s 9.72W and its lead in that metric is much lower, somewhat surprisingly so because it’s fabbed on TSMC’s second-gen 3nm process technology.

The increased power draw might indicate that Apple is pushing the A18 Pro to its limits to achieve higher scores, potentially at the cost of greater power consumption. The improved thermal design in the iPhone 16 Pro and Pro Max may be allowing the chip to run at higher power levels.

Although benchmarks like GFXBench are designed to push chipsets to their extremes, it is unlikely that such high power consumption will occur during typical use. Nonetheless, this increased power draw could suggest that the A18 Pro will deliver enhanced performance and better thermals compared to the A17 Pro, particularly when running demanding applications and games.

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