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Apple M2 vs Apple A18 Pro

Apple M2

► remove from comparison Apple M2

The Apple M2 is a System on a Chip (SoC) from Apple that is found in the late 2022 MacBook Air and, MacBook Pro 13. It offers 8 cores divided in four performance cores and four power-efficiency cores. The big cores offer 192 KB instruction cache, 128 KB data cache, and 16 MB shared L2 cache (up from 12 MB). The four efficiency cores are a lot smaller and offer only 128 KB instruction cache, 64 KB data cache, and 4 MB shared cache. The efficiency cores (E cluster) clock with  up to 2,4 GHz, the performance cores (P cluster) with up to 3,5 GHz and therefore higher than the M1 cores. The architecture should be similar to the A15 (iPhone 13) with Avalanche and Blizzard cores.

The chip features a unified memory architecture for the CPU and GPU cores and supports up to 24 GB LPDDR5-6400 for a bandwidth of up to 100GB/s.

According to Apple, the M2 offers a 18% higher CPU performance at the same power consumption level compared to the Apple M1. In our tests, the MacBook Pro 13 with active cooling was able to reach the 18% in Geekbench Multi. In other benchmarks we measured 12 to 15% gains compared to the M1. Therefore, the performance is now near the M1 Pro with 8 cores. The passively cooled MacBook Air may however suffer from throttling in longer load scenarios.

The integrated graphics card in the M2 offers 8 or 10 cores and a peak performance of 3.6 TFLOPs.

Furthermore, the SoC integrates a fast 16 core neural engine with a peak performance of 16 TOPS (for AI hardware acceleration), a secure enclave (e.g., for encryption), Thunderbolt / USB 4 controller, an ISP, and media de- and encoders.

The Apple M2 includes 20 billion transistors (up from the 16 billion of the M1) and is manufactured in the second generation 5nm process at TSMC (most likely N5P). The power consumption is rated at 20W what we also measured under CPU load.

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 M2Apple A18 Pro
SeriesApple M2Apple Apple A-Series
Series: Apple A-Series
Apple M2 Max compare2.42 - 3.7 GHz12 / 12 cores48 MB L3
Apple M2 Pro compare2.42 - 3.5 GHz12 / 12 cores24 MB L3
Apple M2 Pro 10-Core compare2.42 - 3.7 GHz10 / 10 cores24 MB L3
Apple M2 « 2.42 - 3.48 GHz8 / 8 cores8 MB L3
Apple A18 Pro « - 4 GHz6 / 6 cores
Apple A18 compare - 3.8 GHz6 / 6 cores
Apple A15 Bionic compare2.02 - 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
Clock2424 - 3480 MHz <=4000 MHz
L1 Cache2 MB
L2 Cache20 MB
L3 Cache8 MB
Cores / Threads8 / 86 / 6
2 x 4.0 GHz Apple A18 P-Core
4 x 2.2 GHz Apple A18 E-Core
TDP20 Watt
Transistors20000 Million
Technology5 nm3 nm
FeaturesARMv8 Instruction Set16-core Neural Engine, USB 3.2 Gen 2 (10 Gbps)
iGPUApple M2 10-Core GPU ( - 1398 MHz)
ArchitectureARMARM
Announced
Manufacturerwww.apple.com
TDP Turbo PL210 Watt

Benchmarks

Cinebench 2024 - Cinebench 2024 CPU Single Core
100%
1 M2 +
121 Points (68%)
Cinebench 2024 - Cinebench 2024 CPU Multi Core
100%
1 M2 +
513 Points (10%)
Cinebench R23 - Cinebench R23 Multi Core
100%
1 M2 +
min: 8517     avg: 8654     median: 8667 (8%)     max: 8772 Points
Cinebench R23 - Cinebench R23 Single Core
100%
1 M2 +
min: 1580     avg: 1595     median: 1585 (67%)     max: 1638 Points
Cinebench R20 - Cinebench R20 CPU (Single Core)
100%
1 M2 +
min: 216     avg: 370.8     median: 381 (42%)     max: 446 Points
Cinebench R20 - Cinebench R20 CPU (Multi Core)
100%
1 M2 +
min: 2231     avg: 2325     median: 2324 (6%)     max: 2416 Points
Cinebench R15 - Cinebench R15 CPU Multi 64 Bit
100%
1 M2 +
min: 1209.9     avg: 1222     median: 1215 (8%)     max: 1243 Points
Cinebench R15 - Cinebench R15 CPU Single 64 Bit
100%
1 M2 +
min: 222     avg: 223.8     median: 223 (62%)     max: 229 Points
Blender - Blender 3.3 Classroom CPU *
100%
1 M2 +
min: 540     avg: 620     median: 619.5 (8%)     max: 702 Seconds
Blender - Blender 2.79 BMW27 CPU *
100%
1 M2 +
min: 549     avg: 614     median: 597 (4%)     max: 713 Seconds
Geekbench 6.4 - Geekbench 6.4 Single-Core
100%
M2 +
min: 2587     avg: 2609     median: 2599 (65%)     max: 2650 Points
min: 3443     avg: 3461     median: 3461 (86%)     max: 3479 Points
Geekbench 6.4 - Geekbench 6.4 Multi-Core
100%
M2 +
min: 10034     avg: 10083     median: 10089 (39%)     max: 10120 Points
min: 8524     avg: 8546     median: 8546 (33%)     max: 8568 Points
Geekbench 5.5 - Geekbench 5.1 - 5.5 64 Bit Single-Core
100%
M2 +
min: 1887     avg: 1914     median: 1915.5 (75%)     max: 1953 Points
2437 Points (95%)
Geekbench 5.5 - Geekbench 5.1 - 5.5 64 Bit Multi-Core
100%
M2 +
min: 8491     avg: 8812     median: 8956 (16%)     max: 8994 Points
6687 Points (12%)
Mozilla Kraken 1.1 - Kraken 1.1 Total Score *
100%
M2 +
min: 440     avg: 450.1     median: 449.2 (1%)     max: 466.8 ms
min: 276.9     avg: 278.2     median: 278.2 (0%)     max: 279.4 ms
Octane V2 - Octane V2 Total Score
100%
M2 +
min: 72484     avg: 75019     median: 74878 (57%)     max: 78736 Points
min: 98997     avg: 99683     median: 99682.5 (75%)     max: 100368 Points
WebXPRT 4 - WebXPRT 4 Score
100%
M2 +
min: 223     avg: 237.8     median: 235 (65%)     max: 256 Points
min: 267     avg: 269     median: 269 (74%)     max: 271 Points
WebXPRT 3 - WebXPRT 3 Score
100%
M2 +
min: 342     avg: 366.5     median: 376 (68%)     max: 387 Points
347 Points (62%)
Antutu v9 - AnTuTu v9 Total Score
100%
1 M2 +
min: 1257990     avg: 1337360     median: 1337360 (65%)     max: 1416730 Points
Antutu v9 - AnTuTu v9 CPU
100%
1 M2 +
min: 294643     avg: 298254     median: 298254 (74%)     max: 301865 Points
Antutu v10 - AnTuTu v10 Total Score
100%
M2 +
min: 1936540     avg: 1954930     median: 1961470 (65%)     max: 1966790 Points
min: 1739820     avg: 1803560     median: 1803560 (60%)     max: 1867310 Points
Antutu v10 - AnTuTu v10 CPU
100%
M2 +
min: 535127     avg: 540446     median: 537292 (16%)     max: 548919 Points
min: 476280     avg: 482239     median: 482238 (14%)     max: 488197 Points
CrossMark - CrossMark Overall
100%
M2 +
min: 1437     avg: 1515     median: 1507 (56%)     max: 1585 Points
min: 1455     avg: 1486     median: 1486 (56%)     max: 1517 Points
Power Consumption - Cinebench R15 Multi Power Consumption - external Monitor *
100%
1 M2 +
29 Watt (5%)
Power Consumption - Geekbench 5.5 Power Consumption 150cd *
100%
1 M2 +
min: 6.86     avg: 8.3     median: 8.4 (4%)     max: 9.71 Watt
184%
1 A18 Pro +
min: 3.94     avg: 4.5     median: 4.5 (2%)     max: 5.13 Watt
Power Consumption - Idle Power Consumption - external Monitor *
100%
1 M2 +
min: 2.03     avg: 2.6     median: 2.4 (2%)     max: 3.98 Watt
Power Consumption - Idle Power Consumption 150cd 1min *
100%
1 M2 +
min: 1.631     avg: 3.5     median: 3.6 (4%)     max: 5.32 Watt
578%
1 A18 Pro +
min: 0.615     avg: 0.6     median: 0.6 (1%)     max: 0.638 Watt
Power Consumption - Power Efficiency - Cinebench R15 Multi external Monitor
100%
1 M2 +
42.4 Points per Watt (32%)

Average Benchmarks Apple M2 → 100% n=11

Average Benchmarks Apple A18 Pro → 109% n=11

- 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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v1.33
log 07. 19:21:37

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

#1 checking url part for id 14521 +0s ... 0s

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

#3 redirected to Ajax server, took 1751908897s time from redirect:0 +0s ... 0s

#4 did not recreate cache, as it is less than 5 days old! Created at Mon, 07 Jul 2025 05:21:36 +0200 +0s ... 0s

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

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

#7 getting avg benchmarks for device 14521 +0.001s ... 0.009s

#8 got single benchmarks 14521 +0.009s ... 0.017s

#9 getting avg benchmarks for device 18006 +0.001s ... 0.018s

#10 got single benchmarks 18006 +0.005s ... 0.023s

#11 got avg benchmarks for devices +0s ... 0.023s

#12 min, max, avg, median took s +0.016s ... 0.039s

#13 return log +0s ... 0.039s

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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)