Apple A6x vs Apple A12 Bionic vs Apple A18 Pro
Apple A6x
► remove from comparisonThe Apple A6x is a dual-core-SoC (System on a Chip) with ARM compatible CPU cores (ARMv7s instruction set). Both can be clocked at up to 1400 MHz depending on the load. It is used in the iPad 4 and compared to the A6 in the iPhone 5, the A6x offers a faster GPU (PowerVR SGX544MP4).
The CPU-Performance of the A6x is similar to the Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro MSM8960T, while the GPU is about as fast as the Adreno 320.
Apple A12 Bionic
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The Apple A12 Bionic is a System on a Chip (SoC) from Apple that is found in the iPhone Xs and Xr. It was announced late 2018 and offers 6 cores divided in 2 performance cores and four power efficiency cores. Compared to the previous A11 Bionic, the A12 should offer a 15% improved CPU performance for the performance cores and a 50% lower power consumption for the efficiency cores (both according to Apple).
The chip also includes a new GPU that is advertised as 50% faster, the M12 Motion co-processor and a Neural Engine with 8 cores for up to 5 trillion operations per second.
With 6.9 billion transistors, the A12 Bionic is a big chip especially compared to the Snapdragon 835 (3 Billion) or a Skylake desktop quad-core Soc (1.75 Billion). Compared to the A11, the A12 integrates 60% more transistors.
Apple A18 Pro
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The Apple A18 Pro is a powerful smartphone processor and formal successor to the A17 Pro. This new member of the Apple A processor series debuted in September 2024 alongside the iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max; it features 2 performance cores and 4 efficient cores along with a 35 TOPS NPU and the 6-core A18 Pro GPU.
The chip is said to be in large part based on the v9.2A ARM microarchitecture for near-Apple M4 IPC. 5G, Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 5.3, various satellite navigation systems and NFC are all supported here.
The more affordable A18 SoC has the same 2 P-cores and 4 E-cores running at slightly lower clock speeds along with a significantly slower graphics adapter. The Pro version of the chip also boasts USB 3.x support whereas devices powered by the A18 are limited to USB 2.0 speeds.
Performance
Its multi-thread benchmark scores leave the Dimensity 9300 as well as the Apple A17 Pro and the Apple A18 pretty far behind with at least a 10% advantage. Overall, Apple M1-like performance is to be expected in short-term workloads.
In the meantime, its single-thread performance comes dangerously close to the M3 and M4 chips despite their higher clocks speeds and slightly more advanced architectures. (The A18 Pro's performance cores can run at just slightly over 4.0 GHz, as far as we know.)
Performance drops are inevitable when under longer-term stress since there is no active cooling solution of any kind here.
Graphics
Like any modern graphics adapter, the 6-core A18 Pro GPU is RT-enabled. It delivers benchmark scores that are most comparable to the Immortalis-G720 MP12, Adreno 740 and Adreno 750; as a matter of fact, it even manages to beat the 7-core M1 GPU in many tests which is rather impressive. Any 2024 and 2025 iOS game will be happy with such an iGPU.
Power consumption
It appears the chip is able to briefly consume up to about 10 W when under high load, with average sustained power consumption figures hovering around 4 W.
The pretty modern TSMC N3E manufacturing process makes the A-series chip very power-efficient, as of late 2024.
| Model | Apple A6x | Apple A12 Bionic | Apple A18 Pro | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Series | Apple Apple A-Series | Apple Apple A-Series | Apple Apple A-Series | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Series: Apple A-Series |
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| Clock | 1400 MHz | <=2490 MHz | <=4000 MHz | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Cores / Threads | 2 | 6 / 6 | 6 / 6 2 x 4.0 GHz Apple A18 P-Core 4 x 2.2 GHz Apple A18 E-Core | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Technology | 32 nm | 7 nm | 3 nm | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Architecture | ARM | ARM | ARM | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Announced | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| L1 Cache | 256 KB | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| L2 Cache | 8 MB | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Transistors | 6900 Million | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Features | ARMv8 Instruction Set | 16-core Neural Engine, USB 3.2 Gen 2 (10 Gbps) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| iGPU | Apple A12 Bionic GPU | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| TDP Turbo PL2 | 10 Watt |
Benchmarks
Average Benchmarks Apple A6x → 0% n=0
Average Benchmarks Apple A12 Bionic → 0% n=0
Average Benchmarks Apple A18 Pro → 0% n=0
- Average benchmark values for this graphics card* Smaller numbers mean a higher performance
1 This benchmark is not used for the average calculation
