For the first time in years, Apple updates both Pro and non-Pro iPhones with new chips.
In a significant shift, Apple is equipping both its flagship iPhone Pro models and its more affordable non-Pro variants with new chips this year. The company announced the launch of its A18 and A18 Pro chips, marking a departure from the recent trend of reserving cutting-edge silicon updates for Pro models alone.
The iPhone 16 and 16 Plus will feature the new A18 chip, a substantial upgrade from the previous generation’s A16 Bionic. Apple claims the A18, which is designed specifically to support “Apple Intelligence,” offers a 30 percent increase in CPU performance over its predecessor. This chip boasts a 6-core CPU, including two high-performance and four high-efficiency cores, and a 5-core GPU that delivers a 40 percent performance boost. Notably, the A18 introduces hardware-accelerated ray tracing, an enhancement first seen in the A17 Pro.
The A18 also integrates a 16-core neural engine, which will advance AI and machine learning tasks, alongside a 17 percent increase in memory bandwidth compared to the A16. Manufactured using a “second-generation 3 nm” process, likely from Apple’s long-time partner TSMC, the A18 is expected to be supported by at least 8GB of RAM.
On the higher end, the iPhone 16 Pro will feature the A18 Pro chip. While it maintains a similar architecture to the A18 with a six-core CPU, the A18 Pro introduces “larger caches” and “next-generation ML accelerators,” promising around 15 percent faster CPU performance compared to the A17 Pro. The GPU in the A18 Pro, equipped with six cores, offers a 20 percent increase in performance and supports hardware-accelerated ray tracing up to twice as fast as the previous model.
Additional enhancements for the A18 Pro include support for ProRes video encoding, a new image signal processor, and improved USB 3 speeds, catering to users who require high-quality video recording and faster data transfer.
This broad upgrade across Apple’s iPhone lineup underscores the company’s commitment to elevating performance standards across all its devices, providing both everyday users and professionals with powerful new tools for their mobile computing needs.
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