iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max They will release a new SoC, the Apple A18 Proa chip that will be the authentic successor to the Apple A17 Pro used in the iPhone 15 Pro and Apple 15 Pro Max, and which we were already able to get to know a little better thanks to a recent leak that left us with important details about its CPU configuration.

The Apple A18 Pro CPU will be configured with six cores, which is the same number as the Apple A17 Pro. There was speculation about a possible move to an octa-core configuration, but all indications are that these rumors were false. These six cores will be divided into two blocks, one with two high-performance cores that will run at a high frequency, and another with four low-power cores that will run at a lower frequency.

Although the number of cores will not change, this new SoC will bring improvements at the architectural level and should work at a higher frequency, which in short will result in an increase in CPU performance compared to the current generation. According to the first leaks we’ve seen, it would be the Apple A18 Pro up to 28% faster than the Apple A17 Pro in Geekbench 6. It’s not bad at all, especially considering that as I said, we shouldn’t expect an increase in the maximum number of cores.

This caused some disappointment among those who expected an increase in CPU cores, and it is logical, since Apple was anchored in six cores since the launch of the iPhone 8, which took place in 2017. However, it should be taken into account that the number of cores is not the only thing that matters in a CPU, and that in this case we will find improvements at the level of architecture and frequency that will allow a significant increase in performance.

On the other hand, the Apple A18 Pro SoC package is said to be larger than the Apple A17 Pro, which means the silicon would be bigger, and that could bring other important improvements such as a larger amount of L3 cache and also a much more powerful neural processing unit.

Personally, I think that Apple will focus a large part of the improvement of this SoC on the NPU, and it makes perfect sense because With the advent of generative artificial intelligence and its arrival locally on smartphones, it is necessary to have more power so I can use it. More RAM will also be needed, so we cannot rule out an increase in it for the iPhone 16 Pro and Pro Max.

If you want more information about the iPhone 16 and the versions of the said terminal that Apple will introduce this year, I invite you to take a look at this special, where we made a compilation with all the information which we have right now.