Apple A18 Pro Vs Snapdragon 8 Gen 4: Can Qualcomm Beat Apple?

Apple’s new A18 Pro chipset powers the latest iPhone 16 Pro and 16 Pro Max. It promises powerful CPU performance and brings moderate upgrades in the GPU and NPU departments. That said, how does the A18 Pro stack up against the upcoming Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 chipset? To find the difference in performance and efficiency, we have compared the A18 Pro and Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 in a detailed manner.

A18 Pro vs Snapdragon 8 Gen 4: Specs Comparison

A18 Pro vs Snapdragon 8 Gen 4: CPU

The Apple A18 Pro is manufactured on TSMC’s 3nm (N3E) process node, and reportedly, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 is also built on the same node. However, Apple has gone with its usual six-core setup including 2x performance cores and 4x efficiency cores. The performance core goes up to 4.04GHz, pretty high for a mobile chipset in a passively cooled device.

Qualcomm, on the other hand, is expected to include eight CPU cores on the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4, and you finally get the Nuvia-designed Oryon CPU cores, which are available on the Snapdragon X series for Windows laptops. Recent leaks have revealed that two Oryon cores on Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 also breach the 4GHz mark, going as high as 4.32GHz, while 6x Oryon cores are clocked up to 3.53GHz. There are no efficiency cores, just like the Snapdragon X Elite.

One notable difference is that Apple has adopted Armv9.2a architecture for the A18 Pro with SME (Scalable Matrix Extension) support that delivers faster AI performance via the CPU. Whereas the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 is still on the older Armv8 architecture that doesn’t take advantage of high-computing extensions. It means that A18 Pro is likely to perform better in AI/ML tasks.

A18 Pro vs Snapdragon 8 Gen 4: Geekbench Score

The Geekbench score of A18 Pro has finally appeared and it scored 3,409 and 8,492 points in single-core and multi-core tests, respectively. Whereas the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4, in a fresh Geekbench leak, achieves 3,236 and 10,049 points in the same test, running on the upcoming OnePlus 13 phone.

Despite running the Oryon core at 4.32GHz, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 narrowly falls short of matching the A18 Pro’s single-core performance which runs at 4.04GHz. The performance gap is only about 5%. But in multi-core, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4, for the first time, pulls ahead and delivers 18% faster performance than A18 Pro which is pretty huge.

Sure, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 packs two more cores so its multi-threaded performance is going to be better, but Qualcomm has managed this level of performance without using the SME units which are available on the A18 Pro. For the first time, Qualcomm has managed to outclass Apple in the CPU department. The addition of Nuvia-designed Oryon CPU cores has finally delivered results for Qualcomm.

With all that said, Apple is likely ahead of Qualcomm in terms of performance per watt and most likely uses less power to deliver the same level of CPU performance.

A18 Pro vs Snapdragon 8 Gen 4: GPU

Talking about the GPU, Apple has not made major changes to its 6-core GPU on the A18 Pro. The architecture remains the same, however, Apple has elevated the GPU clock speed. Not just that, due to 17% faster memory and a graphite substructure, the A18 Pro GPU performs 20% faster than last year’s A17 Pro GPU.

On the other side, Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 is supposed to pack Qualcomm’s new 8-series Adreno 830 GPU which claims to deliver phenomenal graphics performance. Last year’s Adreno 750 GPU on the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 already outperformed the A17 Pro’s GPU, and this year too, it seems the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 is going to beat the A18 Pro GPU. By the way, both GPUs support hardware-accelerated Ray Tracing.

Irrespective of the claims, we will run various graphic benchmarks and play intensive games on both GPUs to see how well they perform. So stay tuned with us.

A18 Pro vs Snapdragon 8 Gen 4: NPU

Apple has packed the same 16-core Neural Engine on the A18 Pro from last year. It can deliver AI performance up to 35 TOPS based on INT8 data type. However, with faster memory onboard, the Neural Engine can further improve the performance. It can process AI workloads efficiently and power Apple Intelligence features on the device. The best part is that Apple’s Core ML framework is well-optimized and supported by developers widely.

As for Snapdragon 8 Gen 4, currently, we have no information on the exact capability of the Hexagon NPU. However, going by last year’s NPU performance, the new AI engine should be capable enough to run on-device AI models seamlessly. That said, Qualcomm has to put a lot of effort into improving its framework on Android (and other) platforms.

A18 Pro vs Snapdragon 8 Gen 4: Connectivity

Moving to mobile connectivity, Apple has likely packed Qualcomm’s last-gen Snapdragon X75 5G modem for the iPhone 16 series. And for the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4, Qualcomm will be going with the latest Snapdragon X80 5G modem. The peak download/upload speed is the same for both modems.

However, the new X80 5G modem promises improved coverage, efficiency, and data speeds with the help of an AI co-processor. As for local connectivity, both SoCs offer Wi-Fi 7, but you get Bluetooth 5.3 on A18 Pro and Bluetooth 5.4 on Snapdragon 8 Gen 4.

A18 Pro vs Snapdragon 8 Gen 4: Closing Thoughts

To sum up, Apple’s A18 Pro on the iPhone 16 Pro series showcases impressive CPU performance, thanks to the Armv9.2 implementation. However, the Oryon-powered Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 surpasses the A18 Pro in multi-core performance due to additional two cores.

In single-core workloads, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 closely matches the A18 Pro despite using the older Armv8 architecture without the benefit of SME. Nevertheless, the A18 Pro seems to excel in performance per watt, achieving better performance at a lower frequency (4.04GHz) compared to the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 (4.32GHz).

On the GPU side, it’s likely Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 may outperform the A18 Pro GPU as Apple has not redesigned the GPU this year, except for increasing the clock speed. Of course, we will run various benchmarks to reach a definitive conclusion once we get our hands on the iPhone 16 Pro/ Pro Max and Xiaomi 15 Pro, likely the first phone powered by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4.

Meanwhile, what do you think about A18 Pro’s performance? Let us know in the comments below.