Comment by tedmiston
7 hours ago
> A18 Pro chip (2 performance cores + 4 efficiency cores) whereas the macbook air has the M5 chip
i don't see the m5 air on geekbench yet, but here are some related numbers for context (sorted by multi ascending):
| device | cpu | single core score | multi core score |
|:----------------------------|:------------------------------------------------|------------------:|-----------------:|
| iPhone 16 Pro Max | Apple A18 Pro | 3428 | 8531 |
| iPhone 16 Pro | Apple A18 Pro | 3445 | 8624 |
| MacBook Air (15-inch, 2025) | Apple M4 @ 4.4 GHz (10 CPU cores, 10 GPU cores) | 3708 | 14698 |
| MacBook Air (13-inch, 2025) | Apple M4 @ 4.4 GHz (10 CPU cores, 8 GPU cores) | 3696 | 14729 |
| MacBook Air (13-inch, 2025) | Apple M4 @ 4.4 GHz (10 CPU cores, 10 GPU cores) | 3696 | 14729 |
| MacBook Pro (14-inch, 2025) | Apple M5 @ 4.6 GHz (10 CPU cores, 10 GPU cores) | 4228 | 17464 |
Put the M1 in your comparison - I think the A18 Pro compares favorably to it and it's a good baseline for people who bought in on Apple Silicon early and are still using it.
The single core performance difference is wild. Far more than I expected.
My ageing M1 Pro still has better multicore performance than these new laptops. But far worse single core performance. For most users this would be a large upgrade. Well, if you can get by with 8gb of RAM.
My M1 Pro MacBook Pro is only just now occasionally feeling a little slow and showing me a beach ball occasionally but I’m being super picky due to new machine FOMO and it is the best laptop I’ve had by a country mile.
Still, I can’t justify an upgrade to myself!!
Surprising single core numbers notwithstanding !
Do we think the iPhone 16 with A18 Pro chips are going to be the same as the A18 in the laptop though?
When you are not confined to a iPhone body, you have a bit more flexibility in thermals, heat and power consumption.
Would there be any chance the A18 Pro in a Macbook clocks higher? or maybe clocks higher for longer?