The next iPhone 14 series should be divided into two camps: Pro models will have the new Apple A16 chipset, better cameras and a different screen configuration. The vanilla models will remain with the current A15 chip, 12MP cameras and a notched display.
The current iPhone 13 series already shows a small split in terms of performance: vanilla phones have 4-core GPUs, Pros have 5-core GPUs. Additionally, the vanilla models have 4GB of RAM, while the Pros get 6GB (both LPDDR4X).
The iPhone 14 and 14 Max are expected to get the 5-core GPU version of the A15 chipset, as well as more RAM – 6GB of LPDDR4X – so they’ll have an edge over current models.
Scores predicted for Geekbench A16: 2,000 single-core • 5,700 multi-core
But how fast will the iPhone 14 Pro and 14 Pro Max be? Macworld try to address this question. The first thing to note is that the new A16 chips will be fabricated on TSMC’s N4P node, an iterative improvement over the N5P node used for the A15, but not a complete generational leap.
The new A16 chip is expected to be larger: 18-20 billion transistors, compared to 15 billion. The company may also see some improvement by switching to ARMv9. ARM managed to deliver some benefits with Cortex-A715 and X3 cores, for example.
Overall, the CPU could provide a modest 15% performance improvement. Apple should keep the same basic configuration (2 large, 4 small).
Switching to faster RAM should also lead to increased performance – DigiTimes reports that iPhone 14 Pro and 14 Pro Max will use the new LPDDR5 type, which offers 50% more bandwidth than LPDDR4X and is more energy efficient to boot. However, both models will retain 6GB capacity.
As for the GPU, the prediction is that Apple will keep the 5 cores to avoid making the chip too big or maybe going up to 6 cores. Either way, the expectation is a 25-30% increase in GPU performance.
3DMark scores expected for the Apple A16 chipset
Apple will also have to beef up the ISP and machine learning hardware to handle the higher resolution – the 14 Pro series is rumored to make the leap towards a 48MP camera and 8K video recording. This could also raise the resolution limit of the cinema mode from 1080p to 4K.
Finally, Apple is stuck with Qualcomm modems for the foreseeable future, so the A16 chipset will likely be paired with the Snapdragon X65. It’s unclear if the vanilla iPhone 14 phones will get the new modem as well.
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