APPLE A19 TAKING IPHONE PERFORMANCE TO THE NEXT LEVEL

Apple unveils its new iPhones every September and like last year, the entire lineup gets new chips. The flagship iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max get the range-topping A19 Pro chip, while the super-thin iPhone Air also gets the A19 Pro chip (albeit a less powerful version). Finally, the iPhone 17 is powered by the A19 chip. As you'd expect, Apple says these new chips are more powerful and power-efficient. Here's what we know.

- BY KENNY YEO

A19 PRO VS. A19: WHAT'S THE DIFFERENCE?

According to Apple, A19 Pro and A19 were built with “the most advanced 3nm technology” and come more memory and increased memory bandwidth. Popular benchmark app Geekbench identifies the A19 as having 8GB of memory, while the A19 Pro has 12GB of memory. Both chips still utilise 6-core CPUs, which comprises two performance cores and four efficiency cores.

Both chips also feature Apple’s “next-generation” GPU. The A19 features a 5-core GPU, while the A19 Pro is available in 5 and 6-core GPU variants (the iPhone Air’s A19 Pro chip has 5 GPU cores, while the iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max's A19 Pro chips come with 6 GPU cores). Also, it’s worth adding that the iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max have a more sophisticated thermal management system that uses vapour chamber cooling technology to keep their chips cool. Apple says this improves maximum sustained performance by up to 40%.

APPLE A19 PRO CORE CONFIGURATION

Apple says the A19's GPU will deliver up to 20% faster graphics performance than the A18, and is up to 80% faster than the A16 Bionic. The A19 Pro's GPU appears to be even more advanced.