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Apple A15 Bionic vs Apple A18 Pro

Apple A15 Bionic

► remove from comparison Apple A15

The Apple A15 Bionic is a System on a Chip (SoC) from Apple that is found in the iPhone 13 and iPad Mini (2021) models. It was announced late 2021 and offers 6 cores divided in 2 performance cores and four power efficiency cores. The CPU performance increases only slightly compared to the A14, but GPU (in the higher end models) offers higher gains.

The chip is manufactured in 5nm and integrates 15.8 billion transistors (compared to the 11.8 of the A14).

Apple A18 Pro

► remove from comparison Apple A18 Pro

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.

ModelApple A15 BionicApple A18 Pro
SeriesApple Apple A-SeriesApple Apple A-Series
Series: Apple A-Series
Apple A18 Pro - 4 GHz6 / 6 cores
Apple A18 compare - 3.8 GHz6 / 6 cores
Apple A15 Bionic « 2.02 - 3.23 GHz6 / 6 cores32 MB L3
Apple A12 Bionic compare - 2.49 GHz6 / 6 cores
Apple A6x compare1.4 GHzcores
Apple A6 compare1 GHzcores
Apple A18 Pro « - 4 GHz6 / 6 cores
Apple A18 compare - 3.8 GHz6 / 6 cores
Apple A15 Bionic2.02 - 3.23 GHz6 / 6 cores32 MB L3
Apple A12 Bionic compare - 2.49 GHz6 / 6 cores
Apple A6x compare1.4 GHzcores
Apple A6 compare1 GHzcores
Clock2020 - 3230 MHz <=4000 MHz
L2 Cache16 MB
L3 Cache32 MB
Cores / Threads6 / 66 / 6
2 x 4.0 GHz Apple A18 P-Core
4 x 2.2 GHz Apple A18 E-Core
Transistors15800 Million
Technology5 nm3 nm
FeaturesARMv8 Instruction Set, Machine Learning Controller, 16-Core Neural Engine, Secure Enclave, Advanced Image Signal Processor16-core Neural Engine, USB 3.2 Gen 2 (10 Gbps)
iGPUApple A15 GPU 5-Core
ArchitectureARMARM
Announced
TDP Turbo PL210 Watt

Benchmarks

3DMark - 3DMark Sling Shot Extreme (ES 3.1) Unlimited Physics
100%
1 A15 +
min: 1852     avg: 2027     median: 1913 (18%)     max: 2307 Points
3DMark - 3DMark Sling Shot (ES 3.0) Unlimited Physics
100%
1 A15 +
2130 Points (24%)
Geekbench 6.3 - Geekbench 6.3 Single-Core
100%
A15 +
2332 Points (59%)
min: 3443     avg: 3461     median: 3461 (88%)     max: 3479 Points
Geekbench 6.3 - Geekbench 6.3 Multi-Core
100%
A15 +
5661 Points (22%)
min: 8524     avg: 8546     median: 8546 (33%)     max: 8568 Points
Geekbench 5.5 - Geekbench 5.1 - 5.5 64 Bit Single-Core
100%
A15 +
min: 1590     avg: 1723     median: 1734 (68%)     max: 1755 Points
2437 Points (95%)
Geekbench 5.5 - Geekbench 5.1 - 5.5 64 Bit Multi-Core
100%
A15 +
min: 4559     avg: 4755     median: 4788 (9%)     max: 4914 Points
6687 Points (12%)
Mozilla Kraken 1.1 - Kraken 1.1 Total Score *
100%
A15 +
min: 413.6     avg: 455.6     median: 451 (1%)     max: 507.3 ms
min: 276.9     avg: 278.2     median: 278.2 (0%)     max: 279.4 ms
Sunspider - Sunspider 1.0 Total Score *
100%
1 A15 +
77 ms (1%)
Octane V2 - Octane V2 Total Score
100%
A15 +
min: 57143     avg: 63305     median: 64026.5 (53%)     max: 65969 Points
min: 98997     avg: 99683     median: 99682.5 (83%)     max: 100368 Points
WebXPRT 4 - WebXPRT 4 Score
100%
A15 +
min: 188     avg: 188.3     median: 188 (52%)     max: 189 Points
min: 267     avg: 269     median: 269 (74%)     max: 271 Points
WebXPRT 3 - WebXPRT 3 Score
100%
A15 +
min: 219     avg: 254.3     median: 250 (45%)     max: 279 Points
347 Points (62%)
Antutu v9 - AnTuTu v9 Total Score
100%
1 A15 +
min: 722973     avg: 788523     median: 800415 (39%)     max: 832548 Points
Antutu v9 - AnTuTu v9 CPU
100%
1 A15 +
min: 192891     avg: 209810     median: 209802 (52%)     max: 227638 Points
Antutu v10 - AnTuTu v10 Total Score
100%
1 A18 Pro +
min: 1739820     avg: 1803560     median: 1803560 (60%)     max: 1867310 Points
Antutu v10 - AnTuTu v10 CPU
100%
1 A18 Pro +
min: 476280     avg: 482239     median: 482238 (14%)     max: 488197 Points
PassMark PerformanceTest Mobile V1 - PerformanceTest Mobile V1 CPU Tests
100%
1 A15 +
min: 10349     avg: 10411     median: 10410.5 (1%)     max: 10472 Points
CrossMark - CrossMark Overall
100%
A15 +
min: 1132     avg: 1156     median: 1145 (43%)     max: 1190 Points
min: 1455     avg: 1486     median: 1486 (56%)     max: 1517 Points
Power Consumption - Geekbench 5.5 Power Consumption 150cd *
100%
1 A15 +
min: 4.54     avg: 4.9     median: 5 (2%)     max: 5.64 Watt
109%
1 A18 Pro +
min: 3.94     avg: 4.5     median: 4.5 (2%)     max: 5.13 Watt
Power Consumption - Idle Power Consumption 150cd 1min *
100%
1 A15 +
min: 0     avg: 0.7     median: 0.7 (1%)     max: 1.415 Watt
113%
1 A18 Pro +
min: 0.615     avg: 0.6     median: 0.6 (1%)     max: 0.638 Watt

Average Benchmarks Apple A15 Bionic → 100% n=9

Average Benchmarks Apple A18 Pro → 145% n=9

- Range of benchmark values for this graphics card
red legend - Average benchmark values for this graphics card
* Smaller numbers mean a higher performance
1 This benchmark is not used for the average calculation

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v1.28
log 08. 06:47:32

#0 ran 0s before starting gpusingle class +0s ... 0s

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#2 checking url part for id 18006 +0s ... 0s

#3 redirected to Ajax server, took 1738993652s time from redirect:0 +0s ... 0s

#4 did not recreate cache, as it is less than 5 days old! Created at Fri, 07 Feb 2025 05:17:16 +0100 +0s ... 0s

#5 composed specs +0.008s ... 0.008s

#6 did output specs +0s ... 0.008s

#7 getting avg benchmarks for device 13825 +0.001s ... 0.008s

#8 got single benchmarks 13825 +0.007s ... 0.015s

#9 getting avg benchmarks for device 18006 +0.001s ... 0.016s

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#12 min, max, avg, median took s +0.011s ... 0.032s

#13 return log +0s ... 0.032s

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> Expert Reviews and News on Laptops, Smartphones and Tech Innovations > Benchmarks / Tech > Processor Comparison - Head 2 Head
Redaktion, 2017-09- 8 (Update: 2023-07- 1)