Apple A18 Pro vs A17 Pro: What has changed?

The Apple A18 Pro is the fastest, most powerful smartphone chipset from Apple, and it powers Apple’s current flagship iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max phones. The chip brings with it some notable improvements to overall performance, significant upgrades to video processing and battery charging, and enables new camera features. Let’s take a closer look at the upgrades you get with the A18 Pro.

Apple A18 Pro vs A17 Pro: Faster cores

The CPU in the A18 Pro is based on the same six-core configuration as the one in the A17 Pro, but these cores are based on a newer and more efficient architecture. The A18 Pro bumps up the speed of the two performance cores to 4,040MHz from 3,780MHz, and boosts the speed of the efficiency cores to 2.3GHz from 2.11GHz. Benchmarks in GeekBench 6 indicate that these faster and more efficient cores result in an overall 16 per cent improvement in performance over the A17 Pro.

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Part of this improvement comes from the new ARM architecture, and part comes from the 2nd gen 3nm manufacturing process that Apple has employed this time around. NPU performance appears to have received a slight upgrade this time around. The NPU or Neural Processing Unit powers the local AI features on the new iPhones.

Apple A18 Pro vs A17 Pro: A faster GPU

Leaked benchmarks indicate that the upgraded GPU in the A18 Pro is about 17 per cent faster. This is thanks again to a much higher clock speed and new architecture. As with the CPUs, the basic design appears unchanged, however.

The video encode/decode engine has received a significant upgrade, enabling the A18 Pro to now process video at nearly twice the speed of the A17 Pro. This is also partly responsible for the upgrade to 4K120 recording that the new iPhones now support.

Apple A18 Pro vs A17 Pro: Much faster RAM

Again, we don’t have exact specs of the RAM Apple is using with the A18 Pro chip, but Apple has claimed that RAM has up to 17 per cent more memory bandwidth. This means it’s easier and faster to process data and run apps. Estimates put the RAM bandwidth at 60Gbps now vs the 50+ Gbps we saw in the A17 Pro.

Apple A18 Pro vs A17 Pro: Faster Wi-Fi and cellular

Thanks to new Qualcomm modem and wireless radios, the A18 Pro is now capable of 10Gbps download speeds over 5G – up from 7.5Gbps – and features a faster and more efficient WiFI 7 module.

Apple A18 Pro vs A17 Pro: Faster charging

Another notable upgrade is battery life and charging speed. The more efficient architecture paired with a slightly larger battery has resulted in significant battery life gains, while new hardware enables much faster charging over both MagSafe and wired charging. Speeds are now up from 15W via MagSafe to 25W, and from about 30W wired charging to 45W.

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The processing upgrades that the iPhones have seen from the 15 Pro to the 16 Pro aren’t as significant as the ones the regular 16 saw over the 15, but these are significant upgrades nonetheless. Faster charging and WiFi is definitely a welcome addition, and the improved efficiency of the new A18 Pro chip should result in a faster, cooler, and more consistent user experience this time around.