Apple’s A13 Bionic chip offers up to 60% higher sustained graphics performance over the iPhone XS, according to a new report from AnandTech.
The company published an in-depth review of the new iPhone 11 and iPhone 11 Pro range, with detailed insights into the processor and graphics performance compared with previous iPhone models, and the results were surprising.
AnandTech suggested that the A13 chip offers 20% faster CPU performance over the A12 chip in last year’s iPhone range, which is consistent with Apple’s marketing claims.
“In virtually all of the SPECint2006 tests, Apple has gone and increased the peak power draw of the A13 SoC; and so in many cases, we’re almost 1W above the A12,” AnandTech said in its report.
“Here at peak performance, it seems the power increase was greater than the performance increase, and that’s why in almost all workloads the A13 ends up as less efficient than the A12.”
AnandTech has suggested that the A13’s peak performance state could result in the chip and the iPhone being more sensitive to temperatures, and even more prone to throttling.
Apple has suggested that the A13 chip is 30% more power-efficient than the previous chip overall, across all levels of performance, which was true according to AnandTech’s report.
The report also highlighted Apple’s clear lead in the mobile chip space, with writer Andrei Frumusanu suggesting that the A13 offers almost double the performance of the next best non-Apple chip.
What’s more, the A13 chip “essentially matched” the “best that AMD and Intel have to offer” for desktops, demonstrating the power of Apple’s processing power.
GPU was also mentioned, and whilst peak performance has improved by around 20%, the iPhone 11 Pro had between 50%-60% higher sustained scores than last year’s iPhone XS.
“Where the new chip really shines and exceeds Apple’s own marketing claims is in the sustained performance and efficiency of the new GPU,” the report said.
“Particularly the iPhone 11 Pro models were able to showcase much improved long-term performance results, all while keeping thermals in check. The short version of it is that Apple has been able to knock it out of the park, delivering performance increases that we hadn’t expected in what’s essentially a mid-generation refresh on the chip manufacturing side of matters.”
AnandTech’s reports are highly regarded in the smartphone world because of their in-depth reports and coverage on specific components such as CPUs and GPUs.
However, it’s important to note that the founder of AnandTech, Anand Shimpi, joined Apple in 2014.
Have you noticed a big jump in performance from last year’s iPhones? Let us know on Twitter @AppleMagazine and check back soon for more news and rumors.
